Rider Stripped Out But USDA Final Rule Doesn’t Wreck Things
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 03/06/24
Joe was a friend of ours who ranched across the road from us many years ago in Nebraska. He had lots of sayings. One of the best was, “You have to have some good luck with your bad luck.”
Sometimes, they happened right close to one another. Such was the case this week when the rider prohibiting USDA from promulgating the Final Rule on Competition was stripped out of the appropriations bill for USDA last weekend.
Then Tuesday, USDA issued its version of the Final Rule. More on that later. We’ll visit our fears of what USDA and DOJ could have been contemplating and the political mechanics around the rider first.
Sometimes the best laid plans do not work if numbers and pressure do not work in your favor.
Last time we warned that a further iteration of the GIPSA Rule could happen. The Barnyard Coalition, including NCBA, pork and poultry associations, the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) and state affiliates, had supported a rider in the Ag Appropriations bill that prohibited USDA from promulgating a rule that would open the floodgates for packer lawsuits and possibly place restrictions and mandates on our value-added beef and cattle marketing system.
Notably absent from the Barnyard Coalition that supported that prohibition rider in the previous versions of the appropriations bill was American Farm Bureau Federation. Apparently, even having seen how USDA significantly altered the poultry marketing system, or because they were okay with it, AFBF is also okay with allowing USDA to affect the operation of the entire beef marketing system.
That system has been hammered out over many years by the cattlemen and processors involved themselves, to the satisfaction in very large measure of consumers worldwide.
After all, there is no money that comes into the beef production chain that does not come from the ultimate consumer.
All of us are fond of demanding that members of Congress get something done. But sometimes that involves leadership from both parties getting together in the same room and the resulting compromises to that “getting something done” involves results we don’t like. In this case, sources tell us a letter from AFBF opposing the rider, added to the lack of a big enough majority of Republican votes in the House and no majority in the Senate doomed the rider.
Politico reported that over the weekend, negotiators removed a number of riders in the draft of the bill, including ones involving an abortion pill, the Commodity Credit Corporation and the rider to “beef up the Packers and Stockyards Act, a 1921 competition law,” as they described it (Politico 03/04/24).
Unfortunately, this was the last ditch available to preserve the rider. The bill is in final form now.
Otherwise, the next step would have been next year’s appropriations bill.
Overall, the appropriation levels for USDA are pretty stable from last year. But there were some shifts out of agriculture and increases for human nutrition. Farm Service Agency had relatively small cuts ($6 million below $1.2 billion), NRCS had a bigger cut ($26 million below $915 billion) and APHIS ($9 million below $1.1 billion) were set. P&S for a $2.5 million boost and SNAP is funded at $119 billion, which Democrats are satisfied is enough (Politico).
When USDA did release the Final version of the rule, it did not appear to drastically affect either the value-added marketing systems. It also did not include a change in rules that would have spawned a raft of packer lawsuits in federal court by changing the basis regarding proof of competitive injury.
We will review further and of course the devil can be in the interpretation and enforcement regulations of any agency proclamations.
Congress will attempt to get a minibus passed before Saturday to avoid a partial shutdown.
House contact info:
Senate contact info:
To contribute to AFF with a credit card there are two options:
To use any credit card on Square, click first link below:
To use your Paypal acct. click below:
Comments