The Friant Water Authority has inked a deal with the Bureau of Reclamation to restore capacity that has been lost to subsidence for the Friant-Kern Canal.

President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan is vague about a lot of details, including how $17 billion for waterways would be spent. But Tracy Zea of the Waterways Council tells Agri-Pulse that he expects at least $3 billion to be available for inland waterway projects. That could pay for replacing two sets of aging locks and dams on the upper Mississippi River system, he said.

The top Democrat on the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee is not opposed to moving President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure bill through the reconciliation budget process if Republicans don’t come to the table.

Some advocates of the newly-enacted debt relief provisions for minority farmers have called it a form of reparations. But House Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott, who is African American, strenuously objects to that characterization. He says the $4 billion just makes up for the fact that white farmers primarily benefitted from the billions of dollars in recent farm payments.