What can ag expect from Congress?
Dave Carlin, senior vice president of legislative affairs and economic policy for the International Dairy Foods Association, and Paul Bleiberg, senior vice president of government relations with the National Milk Producers Federation, shared their take on how those issues might shake out for dairy and agriculture as a whole.
Nutrition
One matter of business the Senate will likely take care of is the reauthorization of child nutrition programs, which should’ve happened a few years ago, Carlin said. “These programs include the school meals program, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) feeding program, and other meal programs that affect multiple populations,” he explained. “They’re overdue for that review and then reauthorization.
President Joe Biden believes agriculture has an important role to play in addressing climate change. When signing the climate change executive order, Biden said, “We see farmers making American agriculture first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions and gaining new sources of income in the process.”
The executive order stated: “America’s farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners have an important role to play in combating the climate crisis and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, by sequestering carbon in soils, grasses, trees, and other vegetation and sourcing sustainable bioproducts and fuels.”
It directs USDA to “collect input from farmers, ranchers, and other stakeholders on how to use federal programs to encourage adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices that produce verifiable carbon reductions and sequestrations and create new sources of income and jobs for rural Americans.”
U.S. waterways may get redefined via WOTUS
The back-and-forth related to Waters of the United States (WOTUS) dates back to the language of a 1972 amendment to the Clean Water Act that established federal jurisdiction over “navigable waters.”
The tug-of-war over the definition of that term has been particularly active since a 2006 Supreme Court ruling. That decision perpetrated a definition of WOTUS by the Bush administration, and then a change by both the Obama and Trump administrations.
“The problem here is the underlying law the Federal Water Pollution Control Act is not being viewed the same by all sides and by all stakeholders,” explained National Milk Producers Federation’s Paul Bleiberg during the January 20
National Milk Producers Federation s Alan Bjerga discusses his main focus with the new leadership in DC, how to find bipartisan ways to address issues, and dairy pricing.