Environment

RSS

More than $90 billion in agriculture spending, including a 50% increase in conservation program funding, is at stake as congressional Democrats wrangle over how to pare back their $3.5 trillion Build Back Better bill to woo critical moderate votes.

Scientists who study the danger to humans and food production from zoonotic diseases, those that can jump from animals to humans, say there are ways to prevent the next global pandemic at a fraction of the cost of ending a massive outbreak.

President Joe Biden has signed proclamations to expand the perimeters of several national monuments, a move that will alter the management of millions of acres of western lands.

Rod Snyder, president of Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, is the Environmental Protection Agency’s new agriculture adviser, pleasing ag groups that had backed him for the position.

Two companies that focus on environmentally-friendly solutions to modern problems have formed a partnership they say will reduce agriculture’s dependence on synthetic fertilizer.

Successive presidents have ramped up use of a Depression-era tool, USDA's Commodity Credit Corp., to pour billions of dollars into their policy priorities with limited input from Congress. Republicans, who handcuffed Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack's use of the CCC for years, are less resistant now.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan has said repeatedly he wants to craft a “durable” definition of “waters of the United States” in the Clean Water Act — one informed by Supreme Court precedent and input from a variety of stakeholders.

Federal weather officials are predicting a 70-80% chance that this winter will bring a La Niña weather system to the northern hemisphere. That could mean dry conditions continue across the west.

In a victory for progressives, House Democrats delayed passage of a bipartisan infrastructure deal as President Joe Biden also insisted Friday on passage of a more ambitious package of social spending and climate priorities. He conceded privately that the latter plan would be cut significantly.

Ag groups are pushing back against rumors that the Build Back Better bill being crafted by Democrats on Capitol Hill would impose an emissions tax on livestock that would cost more than some of the animals are worth.