Federal

Lawmakers from the Midwest are sticking together in their criticism of President Donald Trump for the White House’s bailout proposal for farmers acutely feeling the recoil of a trade war the president himself started. Across party and ideological lines, senators and House members from Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio, and elsewhere across the Midwest assailed Trump’s plan to send an additional $12 billion to farmers affected by Chinese and European counter-tariffs on U.S. agriculture. [node:read-more:link]

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced a $12 billion program to help farmers who are currently bearing the brunt of President Trump’s trade tactics.  The programs include a market facilitation program which would result in farmer payments, a food purchase and distribution program which would purchase surplus of goods going to nutrition programs, and a trade promotion program to provide private sector assistance to new markets.  “The Trump Tariff Aid plan draws on the financial resources of a program known as the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) and Section 32 funding,” said Jim Wies [node:read-more:link]

It is a good time to fire up the grill domestically and a bad time to export globally. Because of the trade war, around 2.5 billion pounds of meat is just sitting in U.S. cold storage. The meat won’t spoil. It will go on sale in domestic markets, meaning cheaper hams and steaks. This will be good for restaurants and for consumers, especially anyone already stocking up for a Labor Day barbecue. [node:read-more:link]

Amidst increased tensions over the US-Mexico border, a multinational group of over 2500 scientists have endorsed an article cautioning that a hardened barrier may produce devastating ecological effects while hampering binational conservation efforts. In the BioScience Viewpoint , a group led by Robert Peters, William J. Ripple, and Jennifer R. B. Miller call attention to ecological disturbances that could affect hundreds of terrestrial and aquatic species, notably including the Mexican gray wolf and Sonoran pronghorn. [node:read-more:link]

Earlier this week, Bloomberg broke the news that the Trump administration plans to press ahead with its plans to roll back the new national fuel economy standards established under President Obama and to freeze standards at current levels through 2030. That’s not all. [node:read-more:link]

The Trump administration on Tuesday said it would no longer require oil drillers, miners and other industries to compensate for damage they cause to public lands under their permitted projects, in a bid to speed up development on federal lands. [node:read-more:link]

President Donald Trump and the president of the European Union announced after meeting Wednesday that the EU had agreed, as part of early trade talks, to lower industrial tariffs and increase soybean buys from the U.S. As a region in the world, the EU is already one of the larger buyers of U.S. soybeans. The European Union as of now has imported 4.3 million metric tons of soybeans (157 million bushels) from the U.S., about 4% more than by this same time a year ago. Netherlands and Germany are the two largest EU buyers of U.S. [node:read-more:link]

The government will pay some farmers directly and buy food from others to blunt the impact of a trade war entirely of the president’s own making. Despite the massive size, it won’t offset the sweeping damage to markets as other countries slap penalties on U.S. farm goods in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs on imports. And ultimately, efforts by past presidents to manipulate global trade have ended up boosting farmers in other countries at the expense of U.S. [node:read-more:link]

The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit earlier this week in Collins v. Mnuchin holding that the structure of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is unconstitutional is an important development not only for the FHFA but also for the constitutionality of the CFPB.  The per curiamopinion in Collins almost guarantees that the Supreme Court will grant cert in the near future on whether the FHFA, the CFPB and similarly structured agencies are unconstitutional. [node:read-more:link]

Republican lawmakers and the American Farm Bureau Federationare no longer holding their powder when it comes to criticizing Trump Administration leaders about trade. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, fired off a news release Thursday after White House trade advisor Peter Navarro told CNBC that the economic impact of the trade war is a mere "rounding error" and that the Trump Administration is playing a broader game of chess.“Mr. Navarro, America’s farmers are caught in the crosshairs of this game of ‘chess.’ Offhand comments like the ones that Mr. [node:read-more:link]