Senate GOP weighs in on debt ceiling

With help from Marcia Brown

QUICK FIX

— Forty-three Senate Republicans vowed to vote against lifting the debt ceiling without spending cuts. The weekend move comes as the president and congressional leaders huddle at the White House this week to negotiate.

— Top agriculture climate officials, advocates and lawmakers will descend on Washington, D.C., this week for the AIM for Climate Summit. MA will be there, so drop us a line!

— Marcia sat down with Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) to talk about his agricultural priorities.

HAPPY MONDAY, MAY 8. Welcome to Morning Ag. I’m your host, Garrett Downs. Will you be at the AIM for Climate Summit this week? Your MA team will be there, so drop us a line if you want to talk! Send tips to [email protected] and @_garrettdowns, and follow us at @Morning_Ag.

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Driving the day

SENATE R’S TURN UP DEBT PRESSURE: Forty-three Senate Republicans led by Mike Lee(R-Utah) on Saturday demanded spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling in a letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

The group also vowed to vote against a bill to lift the debt ceiling with no strings attached, the so-called “clean lift” that Democrats and President Joe Biden have called for, without cuts and spending overhaul. Included on the letter are Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Ag Committee ranking member John Boozman (R-Ark.).

Context: The U.S. could hit its debt cap by June 1, a fast-approaching deadline. If the U.S. runs out of room on the debt ceiling, it could cause a catastrophic default. Biden invited congressional leaders to the White House this week for talks.

Republicans are using the potential crisis as leverage to score policy wins, despite only holding a majority in the House. Included in a package passed narrowly by the House GOP is an expansion to work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for so-called able-bodied adults without dependents, a move that would expand the number of people subjected to the harshest work requirements in the program. States would also be newly restricted from using “rollover” exemptions, a practice that allows them to roll unused exemptions to the work requirement and its time limit into the next year.

Opponents of the proposal say it would disqualify people unnecessarily from the program, which helps feed more than 40 million people. Republicans tout it as a commonsense measure to close what they consider loopholes in the program and save taxpayer dollars.

The bill also would include across-the-board spending cuts, which Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) has warned would negatively impact farm programs.

What it means: While the Senate GOP was initially poised to sit the talks out, the letter turns up the heat on negotiations taking place this week and gives Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) additional leverage. The group of senators’ opposition would effectively block Schumer from passing a clean debt limit increase in the Senate, where he would need 60 votes to break a filibuster.

But, Senate Republicans stopped short of a wholesale endorsement of what the House GOP proposed. Rather, they are “united behind the House Republican conference in support of spending cuts and structural budget reform as a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling.”

Fresh from USDA

AIM FOR CLIMATE: The AIM for Climate Summit will huddle many of the leading voices in the climate-ag world for three days this week.

Context: AIM for Climate is a U.S.-United Arab Emirates-led initiative to boost investment in climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation. It was launched at COP26, and 50 countries have joined the initiative along with hundreds of private-sector partners.

The summit has a jampacked agenda, but here’s what we’re watching. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack will kick things off on Monday, speaking at an opening plenary with former Vice President Al Gore and Mariam Almheiri, the UAE minister of climate change and environment. Several announcements are expected to be made at the plenary.

Later in the day, Vilsack and Almheiri will huddle for a ministerial meeting.

On Tuesday, Stabenow will participate in a panel on women in science. She will be joined by Chavonda Jacobs-Young, the chief scientist at USDA, and Sarah Kapnick, the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

On Wednesday, Vilsack and Almheiri will be back on stage with U.S. special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry. Robert Bonnie, undersecretary for conservation and farm production at USDA, will participate in a panel on leveraging partnerships, investment and policy for improving soil health.

Why it matters: Vilsack’s USDA has made climate one of its lynchpin issues, including with its $3.1 billion Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program. Congressional Democrats are also trying to defend nearly $20 billion in funding for agriculture greenhouse gas reduction.

But getting the private sector to invest more in climate-smart ag, one of the purposes of AIM for Climate, remains a top issue for USDA.

“Government will play an important role, there will be a need for significant government resources as we go forward,” Bonnie said in an interview. “But we have got to figure out how to bring private resources, private investment, into this.”

FARM BILL BATTLES

CATCH UP WITH EARL: The House Ways and Means committee member Earl Blumenauer has worked on four farm bills, but not as a member of the ag committee. He has also repeatedly introduced an idealistic alternative farm bill, the Food and Farm Act, based on conversations he’s had with constituents about what the food system could look like. Marcia caught up with him at the end of April. The interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

MA: What’s your advice to staffers and members for whom this is their first farm bill?

Blumenauer: The most important lesson for any member is to try and unpack what’s in the package that we know of as the farm. There’s a brilliant essay from Marion Nestle, a friend of mine who is a professor [emerita] of nutrition science at NYU, “The farm bill drove me insane.”

MA: You’ve talked about building a farm bill that works for smaller farmers, that works for more farmers and we’ve certainly seen this administration talk about those issues. How do you view this administration’s commitment to that kind of a farm bill?

Blumenauer: I like Tom Vilsack. He’s knowledgeable, personable, but I was underwhelmed by his first iteration. But Vilsack 2.0 and the Biden administration I find very encouraging. We’ve had several meetings with Tom on Capitol Hill with some members.

He’s knowledgeable, he’s sympathetic to the needs, he understands the challenges. He’s not naive and he’s not going to be a bomb thrower. But I think he’s very open to our being able to make the case for what most farmers and ranchers need. The dynamic that he’s confronting … it’s a fundamentally different situation.

For example, folks that deal with livestock, they’re getting pennies on the dollar because they have no choice, usually, on who they sell it to. But at the same time, four companies have 80 percent of the market and they’re extraordinarily profitable. At the supermarket, consumers are paying more.

There is a crisis in farm country. Suicides are up. They’re struggling financially. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but it’s extraordinarily difficult for young people who want to get into agriculture, to be able to do so. And then there’s just the unfairness of the way the system works now.

MA: Do you see the farm bill as a vehicle changing labor protections?

Blumenauer: It’s probably not the easiest vehicle there. There are trade options. One of the things we’re working on is making sure that producers are responsible for the chain of supply, and goods that are produced with forced labor, for instance, would be denied access to the American market. I think that’s a more direct way.

There are issues about treating, not just farmworkers but we had a huge problem during the pandemic, forcing workers that are in meat processing, they were forced to work and the conditions under which they worked deteriorated, speeding up production lines, more injuries.

MA: Since 2018, the hemp industry is more developed and established. What are some changes that would move the industry in a positive direction in the farm bill?

Blumenauer: More money for research and being able to open up these markets. I am hopeful that we can have the federal government have a comprehensive look at hemp as a product, dealing with standards, marketing, opening this up in a way that eliminates the stigma. It’s not cannabis. And I think we’re hopeful that the federal government will embrace it in a more comprehensive way. I’m going to have a conversation with a representative from the Department of Justice in a couple of hours, we’ll talk about how they’re going to approach this. There needs to be a reset, not just on hemp but on cannabis generally. The federal government is stumbling in that direction, but it’s taking too long.

MA: You obviously care deeply about these issues. You’ve introduced the Food and Farm Act several times. But you’re not on the Agriculture Committee. What’s your thinking behind that?

Blumenauer: My main assignment is Ways and Means Committee, which is treated as an exclusive committee. Typically people don’t get other assignments. … I could have pressed perhaps for a waiver, but there are a number of our members who have keen cultural interest and a limited number of slots.

I have found my voice nationally. I’ve had opportunities to be speaking in forums, talking to journalists, getting some attention with concepts that I’ve introduced. … I am on a Budget Committee this time. We will be raising these issues, for example, like unjustified subsidies. In fact, I’ve already done that in a hearing on the budget committee.

MA: On the subsidies, do you think you’ll have some unlikely allies on that issue in this Congress?

Blumenauer: There are some true fiscal conservatives. If they really care about reducing the debt and providing support for people who need it. Historically, we have had Republicans join me. I did a lot of work with Paul Ryan. We dealt with reining in some of these unjustified and egregious subsidies.

This is a strange climate but I think there are some principled conservatives, if we can get their attention to focus on you know, this $18 billion to sustain 20,000 farmers for 37 consecutive years. I imagine that might get somebody’s attention.

The outrageous subsidies for crop insurance. And the people who can take advantage of it. This affects lots of people in red districts.

Row Crops

— Reps. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) have relaunched the bipartisan congressional PFAS task force. The group of House members has worked to tackle the problems with so-called forever chemicals in soil, water and food supplies since 2019 and promotes legislation aimed at the problem.

— USDA deputy secretary nominee Xochitl Torres Small on Wednesday will have a confirmation hearing. She’s not expected to face much pushback from Republicans.

— Agriculture fires in Mexico are affecting air quality in Texas, Houston Chronicle reports.

— Prolonged drought has an Oklahoma wheat farmer comparing current conditions to the Dust Bowl, The Oklahoman reports.

THAT’S ALL FOR MA! Drop us a line: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].