USDA Making Last Year's Oilseed Payments This Week 1999 Payments Mailing After 8 Months Eight months after Congress approved last October's $475 million assistance to oilseed producers, USDA will make good on those 1999 payments beginning this week — so many months late that both a new crop and congressional approval for this year's oilseed payments are already in place. "USDA will now clear last ... Read more »
Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives gave final approval by unanimous vote for the House-Senate agreement reached Wednesday afternoon on the conference report for the "Agricultural Risk Protection Act" (H.R. 2559), allowing producers the maximum insurance coverage on economic risks faced for weather and market losses in both crops and livestock. The Senate approved the conference report lat... Read more »
USDA Seen as Providing Legal Cover for EPA Wingate, North Carolina — Today, the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry, led by Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), convened a field hearing in Wingate, North Carolina to review the impact on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposal to impose Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for non-point so... Read more »
Bill Would Prevent EPA from Overriding State Authority for TMDLs Today, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee were joined by a bipartisan group of 28 co-sponsors in introducing legislation (H.R. 4502) designed to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from overriding congressional intent by imposing new rules regulating Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) from ... Read more »
At a hearing today of the House Committee on Agriculture, high level representatives from the Clinton Administration and farm groups testified while Members of the Committee expressed overwhelming support for Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China. "China represents an agriculture market that is vital to the long-term success of American farmers and ranchers," Committee Chairman Larry... Read more »
This week, the House Agriculture Committee, led by Chairman Larry Combest (R-TX), completed the final two farm policy field hearings in a series of ten. With the two most recent hearings in Boise, Idaho and Peoria, Illinois, the Agriculture Committee has visited every region in the United States and heard the views of 181 producers who testified before the panels. "During this series, we've heard... Read more »
H.R. 434 Authorizes New "Carousel" Tactic for Trade Pressure House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-TX) and Ranking Member Charlie Stenholm (D-TX) praised Thursday's passage of H.R. 434, a new trade and investment policy for sub-Sahara Africa, which provides the means for "Carousel Retaliation" provisions from their legislation, H.R. 2991. The "Carousel" provisions will apply to all... Read more »
Throughout Farm Country, Confidence, but Not Consensus for Policy Change Sioux Falls, South Dakota — Planting among Northern Plains and Northern California producers this week occurred in field hearings as well as the fields, as farmers planted ideas for farm policy with House Agriculture Committee Members, as region-by-region hearings progressed to the seventh and eighth in the series of 10 heari... Read more »
Late Thursday afternoon, by a vote of 375-37, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Rural Local Broadcast Signal Act (H.R. 3615), a bill that would extend loan guarantees to companies willing to provide rural communities with access to local television via satellite. "For rural communities around the country, local television is about more than entertainment," said House Agriculture Commit... Read more »
Prior to Vote, USDA Secretary, Trade Rep Assess Benefits for U.S. Producers On May 17, just prior to the U.S. House of Representatives scheduled vote on Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-TX) convenes a Committee hearing with lead-off witnesses Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky. House ... Read more »
