With the number of “working” days in the House and Senate dwindling to a precious few, and with conflicting House leadership priorities – which at this point don’t include the 2012 Farm Bill – sucking up floor time, insiders are beginning to speculate out loud whether the House Agriculture Committee can get a bill through committee, through a floor battle, reconciled with the Senate’s just-passed Farm Bill, and to the President’s desk before current programs expire September 30. And while House Ag Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK) is steadfast in his resolve to begin markup of his committee’s version of the 2012 Farm Bill July 11, the last week or so has also seen a series of conflicting reports over which comes first, House ag panel markup or floor action on the FY2013 ag appropriations bill. Lucas originally postponed his committee’s action because the ag spending bill was set for the floor and he wanted members free to battle “onerous” amendments. Then House leadership postponed ag appropriations floor action until “sometime after” the July 4 congressional recess, signaling it will likely be consigned to a session-end omnibus spending package. However, this week’s Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act and House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) announcement of a House vote to repeal the health care bill to be held July 11 signals much of available House floor time this summer will be dedicated to election-oriented issues. Further complicating Lucas’ life is the emergence of a band of conservative House members now calling the Farm Bill the “food welfare bill” because 80 percent-plus of the bill’s cost is wrapped up in food stamps. This bloc of budget hawks and its opposition was expected, and while Lucas has said his bill will reflect food stamp cuts that mirror farm program spending cuts, Democrat opposition to cutting the food stamp program will be significant. Others are concerned that while food stamps is one target, spending in other areas of the bill is also in the bullseye for members looking to use the Farm Bill as a candidate for slash and burn budget cuts. One staffer this week told a Capitol Hill newspaper, “We’re trying to figure out how to keep this bill from coming to the floor altogether. It’ll divide the conservative movement from Republicans in such a deep way right before the election that could be devastating.” The success of Lucas’ July 11 markup will be a major factor in whether House leadership allows the Farm Bill to move to the floor. If it doesn’t, then Lucas has a one-year extension of current programs ready to go, effectively kicking the omnibus farm legislation into the next Congress, meaning both House and Senate action begins from scratch.
Immediate reactions to this week’s Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are likely a bit premature given the 130-page decision has yet to be fully analyzed, but general reaction to decision by ag groups pretty much followed the political leanings of the organization. While the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) took a “this still needs to be fixed” position, according to reports, the National Farmers Union (NFU) praised the decision. The immediate political victory was given to President Obama since ACA was the hallmark of his first year in office. The issue, however, remains the cost of the overall program, how insurance companies will pass along any increased costs and how employers will react when it comes to hiring. Some say the 50-full-time employee threshold for coverage under ACA means many employers will simply hire more part-time employees, while others contend hiring decisions will be deferred until after the November election. However, some political pundits contend the Supreme Court decision hands the GOP a political plum in that the high court’s decision that the personal mandate section of ACA is a “tax” – many House members have already put out releases calling the mandate “the single biggest tax increase in American history”—means the Republicans can rev up their anti-tax campaigns. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) embraced duel issues – Obama Administration overreaching of authority and over taxation – reminding media this week that the President has repeatedly contended the health care mandate is not a tax. Still others speculate the GOP mantra of “repeal, repeal, repeal” is an unwise strategy because it ignores sections of the law popular with most citizens, e.g. elimination of barriers based on pre-existing conditions and the ability to keep children under 26 years old on parents’ policies, and that pushing for full repeal may actually increase voter support for the law. Currently, about 65 percent of the American public opposes the ACA generally, according to reports.
A decision early this week by the Supreme Court allowing states to check the immigration status of individuals stopped for offenses, but not to question the citizenship status of other citizens has given critics of federal immigration programs from both sides of the issue plenty of opportunity to criticize current immigration efforts or lack thereof. Most grower groups contend the high court’s decision does little to help them deal with millions of farm workers in the U.S. illegally, or to find solutions for the “broken” H-2A guest worker visa program. Several other states with laws similar to that enacted in Arizona must now rework those laws to meet the Supreme Court decision which struck three sections of the Arizona law but left intact law enforcement’s ability to confirm citizenship when an individual is stopped or arrested for a separate offense. Immigrant groups agreed with the problems, but decried the lack of political will in Congress to find a path to citizenship for those “who are here, who can prove they’ve been here and done whatever they are supposed to do and contributed to our economy.”
The 2012 version of a searchable database allowing users to find out who receives direct farm program payments and how much, was unveiled this week by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which also pointed out nearly $6.2 million in direct payments – EWG calls them “subsidies” – was collected by members of Congress and their families from 1995 through 2011. The database, constructed by EWG based on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), tracks about $240 billion in commodity, crop insurance and disaster payments, and $37 billion in conservation program payments paid over that same 15-year period. EWG points out five crops – corn, soybeans, cotton, rice and wheat – receive 90 percent of all farm payments, and that since 1995, just 10 percent of farms received 75 percent of payments. The listing of congressional farm payment recipients and the updated database can be found by going to http://www.ewg.org/.
With a conference agreement in hand – one that includes a fix to the impending increase in student loan interest rates – House and Senate conferees are expected to deliver a 27-month, $120-billion re-authorization of federal highway infrastructure and urban commuter programs to the President this week just as they leave for a week-long July 4 recess and just ahead of expiration of both the current highway program temporary extension and the student loan rate deadline. House conferees had to sacrifice language in the report that would have mandated approval of the Keystone pipeline and imposed restrictions on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to regulate coal ash to get to final agreement. Transport lobbyists generally see the relatively short-term extension – most wanted at least a five-year extension of the programs – as a short-term approach. Critics say the re-authorization does not contain substantial long-term investment nor does it solve the dwindling federal gas tax challenge, a development that’s plagued the federal Highway Trust Fund from which states draw money for highway projects. The deal retains the 18.4-cent gas tax and the 24.4-cent diesel surcharge through 2016, and funds surface transportation projects at current levels. The bill will also shorten review times and allow various environmental reviews to be conducted concurrently on new transportation projects while consolidating several federal surface transport programs. The federal government will mandate installation of new electronic truck recorders to aid in hours-of-service enforcement, and targets dollars to non-interstate roads and bridges deemed significant to the economy. Public/private infrastructure partnerships were enhanced to $1 billion in the plan.
The House Appropriations Committee this week approved along party lines its FY2013 Interior-Environment spending bill appropriating $28 billion for the Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Forest Service and related agencies, and in that package, EPA’s budget was slashed 17 percent. The overall spending level is $1.2 billion below last year’s level, and $1.7 billion less than the President requested. Committee action centered on the EPA cuts, including an 80 percent cut in the Land & Water Conservation Fund; a nearly $800-million cut in the Water State Revolving Fund, and climate change programs were in for a nearly 30 percent cut. The bill also included a number of policy riders on mine clean-ups and coal-fired utilities designed to prevent EPA from proceeding with rulemakings. However, it’s apparent most spending bill are destined to be lumped into an omnibus package that will be enacted as a single unit, meaning most extraneous measures will be stripped out of the bills.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold public meetings in Iowa and Nebraska to answer questions while explaining its use of aerial surveillance as part of feedlot compliance investigations. The hearings were announced shortly after the entire Nebraska congressional delegation sent a letter to EPA asking for an explanation of the EPA fly-overs. When the response from EPA Region 7 didn’t satisfy the delegation, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) got into dueling Farm Bill amendments on the floor with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) over the value of the flights and whether they should be halted until explanation is forthcoming. Both amendments failed. Producers see the surveillance as an invasion of privacy and unnecessary. EPA says the fly-overs provide evidence of violations, and if evidence is found, an on-ground inspection is ordered. The Nebraska meeting will be held on Monday, July 2 from 6:30-8:30 in Lexington, NE, at the Holiday Inn Express. The next meeting is in Carroll, IA, and will held August 30.
The U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., this week upheld Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2009 “endangerment finding,” the basis for the agency’s action on regulating greenhouse gas emissions, saying the finding is “neither arbitrary or capricious.” “EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act is unambiguously correct,” the court said in ruling the plaintiffs had no standing to challenge the agency’s authority. The original court action challenged not only the agency’s authority but the science upon which EPA moved to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as part of its climate change initiative. Democrats unanimously praised the ruling, which experts say leaves little room for a Supreme Court review, but said they fully expect House Republicans to bring amendments forth to reverse the court’s decision.
The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., last week approved an order last week certifying a class action suit brought against Class I railroads, an action that alleges four Class I lines colluded to inflate fuel surcharges. The plaintiffs allege the BNSF, Union Pacific, CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads conspired to fix prices in violation of the Sherman Act. The order covers “all entities or persons that at any time from July 1, 2003 until December 31, 2008 purchased rate-unregulated rail freight transportation services directly from one or more of the Defendants, as to which Defendants assessed a stand-alone rail freight fuel surcharge applied as a percentage of the base rate for the freight (or where some or all of the fuel surcharge was included in the base rate through a method referred to as ‘rebasing’),” according to the National Industrial Transportation Leagues’ (NITLeague) reporting of the decision.
The Peterson Brothers, three siblings from a cattle and wheat operation in Assaria, KS, this week became the latest YouTube viral video sensation with their song parody “I’m Farming and I Grow It” video designed to remind America where its food comes from. The brothers – Greg, Kendel and Nathan – posted their parody of the 2011 pop hit “I’m Sexy and I Know It” on Monday, June 24 and by the end of the day, it had about 3,000 viewings. By 10 a.m. EDT June 29, nearly 1.6 million YouTube viewers had seen the video thanks to an aggressive community and industry promotion campaign. The sheer quality and entertainment value of the video, which the brothers produced to remind consumers not to take food production for granted and to show what real farm life is like, has made the Peterson Brothers media darlings. They’ve been besieged by interview requests, and traveled to New York City to appear June 29 on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and Fox News. The Peterson Brothers video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48H7zOQrX3U&feature=player_embedded, and the brothers’ appearance on Fox News can be viewed here: http://video.foxnews.com/v/1711724454001/im-farming--i-grow-it-video-parody-goes-viral. In a related move, the U.S. Farm & Ranch Alliance (USFRA) announced this week it’s looking for a few good farmers to be spokespeople for the group. USFRA, funded by checkoff dollars from participating ag groups, is chaired by American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Bob Stallman, who said this week, “USFRA is looking for standout farmers and ranchers who are proud of what they do, eager to share their stories of continuous improvement with others and who are actively involved today in sharing those stories.” Entries will be accepted through September 8, 2012, at http://www.fooddialogues.com/, with 10-15 finalists announced at the November, 2012 Food Dialogues event in New York City. At that point, public voting will be conducted online. The winners of this “Faces of Farming and Ranching” contest will participate in national media interviews, advertising and public appearances, and will receive a $10,000 stipend and a $5,000 contribution to their favorite ag-related or local charity.