Federal

Call it what you want, but to us the $12 billion that Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says USDA will spend to help farmers affected by tariff wars looks an awfully lot like the first installment in a series of “Emergency Payments.”   ake no mistake about it. If we were seeing $5.50 corn along with $14.00 soybeans and China threatened to levy tariffs on soybeans, we would not be reading an announcement about $12 billion in emergency payments to farmers. There would be lots of posturing by various market actors, but certainly not $12 billion. [node:read-more:link]

The Senate went on record declaring “that the press is not the enemy of the people” — a rebuke to President Donald Trump, who declares the opposite on a regular basis.  Senators adopted by unanimous consent a resolution from Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York to declare the Senate’s support for a free press and the First Amendment protections afforded to journalists. The resolution text was released the same day 350 newspapers ran editorials designed to push back on Trump’s criticisms of the media. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service announced today a new strategy for managing catastrophic wildfires and the impacts of invasive species, drought, and insect and disease epidemics. [node:read-more:link]

A District Court judge in California has ruled that a group of organic stakeholders has the legal standing to challenge USDA’s withdrawal of organic animal welfare language earlier this year. [node:read-more:link]

The United States’ total federal investment in agricultural research has been flat for a long time, a fact that does not bode well for the future of our farm and food system. Not only does the research undertaken today have a profound impact on the what food and agriculture will be like a generation from now, but our chances of successfully tackling major societal challenges related to our current system are being seriously impeded by the lack of sufficient investment. [node:read-more:link]

The United States has dropped a contentious demand from the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement to impose restrictions on Mexican agricultural exports, Mexico’s top farm lobby said.A divisive issue has been a proposal by the Trump administration to put seasonal curbs on some agricultural exports to the United States. But a senior executive at Mexico’s National Agricultural Council (CNA) said that had been dropped.Andrade said the move followed a lobbying effort that sought to show that the “seasonality” demand stood to benefit a small fraction of U.S. [node:read-more:link]

USDA announced plans to purchase up to $60 million in chicken products and an unspecified amount of beef for distribution to various food nutrition assistance programs. [node:read-more:link]

These two user fee programs enhance the FDA’s ability to maintain a predictable and timely animal drug review process, foster innovation in drug development, and expedite access to new therapies for food-producing and companion animals. [node:read-more:link]

The Environmental Protection Agency has released the details of its plan to replace President Obama’s signature climate change policy, the Clean Power Plan, and it’s pretty much what we expected: a tepid pledge to fight climate change that’s actually a coal bailout.For the new proposal to stand, it has to be just as good as or better than the one it replaces in order to comply with the law. But it’s much weaker than the rule it’s replacing, so the EPA is arguing for a cost-benefit calculation that justifies a relaxed standard. [node:read-more:link]

Scientists are raising alarms over a Trump administration plan to overhaul two federal offices tasked with food and agriculture research, calling the move a ploy to slash funding to projects on climate change, nutrition and other top concerns. The plan, announced by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue last week, would relocate one top research office — the Economic Research Service — into the Office of the Secretary, a political branch of the Agriculture Department. [node:read-more:link]