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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Thursday, March 27, 2025
Congress faces a Friday deadline to avert a government shutdown, with President Donald Trump backing a House GOP plan to pass a continuing resolution that would keep departments and agencies funded through Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2025.
President-elect Donald Trump insists that tariffs he’s thinking of imposing on trading partners would cost Americans “nothing.” But on Sunday he said he couldn’t guarantee that outcome.
Lawmakers are stepping up their work this week on a package of disaster aid and relief for commodity price declines as they head toward having to pass another extension of the 2018 farm bill. Deputy Agriculture Secretary Xochitl Torres Small is scheduled to testify at a Senate hearing on disaster aid needs.
A senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee said Monday lawmakers are considering attaching a package of farm income support to a farm bill extension that could be enacted at the end of the year.
The Senate Appropriations Committee looks to advance the rest of its fiscal 2025 spending bills, including measures that fund federal water resource agencies and the Labor Department, ahead of the long August recess.
Spending for USDA and FDA would be increased by 3% in fiscal 2025 under a bill advanced by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, drawing a sharp contrast with the House GOP version of the measure.
Stacy Dean, deputy undersecretary of agriculture for food, nutrition and consumer services, will step down from her position in July. She led the Biden administration's update of the Thrifty Food Plan and was nominated twice to be undersecretary but the Senate returned her nomination both times.
Leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee are working together to get a year-long extension of the 2018 farm bill included in a new continuing resolution that will be needed to keep the government funded after Nov. 17.
The Senate this week takes up a package of spending bills that includes the measure funding USDA and FDA, while House Republicans return from the chamber’s long summer recess still divided over how, or whether, to avoid a possible government shutdown when the new budget year starts Oct. 1.