Federal

Dairy labeling makes a cameo appearance: When debating the so-called minibus, H.R. 6147, on Wednesday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) offered an amendment that, in effect, would block FDA's planned effort to crack down on having the term "milk" used to market plant-based alternatives like soy and almond beverages. The proposal was handily defeated 14-86, Jen and Kaitlyn write. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said during the POLITICO Pro Summit last month that the agency will soon issue a guidance document outlining changes to its "standards-of-identity" for labeling milk. [node:read-more:link]

Between 1980 and 1985, the U.S. accounted for 24.6% of world economic growth. Since then, 2 distinct periods emerge, with the millennium being the break point. Until 2000, U.S. share fluctuated around a very slight downtrend. U.S. share of world economic growth was still 24.1% from 1995 to 2000. Since 2000, U.S. share has dropped at an annual rate of around -0.7 percentage point per year. U.S. share was 12.6% of world growth between 2012 and 2017. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. farmers could receive cash payments from a planned $12 billion aid package as soon as late September, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told Reuters on Saturday, warning that the program will not make tariff-hit farmers whole. The program includes cash for farmers of soybeans, sorghum, corn, wheat, cotton, dairy and hogs. It offers government purchases of fruits, nuts, rice, legumes, beef, pork and milk for distribution to food banks and nutrition programs. And it promises a trade promotion program to develop new markets. [node:read-more:link]

During the 2016 presiden- tial election, Republican Donald J. Trump embraced a simple and straightforward political strategy: Tell the people what they want to hear. [node:read-more:link]

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue questioning USDA’s process for approving three new Chinese poultry processing plants as eligible to export product to the United States. [node:read-more:link]

In Washington, new evidence has appeared that a Trump Administration shift on US low carbon fuel policy may have cost US corn growers an estimated $3.65 billion. The mechanism? A secretive effort by Administration officials installed at the US Environmental Protection Agency that destroyed an estimated 1.37 billion gallons of annual demand for low-carbon renewable fuels, in favor of fossil fuels. [node:read-more:link]

The American meat industry today sent a letter to the White House, appealing directly to the president to clarify the regulatory future of high-tech, cell-cultured meats. The letter asks Donald Trump to give the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) sole regulatory authority over a class of products that have not yet hit the consumer market: meat grown from cells in a process that doesn’t require slaughtering animals or running large-scale farms that pump massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. government has been spending directly on agricultural-support programs ever since the Great Depression.  “Most of these [programs] were put in place in the 1930s originally as temporary programs,” said Joseph Glauber, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former chief economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Here we are, however many years later, and they’re ingrained.”Over the century following the country’s founding, the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

President Donald Trump is likely to get one of the best headlines of his presidency on Friday with a highly tweetable report expected to show the U.S. economy grew at its fastest rate in years in the second quarter.But the big number risks becoming fool’s gold.Economists warn that Trump’s trade war sped up U.S. exports in the second quarter as China and other countries rushed to snap up American soybeans and other products ahead of impending tariffs, lifting growth in ways likely to be reversed in the coming months. [node:read-more:link]

Members of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) today praised the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their expanded $32.5 million commitment to 46 states and one territory to support the proper implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule. “NASDA Members have a long history of successfully working with farmers to grow our safe food supply,” said NASDA CEO Dr. Barbara P. Glenn. [node:read-more:link]