| | | | | |  | | By Garrett Downs, Meredith Lee Hill and Marcia Brown | | | | | — FIRST IN MA: Reps. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.) are introducing new legislation to provide beginning producers and veterans with better access to crop insurance, as a way to protect the next generation of farmers. MA caught up with Feenstra for a preview. — Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) has high hopes for cutting red tape and ramping up forest management in the farm bill’s forestry title. — The nation’s largest dairy co-op left the International Dairy Foods Association, right as farm bill negotiations are heating up. HAPPY TUESDAY, JUNE 20, welcome to Morning Ag. We’re your hosts, Garrett Downs, Meredith Lee Hill and Marcia Brown. Send tips to gdowns@politico.com, meredithlee@politico.com and marciabrown@politico.com, and follow us at @Morning_Ag. BUT FIRST: Before you dive into today’s newsletter, your MA team wants to hear from you. As farm bill negotiations heat up, we’re starting a new weekly segment called “Fielding Questions.” Have a burning question for a Capitol Hill lawmaker about the farm bill? Let us know, and we’ll do our best to track them down and ask them for an answer. We’ll feature one Q&A in each Monday newsletter until a farm bill is passed. Send questions to gdowns@politico.com.
| | | | A message from Renewable Fuels Association: The Renewable Fuels Association thanks President Joe Biden, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and our champions in Congress for ensuring lower-cost, lower-carbon E15 gasoline is available all summer long. E15 contains 15% American-made ethanol and helps drivers save money at the pump, protects air quality, and prevents fuel shortages. Learn more about the benefits of E15. | | | | | FIRST IN MA: House Ag member Feenstra and Craig’s Crop Insurance for Future Farmers Act would help new farmers and veterans gain better crop insurance protections, providing them better access to the critical farm safety net program while securing the next generation of U.S. landowners and producers. Details: The bill would define a “beginning farmer” to match most other programs for the group, extending crop and livestock insurance protections to 10 years for new and beginning farmers. The current rules only allow five or fewer years. The extension would apply to all federal crop insurance programs, including livestock policies. The next generation: Lawmakers have been warning about the aging population of U.S. producers and barriers to access for beginning farmers, and how it will shape the next generation of landowners. Those headwinds, worsened by inflation and high production costs, are hitting young farmers just as foreign-owned companies, hedge funds and the wealthy are buying up more and more land in the U.S. “We don’t know when that big hail storm is coming through, or that next derecho, or the next drought. And if you didn’t have crop insurance, it would be all over,” Feenstra told MA. “Literally, none of the farmers would be around. And frankly, that scares me more than anything because that’s where your foreign investors would come in and start buying up land,” Feenstra added. “We are the breadbasket of the world and we gotta protect it.” Fight ahead: Crop insurance will be a key piece of the upcoming farm bill reauthorization, with incredibly strong advocates on both the Republican and Democratic sides. But the question of funding will be the main hang-up, as lawmakers jockey for a limited amount of new funding available this year. Crop insurance is also a frequent target of some hard right Republicans in the House, who could complicate matters on the House floor by putting forward amendments to strip out certain funding from the farm bill. ICYMI: FARM BILL CRUNCH: Major battle lines are forming within the House Republican caucus over the $1 trillion farm bill reauthorization expected to hit the full House this fall — just as Washington is set to descend into another all-consuming battle to fund the government, Meredith reports. That’s presenting House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with one of his biggest legislative tests yet: Fending off yet another revolt from the right flank of his caucus while securing the bipartisan support that will be necessary to approve the must-pass legislation.
| | | | GET READY FOR GLOBAL TECH DAY: Join POLITICO Live as we launch our first Global Tech Day alongside London Tech Week on Thursday, June 15. Register now for continuing updates and to be a part of this momentous and program-packed day! From the blockchain, to AI, and autonomous vehicles, technology is changing how power is exercised around the world, so who will write the rules? REGISTER HERE. | | | | | Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
| | FORESTRY TITLE: LaMalfa, who chairs the House Ag Forestry Subcommittee, and full committee Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) said the House farm bill will put an emphasis on forest management. “Our forests are overgrown [and] undermanaged,” said LaMalfa, whose district includes the fire-ravaged town of Paradise, California. “We pay the price for that, all of us do,” he added, noting the smoke that recently covered the Eastern Seaboard from wildfires in Canada. LaMalfa said the Forest Service’s plan to ramp up forest management isn’t up to snuff and needs to be far more aggressive. LaMalfa also said the farm bill will likely include expansions to the Good Neighbor Authority to allow tribes and counties to collect timber revenues from their forest management efforts. “We need all the partners we can get,” LaMalfa said. Red tape: Thompson and LaMalfa said there is a good relationship between the Natural Resources Committee and the Ag Committee. Natural Resources recently advanced a bill for categorical exclusions of up to 10,000 acres from the National Environmental Policy Act for projects aimed at wildfire prevention under certain conditions. While the Forest Service would not weigh in on the bill, it has opponents in House Democrats who say the measure diverts blame for the fires away from climate change. Thompson said the Ag Committee has “authorities and abilities … in terms of categorical exclusions,” to speed up environmental reviews for forest management tasks. Grazing on forest land: Thompson and LaMalfa also endorsed allowing more grazing in forest lands. “It’s a win-win for people, you have somebody willing to pay for the rights to lease the lands, so it’s a little income back to the Forest Service,” LaMalfa said. “You [also] get the benefit of it being an excellent fire suppressant.”
| | | | A message from Renewable Fuels Association:   | | | | | DAIRY SPAT: The nation’s biggest dairy co-op has left the International Dairy Foods Association, citing its disagreement with the trade group’s proposal to overhaul federal dairy pricing regulations, Marcia reports. Dairy Farmers of America confirmed its departure to POLITICO. A spokesperson for DFA, which left the trade group in May, called the IDFA proposal on milk pricing “divisive.” “This placed DFA in the untenable position of being represented as supporting a policy position, which contradicts what we believe to be in the best interests of our farmer- owners and the dairy industry,” said the DFA spokesperson. Behind the scenes: IDFA acknowledged the departure of DFA and “several dairy cooperative members” from its association. The lobby group did not disclose the names of the other co-ops who have left. But Land O’Lakes, another major U.S. dairy co-op, is no longer listed as a member on IDFA’s website. Internet archives indicate it was on that list as recently as February. When asked whether the co-op was still a member of IDFA, a Land O’Lakes spokesperson said they would look into it but did not respond to follow-up questions. The decision by the nation’s largest dairy co-op to leave IDFA — one of two major trade groups representing the U.S. dairy industry — represents a significant ag sector shakeup, just as farm bill negotiations are heating up in Congress. It comes after an April 5 letter signed by executives from DFA, Land O’Lakes, California Dairies, Inc. and Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association, in which the co-ops castigated the IDFA proposal for being “myopic.” The root cause: The basis of the split comes down to IDFA’s proposal for the Federal Milk Marketing Orders, which sets the floor for milk prices. IDFA proposed an initial FMMO that would increase pay for dairy processors, while the National Milk Producers Federation proposed more comprehensive changes that would lead to boosts across the board. IDFA later added another proposal that it says will increase pay for dairy farmers. In 2021, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack urged the industry to come to a consensus.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | — The president of Mexico on Monday moved to prioritize domestic corn in tortillas, Reuters reports. — The beagle brigade remains hard at work protecting American agriculture from foreign contaminants, Agweek reports. — Farmers are worried a multibillion-dollar agriculture trading merger will diminish competition in their sales, The Wall Street Journal reports. THAT’S ALL FOR MA! Drop us a line: gdowns@politico.com, meredithlee@politico.com, marciabrown@politico.com, mmartinez@politico.com, abehsudi@politico.com and ecadei@politico.com.
| | | | A message from Renewable Fuels Association: Thanks to the Biden administration, an emergency fuel waiver allows the sale of lower-cost, lower-carbon E15 through the summer driving months. Last year, this waiver saved drivers nearly $60 million at the pump during summer months because drivers paid 20-30 cents less for each gallon of gasoline. E15 is made with 15 percent American-made ethanol and helps extend gasoline supplies, protect air quality, and reduce carbon emissions. Nearly 97 percent of registered vehicles on the road today are legally approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use E15, and most automakers recommend drivers use E15. Learn more about why E15 is the right choice this summer. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment