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Washington Report for 10-28-13

By Steve Kopperud

Farm Bill Conference Begins Oct. 30; Tea Partiers Take Aim

The 2013 Farm Bill conference committee will formally commence on Oct. 30, the first – and perhaps the last time – all 41 members from the House and Senate will be in the same room at the same time. This first meeting, to be chaired by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) – the Senate chaired the conference in 2008 – will essentially be the forum in which the format of the conference will be laid out and members will be allowed to make opening statements. 

However, in a front page story in the Oct. 24 edition of USA Today, members of various Tea Party groups around the country, as well as the fiscally conservative Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, said neither the House nor Senate Farm Bill cuts enough spending going forward, and called for an extension of 2008 farm program authority. They want to see the conferees kill off federal crop insurance subsidies along with direct payments.

Both Lucas and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said all the right things about bipartisanship, a need to create a viable income safety net, the importance of crop insurance, etc., with Stabenow reminding her colleague that during these days of budget battles, a reconciled Farm Bill represents federal budget savings in excess of $25 billion over 10 years. Both she and Lucas want to get the Farm Bill to the finish line, and with the their ranking committee members – Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Mo.) – have been meeting privately to get a game plan down and move the conference most efficiently.

The biggest policy hurdles for the conferees to get over remain cuts in federal food stamp payments, reconciliation of House and Senate approaches to shifting direct payments, international food aid – 55 Senators sent conferees a letter supporting current food aid programs – and crop insurance issues.

 

Houses Passes Waterways Bill 417-13; Conference Expected Quickly

As expected, the full House approved its version of a reauthorized federal waterways program on a 417-13 vote despite threats from House fiscal conservatives to bring the bill down. House Transportation & Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) called the bill "one of the most policy and reform focused measures" passed by the House.

The bill is the first reauthorization of federal waterways authority in several years, and will pay for future projects undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers related to locks and dams, harbor maintenance, dredging of waterways and environmental protection. The bill seeks to speed up regulatory and environmental project reviews, kill project earmarks and will use a new funding formula.

The spending conservatives' arguments did not get much attention within the full House as the bill from the time of introduction was touted by Shuster – and handled by his committee – in a bipartisan way. 

Shuster is confident House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will name conferees quickly. And while much of the House bill is similar – if not identical – to the Senate bill approved last summer, the manner in which projects are selected for funding will be the major debate topic.

In previous iterations of the law, the respective transportation committees would pass their bills with specific projects and specific funding listed in the law. However, given restrictions on earmarks, that won't happen in the future. The Senate bill sets project criteria that the Corps must use for project selection and funding, and authorizes $5.7 billion over five years for those projects. The House bill specifies 23 projects on which $3.1 billion can be spent in the next five years, but requires the Corps to submit to Congress for approval its recommendations on project funding – including state and local recommendations – and requires the President to recommend projects as part of his annual budget request to Congress.

Another conference hurdle will be a request from barge operators and shippers to allow them to pay 6-9 cents per gallon more in diesel surcharge to help fund the inland waterways projects. Neither bill contains that language, as congressional tax writing committees have to first give the green light for the increase in the current 20-cent-per-gallon diesel tax. The administration prefers a new per-vessel fee formula that it says will raise $1.1 billion.  

 

RFS Discussions Continue; EPA May Release 2014 Numbers This Week

Renewable fuels groups met with the Environmental Protection Agency to discuss their recommendations on blending levels mandated by the 2014 Renewable Fuels Standard, and unverified biofuels industry reports indicate EPA may announce as early as this week its RFS mandates for the coming year.

Rumors abound as to what EPA will do based on agency statements made several weeks ago, when it released its 2013 numbers, that it was aware of concerns by the petroleum industry over the RFS mandates and the possibility of forcing the gasoline refining industry to hit the blend wall. The blend wall is that point where there is insufficient gasoline being refined to accommodate the amount of biofuels EPA mandated without increasing the percentage blend. 

Talk focused on the possibility the agency could hold the RFS mandate levels of biofuels at 2013 levels. Several media outlets reported the agency was looking to decrease the amount of biofuels current mandated for blending with gasoline by almost half. This set off a flurry of denials by EPA officials who said any agency thinking at this point is in the draft stage.

 

FSMA Feed Rule Expected Any Day

The Food and Drug Administration proposed rule setting out food safety performance standards for feed mills, pet food plants and the ingredient suppliers to those industries is expected any day. 

The feed rule was supposed to have been published 16 month ago, but Office of Management & Budget review, along with cost issues, has kept the rule bottled up within FDA going through rewrites. The Food Safety Modernization Act human food performance standard rule was proposed earlier this summer. Under FSMA, FDA is required by law to write specific rules that pertain to human food and food "fed to animals other than man."

 

Immigration Reform Battles in House Expanding; Issa Has "Legal Status" Bill

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) sent a letter to his House colleagues urging them to "block Sen. Reid's strategy to pass amnesty," and asking them to sign on to a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to block any conference action on immigration reform with the Senate before the House has passed its full slate of immigration bills.

Meanwhile, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said he will unveil his own immigration reform bill this week that would provide a special visa to all undocumented immigrants in this U.S. granting them legal status for six years. He called the bill a "come-from-the-shadows" effort while the legislative battles over broader immigration reform play out. Also, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said she may introduce an immigration reform bill to jump start the House effort.

Stockman's letter was about a procedural move reportedly contemplated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to take whichever House-approved immigration bill first comes over to the Senate and to use it to try for a conference committee with the Senate's approved omnibus immigration reform package. 

Boehner and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) are publicly dedicated to a piece-meal House immigration reform strategy. Various House committees – mainly the judiciary panel – have approved, or will soon approve, nearly a dozen bills, each specific to an immigration reform component. Both Boehner and Goodlatte say they are "hopeful" these bills will begin moving to the floor this fall.

However, several House members, including Republicans who support immigration reform, are pushing Boehner to allow a straight up or down vote on the Senate's omnibus reform package, similar to the vote Boehner allowed on the debt ceiling/continuing resolution plan negotiated in the Senate.

More than 200 immigration reform support groups sent a letter to Goodlatte opposing his "anti-immigrant, anti-worker" approach to reform in the Judiciary Committee-approved Agricultural Guestworker Act. The groups called the bill unworkable because while the Senate bill's ag worker section – negotiated between grower groups and the United Farm Workers – puts undocumented workers on a 10-year road to eventual citizenship, Goodlatte's bill grants the same workers "legal status" in the U.S. The opposing groups called this "permanent second class status." 

 

Animal Ag Hits Back at Pew Commission Report

The nation's livestock and poultry industries refuted an update of a controversial report by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Production. The report, entitled "Advances in Animal Agriculture: What the Center for a Livable Future, Pew Commission and Others Aren't Telling You About Food Production," was coordinated by the Animal Agriculture Alliance.

The Pew Commission report, updating similar work done in 2008, was released by the Center for a Livable Future, an anti-animal ag group funded through a grant from the GRACE Foundation and housed at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Center is also responsible for the "Meatless Monday" campaign to reduce meat consumption.

Each producer group who participated in the AAA effort was asked to provide accomplishments in animal care, responsible antibiotic use, food safety, environmental sustainability and industry research initiatives. The report highlights the continuing improvements in these areas, including the adoption of new technology to improve animal welfare and food safety. The producer groups participating were U.S. Poultry & Egg Association, National Chicken Council, National Turkey Federation, United Egg Producers, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Pork Board, National Pork Producers Council and the National Milk Producers Federation.

The AAA report was released during a teleconference Oct. 22 that featured Dr. Richard Raymond, former U.S. Department of Agriculture undersecretary for food safety under President George W. Bush; Dr. Scott Hurd, Iowa State University and former acting deputy undersecretary for food safety at USDA; Dr. Janeen Salak-Johnson, University of Illinois; Dr. John Glisson, University of Georgia; Dr. Frank Mitloehner, University of California-Davis; and Dr. Guy Loneragan, Texas Tech University.

 

CFTC to Hold Public Meetings on Position Limits

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced it will hold a public meeting Nov. 5 at 9:30 a.m. to take comment on issues related to position limits on derivatives and aggregation of accounts. The meeting will be accessible by computer or through toll-free call-in by going to http://www.cftc.gov/.

 

President Nominates Jeh Johnson as DHS Secretary

Former Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson is President Obama's pick to replace Janet Napolitano as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Obama said, "From the moment I took office, Jeh was an absolutely critical member of my national security team ... Jeh has a deep understanding of the threats and challenges facing the United States."

The road to confirmation for Johnson won't be an easy one. The President had no more than announced his choice, when critics emerged. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he has "grave concerns" about a nominee without strong law enforcement credentials, an obvious reference to Cornyn's priority on Mexican border security. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) made similar remarks.

But Johnson has his fans as well. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee, praised Johnson’s Department of Defense experience. However, Carper is also concerned about the high number of unfilled senior appointments at DHS. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, shares Carpers' concern and called the vacancy rate at DHS "a disservice to the American people." 

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