Lawmakers are set to vote this week on six of their 12 spending bills for fiscal 2024, more than five months into the fiscal year.
The package of bills, which includes funding for USDA, EPA and the Interior Department, includes provisions to improve the tracking of foreign land purchases. The legislation, which must be enacted by this weekend, also would add USDA to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
Nutrition advocates scored full funding for the WIC nutrition assistance program at $7 billion. The funding will keep in place an increase in benefits for purchasing fruits and vegetables. Negotiators rejected a GOP-backed pilot program to test restrictions on foods that can be purchased with SNAP benefits.
Full funding for WIC “ensures families have access to healthy fruits and vegetables and avoids devastating cuts that would impact both consumers and the produce supply chain,” said Cathy Burns, CEO of the International Fresh Produce Association.
For more on the bill and this week’s D.C. agenda, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
Agriculture Department continues preparation for possible shutdown
Despite the progress on Capitol Hill, Agriculture Department employees are once again scrambling to plan for a potential shutdown, Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation Robert Bonnie told Agri-Pulse Saturday.
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Bonnie said FPAC staff are – for the fifth time in the last six months – undergoing preparations for a shutdown to begin if a new bill is not approved by Friday, a process that he called “an enormous time suck for everyone involved.”
Speaking to Agri-Pulse on the sidelines of the joint Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever convention in Sioux Falls, Bonnie said Inflation Reduction Act conservation funding should help the Natural Resources Conservation Service “operate for a significant amount of time” during a shutdown, though Farm Service Agency and FPAC Business Center employees would see an immediate impact.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack has previously put the number of overall USDA employees that would be furloughed during a shutdown at around 50,000, or about half the entire workforce.
One challenge a shutdown presents? The agency would have trouble helping producers with sign-ups for recently opened programs like the Dairy Margin Coverage Program. “We announce these things and then we’re not there,” Bonnie said.
Agreements in place for nearly all climate-smart projects, Bonnie says
Bonnie believes the Agriculture Department has so far signed agreements for 136 of the 141 Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities projects the agency approved last year and for some, enrollment is already underway, Bonnie said.
Bonnie called “encouraging” the approximately 1 million acres that have been enrolled so far in various projects. He added, however, that some of the few projects for which agreements have not yet been signed may not “get over the finish line."
NCGA sticks with position on base update
The National Corn Growers Association isn’t backing away from its call for a mandatory base update for commodity programs. The organization’s Texas delegation geared up for another try to change the policy at Saturday’s Corn Congress but didn’t have the support to mount a challenge.
The idea of a mandatory base update faces strong opposition on Capitol Hill because some landowners, many of whom are in California or the South, would lose base acres on land that’s no longer being planted to commodity crops.
Keep in mind: The issue could come up again at NCGA’s policy meeting in July. Texas Corn Growers has been floating a proposal that would reallocate acreage based on whether land had been planted to covered crops in the last 10 years.
Pork producers look for dominance in exports
Pork producers have come through a tough period, but exports and moderating input costs are offering some hope in the industry outlook.
The European Union, the world’s traditional top exporter, has seen its production drop to the lowest levels in two decades. “And that is opening opportunities for U.S. pork to overtake Europe and be the biggest exporter to the world,” Erin Borror, vice president of economic analysis for the U.S. Meat Export Federation, said at Commodity Classic in Houston.
Borror said U.S. pork exports last year averaged a record $64 per head. Input “costs are slowly moderating, but the key is to continue to export at higher prices and then rebuild again this domestic demand as well,” Borror said.
EPA sticks to comment deadline on meat/poultry wastewater proposal
The Environmental Protection Agency won’t extend the comment period on its proposal to regulate wastewater discharges from meat and poultry slaughterhouses and processing facilities, despite an concerted industry effort to get more time.
The comment period on the Jan. 23 proposal will end March 25. In a statement, EPA said it had decided against an extension after “careful consideration” of the requests.
“EPA is under a consent decree to take final action in this rulemaking by August 2025,” the agency said. “To maintain the schedule to honor this commitment, it is necessary to hold the comment period to 60 days.”
A coalition including the Meat Institute, National Pork Producers Council, North American Renderers Association, U.S. Poultry & Egg Association and American Farm Bureau Federation had sought a 90-day extension.
He said it: “We’re having conversations with my colleagues and getting a lot of feedback and we’ll have more to say about that. But, obviously it’s an opportunity. I believe that anytime you have a transition, it’s time to reset things a bit.” – Sen. John Thune when asked by Agri-Pulse about a possible bid to be the next Republican leader in the Senate following Sen. Mitch McConnell’s decision to retire from the post.
“We need consistent, principled, conservative leadership in the United States Senate for Senate Republicans. I think I can offer that, but we’ll have more to say about that down the road," Thune added.
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