News: Biden admin pushing farmworker regs

Monday, August 12, 2024

Biden admin pushing farmworker regs

Aug 12, 2024

With help from Meredith Lee Hill

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra testifies March 14 before the Senate Finance Committee.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra visited farmworkers in California last week to discuss the need for a federal heat standard. | Mariam Zuhaib/AP

QUICK FIX

— Biden administration officials are meeting with farmworkers to discuss efforts to create federal heat protections.

— Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is giving Kamala Harris and down-ballot Democrats extra juice in battleground districts by driving up enthusiasm in cities and small towns. But challenges still await in deep red, rural pockets of must-win states.

— Illinois lawmakers are growing frustrated with federal agriculture funding not meeting farmers’ needs.

IT’S MONDAY, AUG. 12. Welcome to Morning Agriculture! I’m your host Grace Yarrow and, as a former Iowan, I can’t believe I missed seeing the state’s biggest boar. Send tips to gyarrow@politico.com and follow us at @Morning_Ag.

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Driving the day

PROTECTIONS FOR AG WORKERS: Biden administration officials touted their steps to create federal standards for worker heat protections and reduce health risks for farmworkers, who are 35 times more likely to die from heat exposure.

President Joe Biden frequently touts himself as a friend to workers and his Labor Department has taken many steps intended to enhance safety protections on the job. While the process to create a federal standard for heat safety has been slow, a handful of states have instituted their own protections, some similar to OSHA’s proposal.

The limitations: Agency officials have repeatedly said the heat safety issue is a priority for them, but procedural hurdles prevent them from moving more quickly, and it’s unlikely that a final version can be completed before November’s elections.

The new requirements, even if finalized, are also expected to face scorching opposition and legal challenges from some businesses and congressional Republicans, not to mention a likely rollback under a potential Donald Trump presidency.

Admin moves: Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su told MA in a statement that talking to farmworkers in Florida and Arizona last week illustrated the need for the sweeping changes.

“Currently, there is no federal standard to protect workers from extreme heat,” Su said. “Our proposed heat rule would provide essential, life-saving protections for 36 million workers across industries and ensure they come home safe and healthy at the end of the day.”

BECERRA'S POV: Your host also caught up with HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra on Friday after his visits with farmworkers in California — in part marking Farmworker Appreciation Day — to discuss the need for a federal heat standard.

MA: What are you hearing from farmworkers about their reactions to the proposed heat rule?

Becerra: They appreciate that the issue is getting more attention. They've had to go through this forever. I mean, my dad used to be a farmworker and he was going through this decades ago. It’s just that the heat today is much more intense. It's becoming more and more of a threat.

MA: What’s the timeline on getting this rule finalized? Why is this top of mind now?

Becerra: The National Labor Relations Act excludes farmworkers from protections, and so unlike construction workers, who do have the application of the NLRA to help protect them and provide them with some rights, most farmworkers don't.

If there's a class of workers out there in the country today who have the least amount of rights and the least amount of protections, it's probably farmworkers, or they rank right up there. It's important to start to get that information out.

MA: Why is the proposed heat protection rule especially important for workers in the agricultural sector?

Becerra: These are, in many cases, folks who make very little income. Many of these workers in the ag industry are undocumented, and so it is doubly difficult for them to have both access to healthcare and to carry insurance. Fearing asking for any support makes it very difficult.

2024 ELECTION

WALZ’S RURAL QUALIFICATIONS: Democrats are hoping that Tim Walz will help them maintain a toehold in small towns, medium-sized cities and suburban enclaves that will be crucial in a November showdown with Donald Trump, Meredith reports.

Nowhere is that more on display than the conservative-leaning, rural southern Minnesota congressional district Walz held onto for six terms during a time when Democrats bled support in similar parts of the country.

Political significance: The region, where the majority of voters supported Trump in 2020, has been represented by a Republican in Congress since Walz’s departure. It spans farm communities and cities like Rochester with the Mayo Clinic and health care as the major economic driver.

Since Kamala Harris picked Walz as her running mate a week ago, this red district has seen a burst of Democratic enthusiasm — from “Hotdish for Harris” events to phones ringing off the hook as voters call to ask for Harris-Walz yard signs. The mood change is shocking even the most seasoned organizers, coming after weeks of despair among rural Democrats following Biden’s disastrous debate.

Reality check: Democrats here are clear-eyed about the challenges ahead. They’ve been falling behind in competitive districts like this one for years and face new challenges, including voters reeling from inflation. But they say someone like Walz being on the ticket certainly helps.

“Is he going to convert hardcore Republicans? Probably not,” said Mark Liebow, a local Democratic party official who still remembers meeting Walz at a fundraiser for his first 2006 campaign. “Is he going to motivate Democrats and people who were on the sidelines, in the ‘meh’ category before? Yes.”

Read more from Meredith here.

ICYMI: Your host detailed Walz’s food and ag policy history while representing Minnesota, the sixth largest agricultural-producing state in the country.

Walz served on the House Agriculture Committee for 12 years and helped draft and pass three farm bills in Congress, pushing for the inclusion of provisions on grasslands protections and agricultural support for veterans.

He was also the top Democrat on the committee’s subpanel overseeing rural conservation and energy programs alongside current House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.).

Even if Walz doesn’t win over rural Republicans, Harris is banking on his agriculture policy background to shore up Democratic and even some independent voter support in rural areas, according to Tim Lindberg, associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota Morris.

There’s also a good chance Harris would let Walz take the lead on what agriculture policies Democrats should be pushing for, given Harris doesn’t have a strong track record in that area. Read more for POLITICO Pro subscribers here.

On the Hill

FIRST IN MA: Former Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), who served as chair of the House Appropriations Labor-HHS subcommittee, wrote to Becerra and Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack about the involvement of a federal underage drinking policy committee in creating new dietary guidelines.

Roybal-Allard’s STOP Act, a law to curb underage drinking, created the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD), which she argues in the letter is being misappropriated to be involved in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans process.

“As expressly stated in the STOP Act, ICCPUD's authority and oversight are specifically related to underage drinking priorities,” she wrote. “ICCPUD was never intended to participate in activities related to adult alcohol consumption.”

FEDERAL FUNDS FOR ILLINOIS: Illinois lawmakers are arguing USDA isn’t allocating enough federal funds for their state given it ranks fourth in the nation in planted cropland.

Illinois Democrats requested USDA double or triple conservation funding for their home state in a letter to Vilsack led by Senate Ag member and Majority Whip Dick Durbin, Sen. Tammy Duckworth and House Ag members Nikki Budzinski, Eric Sorensen and Jonathan Jackson.

“Illinois ranks fourth in the nation in planted cropland, but from 2018 to 2022, Illinois ranked just 37th nationally in funds sent by USDA … to help farmers adopt cover crops, conservation tillage, and other critical environmental practices,” the letter says. “[USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service] … sends a larger percentage of national conservation dollars to Illinois’ neighboring farm states.”

Row Crops

— Harris said she supports ending taxes on tips, echoing a staple of Donald Trump’s stump speech to appeal to restaurant workers, our Megan Messerly writes.

— Two ocean and aquaculture experts offer a look into the dark history of seafood production. (The New York Times)

THAT’S ALL FOR MA! Drop us a line and send us your agriculture job announcements or events: gyarrow@politico.com, meredithlee@politico.com, marciabrown@politico.com, abehsudi@politico.com and ecadei@politico.com.

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