Environment

RSS

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says addressing the COVID-19 pandemic remains top of mind as he returns to USDA, but he also will be addressing climate policy, workforce issues and other matters in the early days of his tenure.

The draft biological opinions evaluate the impact of these pesticides on 26 federally listed endangered and threatened species of Pacific salmon and steelhead in Washington, Oregon, and California.

Even as congressional Democrats push through a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package, attention is turning to legislation that could be use to fund agricultural climate initiatives: an infrastructure package that could be in the range of $3 trillion.

The citrus industry in Texas is expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars due to last week’s winter storm, but other sectors say it may take weeks before economic impacts are fully known.

The California Legislature is planning an active session this year to make up for lost time in 2020.

Legislation reintroduced Tuesday would give the Department of Agriculture legal certainty to adjust haying and grazing dates of cover crops.

The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Vilsack as the nation’s Secretary of Agriculture, giving the former Iowa governor another term at the helm of USDA.

The Environmental Protection Agency has flipped its official position in a critical court case for the future of waivers from the nation’s biofuel mandate, offering a signal of the Biden administration’s view on a major aspect of renewable fuels policy.

Tom Vilsack finally gets his Senate vote to join the Biden administration for a second stint as agriculture secretary, and two other nominees important to farmers and ranchers get hearings this week.

Interest groups have become so hardened in their views about which types of agriculture benefit the environment that the fact that some COVID vaccines have been developed using genetic engineering is unlikely to change minds about the technology’s benefits, an industry advocate says.