Articles Tagged with ''covid-19''

Congress faces a midnight deadline to keep the government funded. As of Thursday evening, it wasn’t clear whether lawmakers would be asked to pass a very short-term stopgap spending bill to provide the time they need to pass a massive bill that would include both government funding for fiscal 2021 as well as a big new COVID aid package.

Congressional leaders are looking to pass a massive bill in the next two days to keep the government funded and provide about $900 billion in coronavirus relief. Details of the COVID package had not been released as of Wednesday, but “there’s a sense of urgency for getting this done this week,” said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois.

Lawmakers have given themselves one more week to reach a deal on a new coronavirus relief package that congressional leaders want to wrap into a government-wide funding bill for fiscal 2021.

The House has passed a new stopgap spending bill to keep the government funded through next week - and buy more time for negotiators to reach a deal on a new coronavirus relief package.

The next chairman of the House Agriculture Committee tells Agri-Pulse that climate policy will be a top priority for the panel in the next Congress.

U.S. pork exports to China are still very strong, but trade is expected to decline as the Chinese rebuild the country’s swine herd after the devastation of African swine fever. That means that U.S. exporters are going to have to rely more on other markets in coming years.

It’s official. Georgia Democrat David Scott will chair the House Agriculture Committee next year. The full House conference voted to approve Scott as recommended by the House Democratic steering committee.

The Trump administration’s plans for distributing COVID-19 vaccines put a priority on inoculating workers in the food and agriculture sector, but how quickly the shots become available to the industry may still depend on how fast the vaccine can be distributed.

Industry sources tell Agri-Pulse that top biofuel companies will be urging the incoming Biden administration to develop a federal clean fuel program to help reduce carbon emissions.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts has been involved in just about every consequential piece of agricultural legislation in the last four decades. But the bill he thinks may have the most lasting impact is the 1996 farm bill known as Freedom to Farm (or “Freedom to Fail” by its detractors). The bill formally ended the system of production controls and commodity subsidies first imposed during the Depression.