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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Tuesday, April 01, 2025
Nominations for three key Trump nominees moved to the Senate floor Thursday following a round of committee votes on picks for the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department.
Members of the Senate will begin returning to Capitol Hill for hearings this week after the August recess, while Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack travels to Cornell University for an agriculture seminar.
Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall has introduced a bill to cut restraints on domestic fertilizer production, legislation that the Republican lawmaker aims at getting into the farm bill.
Four senators introduced a bill Friday to double funding for two popular ag export promotion programs that proponents say play a key role in boosting sales of U.S. cotton, meat, wheat, corn, soybeans and other farm commodities to foreign buyers around the globe.
President Joe Biden’s choice to be the next chief agricultural trade negotiator spent much of his nomination hearing arguing that he and the U.S. trade representative will be able to increase foreign market access for U.S. farm goods without negotiating new free trade agreements, but Republican senators weren't buying it.
U.S. corn wet mills that produce key ingredients for food are seeing their opportunity for growth and a chance to steal back market share from China stifled because of persistent railroad delays that have become the focus of intense criticism on Capitol Hill and the White House.
Ukrainian farmers will begin harvesting millions of acres of winter wheat in July, but if Ukraine is unable to export it, the country’s economy will likely collapse and the hundreds of millions of people that depend on receiving that grain will suffer even worse than they are now, United Nations World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley said Wednesday.
The House of Representatives Friday narrowly approved the America COMPETES Act, pushing the legislation that is supposed to make the U.S. more competitive with China closer to enactment. While similar to the Senate version passed last summer, the House bill – passed with a 222-210 vote – includes significant differences such as the inclusion of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act as well as reauthorizes and alters the Trade Adjustment Assistance and Generalized System of Preferences programs.
The Ocean Shipping Reform Act, a bill aimed at ending port bottlenecks for ag exports, was introduced in the Senate Thursday even as sponsors of a tougher House-passed version sought to ramp up pressure for its enactment.
Farm groups are concerned the Senate version of the House-passed Ocean Shipping Reform Act won't have the same strong provisions for getting U.S. farm goods onto container ships amid the supply chain crisis.
