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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Saturday, May 18, 2024
Iowa Rep. Steve King, who represents one of the most agriculturally intensive districts in the nation, is being stripped of his House committee assignments, including senior positions on the Agriculture and Judiciary panels, as punishment for his latest racially insensitive comments.
The Democrats taking over House committees and subcommittees will push back hard against the Trump administration’s environmental policies and put a major focus on climate change, but ag groups will need to find allies on trade and other key issues.
In a major win for livestock and poultry producers, the Animal Disease Prevention and Management provisions included in the recently passed farm bill authorize a U.S. vaccine bank, a diagnostic laboratory network, and state block grants, while providing mandatory spending for all three.
Pat Roberts, the first lawmaker to chair both the House and Senate agriculture committees, will retire at the end of his current term rather than run for reelection in 2020.
The new Congress rekindled a dispute left over from last year’s farm bill debate as House Republicans sought to protect USDA’s move to tighten work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
House Democrats are setting the stage for a possible court battle with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue over his plan to make it harder for states to get waivers from food stamp work requirements.
Lawmakers face a packed agenda when the new Congress begins on Thursday, starting with finding a resolution to the government shutdown that hit USDA, the Interior Department and other departments and agencies in December.
Ag, biofuels, and food policy groups say trade, immigration reform, farm bill implementation, food safety, and climate change will be the major issues discussed this year.
In a series of letters, Farm Service Agency officials at the state and federal levels have been debating whether or not a consistently rough winter should make producers eligible for livestock disaster assistance programs.
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