WASHINGTON, Oct. 5, 2016 - Congress
has left Washington until after the election with a long list of unfinished
business important to agriculture, including spending bills, expiring biofuel
tax breaks, child nutrition reauthorization, Cuba trade liberalization and the
Trans-Pacific Partnership. Of those issues, the prospects for TPP may be the
most dim.
When lawmakers return, the first order
of business will be to fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2017, which
started Oct. 1. Before departing last week, lawmakers approved a continuing
resolution to keep the government operating until Dec. 9 at the fiscal 2016
spending levels.
Under pressure from conservatives,
Republican congressional leaders say they won’t write a government-wide omnibus
spending bill as they’ve been doing in recent years, but will instead bundle
spending bills in small groups, or “minibuses,” that would be debated
separately. Democrats fear that Republicans will use the minibus approach to
fund GOP priorities like defense and leave some departments to operate for the
rest of the fiscal year under a continuing resolution.
The issues at stake in the spending
negotiations include funding for farm loans, which are in high demand due to
low commodity prices. The Agriculture Department has been struggling to reduce
a backlog of applications.
The congressional leaders haven’t
disclosed their strategy for the lame duck, but if history is a guide the minibuses or omnibus will serve as the vehicles
or vehicle to carry a number of other priority bills, including the tax
extenders. Here’s a look at some of the outstanding issues for the lame
duck session:
TPP: Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, raised the
hopes of TPP supporters last month by telling reporters he hoped to get the
12-nation trade deal approved during the lame duck. But in a Sept. 29 press
conference, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ruled out taking up the
deal. McConnell said the TPP is “politically toxic” and that putting it to a
vote would be a mistake. “I don’t think the
Congress is ready to tackle it in any positive way,” he said. Sen. Chuck
Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters Tuesday that there would have to be a “real
change of heart” in the Senate for the TPP to get a vote.
Cuba trade. The Senate’s FY17 Financial Services appropriations bill includes
a provision that would lift the requirement that Cuba pay upfront in cash for
agricultural imports. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., has support from key
Cuban-American lawmakers from Florida for a bill that would end the requirement
permanently. Crawford sees the Senate’s appropriations rider as only a
short-term fix and would rather pass his standalone bill. “I don’t
know if we’re going to get there or not in the lame duck, but we’ll
see,” he said.
Child
nutrition. The Senate Agriculture Committee
approved a bipartisan bill in January but the measure stalled when cost
estimates came in over budget. Committee leaders eventually found the extra
money but were unable to get the unanimous consent they needed to get Senate
passage in September. Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said he
still hopes to get the bill enacted after the election. A few senators from
both parties have raised questions about the bill, but neither the senators nor
their concerns have been specified publicly.
The ranking Democrat on the committee,
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, said she and Roberts were “working very hard to
get the last remaining concerns” addressed.
The bill would ease school meal rules
on sodium and on whole grains while broadly preserving the higher nutrition
standards that the Obama administration has imposed.
Tax bill. A $1-a-gallon tax credit for biodiesel as well as tax
benefits for cellulosic ethanol and E85 pumps are set to expire Dec. 31, but
McConnell said he is “committed” to taking up a tax extenders package in the
lame duck.
Crawford wants to add his new proposal
for farm disaster accounts to an extenders bill. He tells Agri-Pulse his
proposal has the support of House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady.
Crawford’s Farm Risk Abatement Management (FRAME) Act, would allow farmers to
make $50,000 in tax-deductible contributions each year to the accounts.
Crawford’s fallback plan is to get the bill considered when the farm bill is up
for debate in the next Congress.
Endangered
species. Republican appropriators have had
mixed success in recent years blocking various endangered species listings
through riders on the Interior-Environment bills. The GOP provisions are
proving just as controversial this year. Negotiations over a defense
authorization bill bogged down in September over no less than a provision to
bar a listing of the sage grouse.
Overtime
rule. Cooperatives and others in agriculture
are concerned about a new overtime rule that would double the salary threshold
for overtime pay eligibility to $47,476. A bill that would delay the effective
date by six months to June 1, 2017, passed the House last week on a near
party-line vote, 246-177. A
provision in the House Labor-HHS appropriations bill would bar the
administration from enforcing the rule through the rest of fiscal 2017. The
six-month delay passed by the House might be more politically doable, but the
House vote indicates there is strong Democratic support for the rule.
WOTUS. FY17 appropriations bills in both chambers contain
provisions to block the “waters of the United States” rule from being
implemented. But the White House successfully blocked a similar rider from
being included in the FY16 omnibus. While court actions blocking its
implementation have taken some urgency out of the issue this year, the White
House continues to fight the rider.
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