(Scott Olson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The stalemate over the current farm bill may be solidifying a new era in farm politics as it joins the last three farm bills in a trend of delays and partisan division — a contrast from the legislation’s history of bipartisanship.

Every five years, Congress is tasked with drafting a new federal farm bill. The omnibus law that began 90 years ago as various kinds of payments to support farmers now has an impact far beyond the farm, with programs to create wildlife habitat, address climate change and provide the nation’s largest federal nutrition program.

The current farm bill process, already nearly a year behind schedule, is at an impasse as Democrats and Republicans clash over how to pay for the bill and whether to place limits on nutrition and climate programs. The previous farm bill expired in September 2023 and has been extended through the end of this September.

Historically, farm bills were completed within a few months of their expiration date. Ten of the 13 farm bills since 1965 were enacted by December 31 in the year of their expirations. But three of the four farm bills since 2008 went beyond that date.

The last three bills — including the 2018 bill, which is the one recent version that passed on time — each had partisan disagreements about spending.

The trend represents a change in how the once-bipartisan legislation is viewed.

“The last two farm bills were the anomaly,” said Jonathan Coppess, a professor of Agricultural Law and Policy at the University of Illinois who has written a history of the farm bill. “Now that it has been three in a row, I’m not sure that holds.”

A recent report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service notes that starting in 2008, farm bills have been subject to delays, vetoes and insufficient votes to pass on the floor.

The report concluded: “Over time, farm bills have tended to become more complicated and politically sensitive. As a result, the timeline for reauthorization has become less certain.”

Spending debate

That uncertainty is true of the current farm bill, as Republicans in the House and Senate push for spending limits that Democrats say are non-starters.

“I don’t think we’re close to getting a farm bill done until the folks who are negotiating the farm bill are realistic about what’s doable within a constrained resource environment,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in an interview on the radio program AgriTalk June 21.

The Republican-led House Agriculture Committee approved its farm bill proposal largely on party lines at the end of May, after hours of debate and complaints from Democrats that the process had not been as bipartisan as in years past.

Four Democrats voted for the bill in committee, but they joined 20 other Democrats on the committee in a “dissenting views” letter expressing “genuine concern over the trajectory of the Majority’s partisan farm bill” — which they predicted would be stuck in delay and dysfunction without significant changes.

The Senate Agriculture Committee has yet to vote. The Republican and Democratic leaders of the committee have each put forward contrasting bills and expressed their frustration.

‘The most frustrating time’

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie  Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who is retiring after this term, has called the process the “most frustrating” of her career and said she would not let the Republican approach for the farm bill be her legacy.

“I’ve actually been involved in six farm bills and led on three of them, and this has been the most frustrating time,” said Stabenow in an interview with Michigan Advance at the end of June. “Because it’s so much more partisan than usual and particularly around food assistance.”

Partisan division is not uncommon in today’s Congress but is notable on the farm bill, which had historically brought together lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. Bipartisan support can be necessary for final passage because the size of the $1.5 trillion farm bill means it inevitably loses some votes from fiscal conservatives and others.

“If you don’t have a bipartisan bill, this is not going to happen, and that is no matter who’s in charge. The margins are too close to be able to get this done without bipartisan support,” said Collin Peterson, a former Democratic House member from Minnesota and Agriculture Committee Chairman.

The key dispute for Democrats this year is a funding calculation that would place limits on the “Thrifty Food Plan” formula that calculates benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP.

Republicans are using the limits to offset other spending in the bill on crop subsidies. The top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, said he wants to put “more farm in the farm bill.”

Peterson, who is now the head of an eponymous consulting firm, said in an interview with States Newsroom that Republicans would likely have to make changes to the nutrition title to get a bill to final passage.

“It is unrealistic to think they are going to get this done without significant changes in that part of the bill,” he said.

‘An uneasy alliance’ from the start

The nutrition program that is at the center of the impasse was added to the legislation 50 years ago to help build a coalition of wide-ranging bipartisan support.

Lawmakers added the nutrition title to the farm bill in 1973, a move that widened the vested interest in the bill in the House. Lawmakers who wanted to increase payments for cotton and wheat farmers in their districts were able to bring in support from representatives from districts whose citizens could benefit from food aid.

“That was the first coalition building between the two interests,” Coppess said. “But it was pretty intense. And it was an uneasy alliance from the start.”

Since then, the farm bill in many ways has become a food bill. Three-quarters of the mandatory spending in the bill falls under the nutrition title, which includes SNAP, the largest U.S. program that addresses hunger.

The program, formerly called food stamps, supplements food budgets for low-income households. Anti-hunger groups have joined the outside interests pushing for the bill every five years.

But with such a large funding line, the nutrition program has become a target for Republicans who want to cut it to offset other spending in the bill.

“The dispute is all the pay-fors,” Peterson said. “And that has been the issue for the last three farm bills and issue on this one as well.”

Peterson, who was chairman of the House Agriculture Committee for the 2008 farm bill and was the top Democrat on the committee for the 2013 and 2018 bills, said partisan division on the committee is not unfamiliar at this phase of the process.

The farm bills he worked on also had partisan votes in the House but eventually found support from both sides after conferencing with the Senate.

“At the end of the day, every one of those bills was partisan, until we got through the conference committee, and then at that point it was bipartisan, because the Senate brought some of that to the table,” Peterson said. “So, kind of, what’s going on here went on the last three farm bills.”

The most recent farm bill in 2018 was marked by contentious partisan debate centered on SNAP’s work requirements and other eligibility rules.

The House Agriculture Committee’s bill that year initially failed on the House floor and later squeaked through on a 213-211 vote. Twenty Republicans joined all House Democrats in voting against that bill.

After reconciling with the Senate bill and the removal of some of the contentious changes to SNAP, most Democrats flipped their votes in support and the House agreed to the final conference report in a bipartisan vote of 369-47. The dissenting votes included 44 Republicans and three Democrats.

A trend toward fracture

The partisan division over the nutrition title creates new fault lines for the farm bill.

Historically, farm bill alliances were more regional than partisan. They were built on a common ground of support for shared crops or producers: cotton in the South, corn in the Midwest and wheat in the Western Plains.

“What was our biggest issue back in the four farm bills that I wrote was not Republican versus Democrat. It was usually Midwest against the Southeast or the Northeast or the Southwest from a crop standpoint,” former Senator Saxby Chambliss said in an interview.

Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia, was on the House Agriculture Committee from 1995 to 2002 and the Senate Agriculture Committee 2005 to 2011, which included a stint as chairman and ranking member.

“There’s a different political dynamic that exists in the Senate today that did not exist when I was there,”  Chambliss said. “How much of that bleeds into the farm bill? I don’t know the answer to that, but obviously it’s a little more acrimonious than what I ever experienced.”

As partisan politics have become more entrenched in regions of the country, with the South becoming more closely aligned with the Republican Party, it has played out in farm-bill politics.

“You see a staunch realignment around where the regional and the partisan are now very similar,” said Coppess.

Mike Scully harvests soybeans at Scully Family Farms in Spencer, Indiana, on Sept. 29, 2022 (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service photo by Brandon O’Connor).

WASHINGTON — As the deadline for Congress to pass a new farm bill looms this weekend, staff members of the House and Senate Agriculture committees say it will be months – if not longer – until they reach agreement on a new bill.

Lawmakers must rewrite the sweeping farm bill every five years to set both policy and funding levels for farm, food and conservation programs. The current farm bill expires at midnight Saturday, but Congress is nowhere near ready to consider a new farm bill.

“At this point, it will not be possible to pass a farm bill by Saturday,” Emily Pilscott, an economist for the Democratic staff of the House Agriculture Committee, said at a forum Tuesday with the Farm Foundation, a nonpartisan farm policy group.

The House and Senate Agriculture committees have been working over the past year to get input on the new farm bill, with dozens of hearings, field hearings, listening sessions and staff meetings in each chamber. But with a few days left before the current bill expires, lawmakers have not yet put forward legislation at the committee level and staff say they are still divided on some of the big-ticket items on the bill.

Republican and Democratic staff from both the House and Senate say both sides want to find a bill that will support farms and farmers, but there is still significant disagreement about major programs, including the “safety net” of payments to farmers, crop insurance and conservation programs.

They do not even have enough consensus on potential changes to ask for a “score” from the Congressional Budget Office – the process of seeing how much different proposals would cost over the course of the farm bill.

“We are all on the same page about wanting to help farmers, but there are definitely some disagreements about the best way to do that,” Pilscott said of House Agriculture Committee members.

Another key area of disagreement in the House is  the SNAP program, a huge spending portion of the farm bill that helps low-income families buy food.

Republicans want to place more limits on the funds – a move that Democrats have warned would doom the farm bill. Congress put some restrictions on SNAP as part of the debt limit legislation.

But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans said afterwards they want more work requirements for SNAP funds. Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee sent a letter to McCarthy in August that said further limits to SNAP could jeopardize the farm bill.

SNAP is considered a mandatory appropriation and would continue at current levels as long as there is an appropriations bill or a continuing resolution to keep the Agriculture Department running — another problem right now in Congress.

‘A terrible time to do a farm bill’

The massive five-year farm bill is usually one of the more bipartisan efforts of Congress, at least on the committee level. But farm policy experts say this year’s farm bill has particular challenges — both because of the partisan divide in Congress and because of the current state of the farm economy.

Jonathan Coppess, a professor of agriculture law and policy at  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said the prospects for the farm bill are in “serious doubt,” given the far-right faction that is holding up legislation in the House.

“We have an incredibly difficult political hurdle in the House and on the House floor,” Coppess said.

“This is a terrible time to do a farm bill,” said Joe Outlaw, an agricultural economist and professor at Texas A&M University.

Outlaw’s concern is not only the political strife in the Capitol but the current farm economy. Relatively high crop prices have masked a tenuous economy for farmers.

“The farm safety net is all about the bad times, and frankly the bad times are coming, they just aren’t here right now,” Outlaw said.

On the Senate side, Democratic and Republican staff are meeting regularly, but there is still a divide on major issues like how to address the farm safety net.

Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, the top ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, has said his chief concern is to help farmers face rising input costs for things like fertilizer and fuel, along with the possibility of lower crop prices.

“Title One support does not reflect the reality on the ground today,” said John Newton, chief economist for the Republicans on the Senate Agriculture Committee, in remarks at the Farm Foundation Forum.

Title One is the section of the farm bill that provides crop subsidies. Newton said Republicans would like to see a “meaningful increase in reference prices,” the amount at which the government will step in and help farmers.

Meanwhile, the economist for the Democratic majority on the Senate Agriculture Committee said he is looking at how the Title One commodity programs and crop insurance work together.

“We are looking closely at program interactions, how programs work together or overlap. The farm safety net — that is where there are some really challenging interactions,” said Steven Wallander, senior economist for the Democratic staff of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

A lengthening deadline

Like many bills on Capitol Hill, the farm bill has some “discretionary” programs, which are set up in the bill but have to be funded through the annual appropriations process.

But the farm bill is unique in that most of its programs have “mandatory” spending. That funding is set in the farm bill itself and is paid out over the next five years, regardless of congressional appropriations. Those mandatory programs include crop subsidies, conservation programs, some forms of crop insurance and SNAP, formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Most of the mandatory programs will continue without any action through the end of the calendar year — delaying some of the urgency for Congress. In recent history, lawmakers have not passed any farm bills before the Sept. 30 deadline.

The 2018 farm bill passed in December, three months after the prior bill expired. And the three farm bills before that each passed in the year following their original deadline.

But Outlaw predicts that if lawmakers do not finish the new farm bill by February, the election cycle will take over and it could be years before they return to the farm bill.

Wallander said he hopes the Senate committee is on a timeline similar to the 2018 farm bill, when lawmakers rolled out legislation in the fall and passed a bill by the end of the year.

Senate Democratic and Republican staff are meeting together regularly. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan, and Boozman meet together weekly.

“There is strong bipartisan support for getting this done, we’ve seen that with the chairwoman and ranking member and their experiences working together. We think that strength is something we can leverage towards a finished product,” Wallander told the Farm Foundation Forum.

On the House side, Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Republican from Pennsylvania, has said he will not bring a farm bill to the committee until there is scheduled time for debate on the House floor.

That could be a stretch this year, with the House placing a priority on spending bills to fund the government. There are only 28 voting days on the House calendar between now and the end of the calendar year.

Without a new farm bill or an extension of the current bill, crop support programs will continue through the end of the calendar year. The conservation programs are extended through 2031 as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Government shutdown another complication

Another challenge for the farm bill is the debate over spending bills and the possibility of a government shutdown next week.

The conflict over spending has already slowed the farm bill process. If the government shuts down, committee staff will not be able to get technical assistance or new reports from the Agriculture Department.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said during a Monday White House briefing that it would be nearly impossible to enact a new farm bill if there are disruptions from a federal shutdown.

“It is pretty tough to do if there is a shutdown, you can’t do it,” Vilsack, former Iowa governor, said.

The White House released a state-by-state breakdown, estimating that nearly 7 million people who rely on a nutrition program for women, infants and children could be at risk of losing funds to purchase select food and receive vouchers for vegetables and fruit.

The House has passed only one of its 12 appropriations bills, which need to be in place by the end of the fiscal year on Saturday. A group of far-right Republicans are pushing for steeper cuts to nondefense federal spending, even if it means a partial government shutdown.

Lawmakers usually turn to a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the government afloat for the weeks or months it takes to finish the annual spending bills. But lawmakers have not yet agreed to a CR this year, and some House Republicans have said they will block it.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is funding projects to create new markets and revenue streams for “climate-smart” practices in farming, including beef production. In this photo, cattle graze in a field outside of North English, Iowa, on Sept. 13, 2017 (USDA photo by Preston Keres).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is spending more than $3 billion to cultivate more American farmers and forest landowners as partners to mitigate climate change — even while some Republicans on Capitol Hill try to stop the program entirely.

The administration launched a new farm program, Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities, this year. It is the USDA’s largest-ever investment in climate-smart agriculture and part of a larger effort to advance the administration’s priority of addressing climate change.

Agriculture Department officials say they hope the program will be transformational and help create markets that could eventually bring “climate-smart” products to grocery shelves.

The program disburses grants for pilot programs that will pay landowners to try new practices to improve the carbon footprint of their operations — with a special focus to recruit traditionally underserved landowners to participate.

Even more ambitiously, the Agriculture Department wants to use the program to help create new markets and revenue streams for “climate-smart” practices for those producing commodities like corn, soybeans, almonds, pork or beef. In total, 52 projects mention building or expanding markets and 26 mention some form of branding or certification process, according to an analysis from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

“Through these projects, our partners are working to create new markets for climate-smart commodities, while developing the tools needed to quantify impacts and help producers implement climate-smart practices on their land,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement announcing the implementation phase of the grants in April.

But Republican lawmakers have criticized the program — both for its emphasis on climate change and because of its funding source. Lawmakers have introduced bills to stop the program, and the GOP-controlled House Appropriations Committee voted to block spending for it next year.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department has been moving forward steadily, approving grants and rolling out the $3.1 billion in projects, 141 of them in total, some of which have funding from other sources as well. USDA has finished negotiations with partners for most of the bigger budget grants and 60 projects across 53 states and territories are currently active.

The new initiative has won support from many agriculture, farm cooperative, forestry and research groups, including the National Farmers Union and the American Farm Bureau Federation. It has participants from major universities and farm corporations.

USDA estimates the program will reach more than 60,000 farms, encompassing more than 25 million acres of working lands. The agency’s preliminary estimates are that it will provide a reduction of over 50,000 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Climate activists say they hope the agency releases data as the projects roll out to show if those estimates become a reality.

Republicans try to block spending 

Republican critics of the bill say the Biden administration overstepped its authority when it created the climate program and used the USDA’s financing institution, the Commodity Credit Corporation, known as the CCC, to pay for it.

The Commodity Credit Corporation began during the Great Depression as a bailout program for cotton farmers. Over the years, Congress and presidential administrations have directed CCC to fund an increasingly broad array of programs, including farm bill programs, export and commodity programs, conservation and disaster assistance.

For years there was little conflict over the Agriculture Department’s broad discretion for the account. But Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, also came under fire for his use of the fund in 2010, when he was head of the USDA under President Barack Obama.

At issue then was $600 million in disaster assistance for Arkansas farmers who had been hit by wet weather. Republicans saw that aid as an attempt to shore up more support for Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln, who was the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee at the time and was in a tough reelection fight.

Her opponent, Republican John Boozman, criticized the bailout, later went on to win the election and now is the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The Republican Congress placed restrictions on the use of the CCC in its appropriations bills from 2012 to 2017.

The House Appropriations Committee tried the same maneuver this year and included language in its 2024 agriculture spending bill that would bar the agriculture secretary from using the CCC for any discretionary programs — which would bring the climate program to a screeching halt.

The Appropriations Committee approved the bill but it has not yet made it to the House floor for a vote, one of several spending bills tied up in disputes over how much the government should spend and whether the bills should include far-right policy objectives.

On the Senate side, the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved a bill in June that would not limit USDA’s discretionary use of CCC. But Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) also introduced a bill in July that would limit the disbursal of funds through the CCC to only those authorized by Congress.

“I’m concerned that the CCC is at risk of becoming a slush fund for politically-driven pet projects,” Grassley said in a statement announcing the bill.

But Senate Democrats, who hold a thin majority in that chamber, are unlikely to agree to a bill that would limit the department’s use of the fund. The chair of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees USDA, New Mexico Democrat Sen. Martin Heinrich, also has his own proposal, the Agriculture Resilience Act, that would fund regenerative agriculture projects. It has 12 cosponsors.

From cotton bailouts to trade wars

The Biden administration’s climate program is unique, but the dispute over the Commodity Credit Corporation to advance pet projects for a presidential administration is not new.

Indeed, the account itself was first created in an act of executive authority, during the Great Depression. President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the CCC in 1933 through an executive order he issued while Congress was out of session.

Creating a separate account for farm support gave the government more leeway to deal with the variable nature of farm payments. Congress appropriated $3 million to capitalize it and stock was acquired to raise it to $100 million.

In its early years, the CCC gave millions of dollars in non-recourse loans to struggling cotton farmers. It later added corn, wheat, tobacco and other crops. In 1939, Roosevelt signed another executive order that transferred ownership and management of the CCC to the secretary of agriculture.

The possibilities opened further when the Truman administration reconfigured the CCC in 1948 and gave the secretary of agriculture even more discretion to use the funds for a variety of purposes. Under that charter, USDA can use it to make loans, purchases or payments to help agriculture producers, support the sale of commodities to other agencies and assist in the development of new markets for agricultural commodities. A board of directors oversees the corporation.

Since then, the CCC has essentially become USDA’s bank and served as the primary financing source for many farm bill programs, including commodity supports and conservation programs.

The broad mandate and borrowing authority allow USDA to carry out “almost any operation required to meet the objectives of supporting U.S. agriculture,” according to an analysis from the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research group within the Library of Congress.

President Donald J. Trump’s administration took that to a new level in response to the administration’s trade war with China, using the CCC in dollar amounts that exceeded other administrations before or since.

“The Trump administration’s use of it was beyond creative, it was completely unprecedented,” said Ferd Hoefner, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant on farm and food policy. “It has been used frequently throughout history for all sorts of things, but they tended to be much lower-dollar amounts.”

The Trump administration directed $28 billion in aid to farmers in 2018-2019, when U.S. exports of agricultural goods dropped significantly in response to tariff increases.

USDA spent another $20 billion from the CCC in 2020 for producers who had been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, the Trump administration authorized over $51 billion from the CCC between 2018 and 2020, according to an analysis by the current USDA.

New payments, new markets

While some Republicans dislike the Biden administration’s use of the fund, the requests to participate in the Climate Smart Agriculture Program demonstrate the idea has some traction.

Initially USDA announced it would invest $1 billion in the partnerships but tripled its commitment because of the overwhelming requests for funding. USDA officials say they received more than 1,000 proposals from more than 500 groups — which would have totaled over $20 billion if they had funded them all.

They settled on $3.1 billion in grants to universities, agribusiness groups and nonprofits that will run climate projects. Many of the programs will help connect farmers or landowners with consultants or land managers that can help them make environmental plans and pay them to implement practices like cover crops, no-till farming or planting trees.

The voluntary nature of the program and the incentives to participate will be key to getting farmers on board, according to Rob Larew, president of the National Farmers Union.

“It is important to remember that farmers are often trying to make sure that they stay financially solvent and are operating too often on really thin margins or in some cases negative margins,” said Larew.  “If someone is trying to tell you to improve your soil health with a cover crop, if you are not currently doing that and operating on such thin margins, it is a huge leap of faith and a real financial risk in order to make that move.”

Programs across the country will enroll farmers and collect data. For instance, an alliance led by Virginia Tech will enroll over 4,000 producers in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota and Virginia for practices that include a pilot program to test new feed design and additives for livestock. Their project also plans to prototype a climate-smart certificate that can be sold in the private market.

Blue Diamond almond growers will offer no-cost seed and payments to farmers to put in conservation cover crops on their land.

The Climate Smart Partnerships are not a carbon bank or certification process — at least not yet. But many of them are working on ways to market climate-smart products.

For instance, the food processing giant Archer-Daniels Midland Company (ADM) received a $90 million grant to expand climate-smart corn, soybeans, wheat and peanut markets in 22 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin).

ADM will offer incentive payments to producers for climate-savvy improvements. They plan to develop climate-smart products with partners including Costco and Keurig-Dr. Pepper.

American Forest Foundation received $35 million to help create forest management plans with landowners of private forests in 13 states (Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia). The group also plans to develop a new tracking system for third-party verification of climate benefits with wood products that come from participating properties.

“What we are delighted by through this opportunity is seeing USDA step up in a big way to incentivize this and say really both people and the planet matter,” said Beth Riley, director of public climate finance and philanthropy at American Forest Foundation.

Private landowners are responsible for 39 percent of the nation’s forests but fewer than 13 percent of them have a land management plan, according to the American Forest Foundation.

Click here to see USDA’s database that shows climate-smart projects in each state.

Wildfire smoke clouds the skyline on June 28, 2023, in Chicago. Chicago, Detroit and other parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes experienced poor air quality in June from wildfires in Canada, and by the last days of June it had encompassed some East Coast cities as well (Scott Olson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — In a summer of drought, smoke and haze, wildfires could flare up in unusual locations in the United States over the next few months — including New England and the Midwest, according to federal forecasters.

“The predominant threat looks to be the Northeast, which is not normal,” said Jim Karels, the fire director for the National Interagency Fire Center, the federal center in Boise, Idaho that coordinates the national response to wildland fires. “This year it looks like there is potential for elevated fire conditions all the way into August, from Minnesota to Maine and down along the Eastern Seaboard.”

As wildfires continued in Canada, Chicago, Detroit and other parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes experienced poor air quality in late June, and by the last days of June it had encompassed some East Coast cities as well.

The Fire Center’s recent summer outlook forecasts atypical wildfire activity also for the northern tier of the United States, but a reprieve across much of the West, which has in recent years been scorched by above-average fire activity. That’s thanks, in part, to an unusually wet winter and record snowpack.

In a standard year, the lush green days of midsummer would be a quiet season for wildfires in the Midwest and Northeast. The regular wildfire seasons for these regions are early spring and early fall, before new growth has started in the spring and after the summer heat has dried out grasses and leaves that can fuel a fire.

The elevated fire danger this summer is due to the dry spring and forecasts for more hot, dry weather this summer.

“It is unusually dry for early June in the Great Lakes and there are above-normal temperatures. That is what is exacerbating the situation,” said Steve Marien, a meteorologist and the Eastern Area Fire Weather Program Manager for the National Park Service. “There is quite a bit of drought either in development or in place … especially in the northeastern quarter of the US. It’s abnormal for this early in the summer.”

A June 22 update from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows a map blotted in drought warnings from Virginia to Vermont and over much of the Midwest. The East Coast has “abnormally dry” to “moderate drought” conditions. Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan’s lower peninsula are in moderate drought. And Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska have large areas of extreme drought.

That’s highly unusual for this time of year, but Marien says conditions can change. Further drought could develop in parts of the Midwest and Northeast, or with some luck, rain could restore the region over the coming months.

But recent rains that cooled the mid-Atlantic around the days of the summer solstice were not enough to bring the region out of moderate drought.

Fire analysts use data and forecasts from the National Forest Service and National Weather Service to make the wildfire forecast, which they update monthly to help direct firefighting resources.

The unusual fire patterns could place a strain on some federal firefighting resources, which are usually centered in the West over the summer. The National Interagency Fire Center helps coordinate where to strategically place air tankers, helicopters and other resources.

“It evolves around fire threats — weekly and daily we are looking at what resources we have and what is available,” said Karels, the fire director from NIFC.

Fires scorch North Carolina, Michigan

Already, unexpected blazes have ravaged parts of the East Coast and Midwest.

A campfire in Grayling, Michigan, on June 3 sparked a fire that burned for four days. It consumed 2,400 acres and prompted evacuations before it was contained.

Nationwide, as of June 22 there were 12 large fires in four states: New Mexico, Washington, Arizona and North Carolina, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

In North Carolina, a prescribed burn June 13 raged out of control, burning tens of thousands of acres and growing big enough to be seen from space. The air pollution from the fire caused red alert air quality warnings.

A prescribed or controlled burn is a tactic that forest managers use to try to mimic natural wildfire patterns in a controlled setting — letting fire burn some debris in a forest and then putting out the blaze. N.C. Forest Service officials have said they do not know how their prescribed burn spread out of control.

The National Weather Service issued warnings in June for critical fire risk in Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the East Coast states have seen multiple air quality alerts due to hazy skies, increased ground level ozone and particulate dust.

Climate change

The smoke lifted from some of the record-breaking bad air quality days that New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago experienced earlier this summer, when particulates from wildfires in Canada brought gray and orange skies reminiscent of the Star Wars planet of Tatooine. But by the last days of June, it had returned.

With parts of Canada and the United States at risk for an unusually active fire season this summer, the Midwest and Eastern United States could be in for more unusual fire activity and the air pollution that comes with it.

“There will be more air pollution days because of wildfires, no doubt about that,” said Andy Hoell, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, known as NOAA. “Where they start, where they burn and also the weather patterns will determine how bad it will be in certain areas.”

There are three main ingredients that create a wildfire: fuel (grasses, plants, leaves, trees, and anything that burns), ignitions (from humans or lightning), and dry conditions.

Wildfire smoke contains fine particles of smoke and soot. The particles naturally move on air currents, and the heat of wildfires can push smoke higher into the atmosphere, helping it to travel longer distances. Weather patterns like wind, pressure systems and rain can affect where the smoke from a wildfire travels.

Wildfire is a natural part of forest ecology. But the size and number of recent wildfires is not the norm.

As climate change brings hotter, drier weather, wildfire seasons are getting longer and more intense. And some of the fires are burning hotter and longer because there is so much dry fuel available to feed the flames.

“By generally any metric we look at around the world, wildfires are getting worse, burning larger areas more severely at higher elevations, and burning over longer periods of the year.” said Kristina Dahl, the principal climate scientist for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

It is not a linear trend, since some years are better than others. But the area burned by wildfires has doubled in Canada since the 1970s and quadrupled in the Western United States in that same time. Longer, drier summers have erased the concept of a “fire season” and turned it into a “fire year” in some parts of the arid West.

“In the case of any one particular year it can be hard to say because there is a lot of variability from year to year, but we know that the increase in heat extremes, for example, that the Midwest has seen, are linked to human-caused climate change,” said Dahl.

Worsening fires have created a climate-fire feedback, as carbon dioxide from the fires spews into the atmosphere.

A study published in the journal Science Advances found that wildfires in the North American boreal forests — like those aflame in Canada this month — have the potential to play an outsized role in future fire-related emissions. Boreal forests contain roughly two-thirds of stored global forest carbon.

Wildfires in these forests could contribute 12 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere over the next three decades, according to peer-reviewed research from scientists at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Woodwell Climate Research Center and Tufts University. That amount is equivalent to the annual emissions of 2.6 billion fossil fuel-powered cars.

In another study, researchers determined emissions from the 2020 wildfires in California could have wiped out the gains the state had made in greenhouse gas reductions since 2003.

“In order to prevent wildfires from growing worse in the future, one of the most important things we can do is reduce carbon emissions and wean ourselves from fossil fuels” said Dahl. “The more we emit going forward, the more we can expect wildfires to continue to worsen, big picture and long terms.”

The federal government paid more than $478 billion from 2015 to 2021 in farm support for crop insurance, disasters, conservation payments and subsidies for certain crops like corn and soybeans(Scott Olson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The top 10% of recipients of federal farm payments raked in more than 79% of total subsidies over the last 25 years — producing billions of dollars for a relatively small group of U.S. producers, according to a new analysis of federal data from an environmental group.

In total, the federal government paid more than $478 billion from 2015 to 2021 in farm support for crop insurance, disasters, conservation payments and subsidies for certain crops like corn and soybeans, according to the analysis of federal data the Environmental Working Group released Wednesday.

The U.S. Agriculture Department programs support hundreds of thousands of producers across the country. But a select group of super collectors is bringing in an outsized portion of farm subsidies.

The top 1% collected 27% of total subsidies between 1995 and 2021, according to the report.

Some of the farm payments are more opaque. The government does not release information on all of the individuals who receive support for crop insurance. And the Trump administration changed how it reported some farm subsidies, so it lists them by banks instead of individuals, making it harder to see who received some of the payments from 2019 to 2021.

More than half of farm subsidies over the last 25 years were commodity payments to crops like corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice, according to the EWG database.

“Based on what we do know, we can still see the most successful farm businesses are still collecting the lion’s share of subsidies … while the vast majority of farmers are getting little or nothing,” said Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, an independent nonprofit that conducts extensive research.

The biggest of those were corn subsidies.

Federal spending on crop insurance has grown in recent farm bills, and crop insurance payments now make up a quarter of all subsidy payments.

In Iowa, the family farm that is managed by the son of Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a farm policy leader, received more than $1.4 million from 1995 to 2021, the report shows. The payments included disaster, corn, soybean and oat commodity subsidies.

The payments are listed for Robin Grassley, the family farm manager. Chuck Grassley and Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa both sit on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Pat Grassley, a state representative in Iowa and the senator’s grandson, collected $55,500 in federal payments since 2005. Most of those were relatively small commodity payments from $700 to $2,000 a year — with the exception of 2020, when he received $20,000.

The database compiles data collected from federal reporting and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Harvesting federal support

The distribution of farm subsidies does not necessarily follow the amount of agricultural production in a state.

For instance, California is the most agriculture-producing state, according to the USDA, but is 11th on the list for subsidy payments.

North Carolina is in the top 10 for agriculture production but ranks 20th for farm subsidy receipts. Instead, more money goes to Texas, Iowa and Illinois, where large farms grow subsidized commodity crops, like corn and soybeans.

The top 15 states with the most total farm subsidies distributed from 1995 to 2021, ranked by payments, were:

1. Texas ($44.5 billion)
2. Iowa ($39. 6 billion)
3. Illinois ($32.7 billion)
4. Minnesota ($28.1 billion)
5. Kansas ($27.7 billion)
6. Nebraska ($27 billion)
7. North Dakota ($26.6 billion)
8. South Dakota ($21 billion)
9. Missouri ($17.4 billion)
10. Indiana ($16.5 billion)
11. California ($16.3 billion)
12. Arkansas ($15.9 billion)
13. Ohio ($12.8 billion)
14. Wisconsin ($11.7 billion)
15. Oklahoma ($11.5 billion).

Pennsylvania, a major agricultural state, is 29th on the list with $3.4 billion from 1995-2021. The biggest subsidy programs in the state are for dairy farmers.

But 80% of Pennsylvania’s producers do not receive federal farm subsidies, according to the report.

Producers in House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson’s congressional district in Pennsylvania received nearly $35 million in commodity payment support from 1995 to 2021, according to the database. The largest of those went to Long Acres Potato Farms in Tionesta, which collected more than $1.5 million over that time period.

Farm bill debate launches

The report comes as Congress kicks off its rewrite of the sweeping federal farm bill, which will set both policy and funding levels for farm, food and conservation programs for the next five years. The Senate Agriculture Committee held its first farm bill hearing of the year Wednesday. The current farm bill expires at the end of September.

Originally a product of the New Deal, the first farm bill in 1933 focused on commodity price support to provide relief for farmers and ensure a steady domestic food supply for Americans during the Great Depression.

Since then, lawmakers have passed 18 farm bills and greatly expanded the reach of the legislation.

For example, Congress added a conservation section to the farm bill in 1985 with payments for farmers who conserve soil, idle land for wildlife habitat or employ certain conservation practices.

But the biggest spending in recent farm bills is not on farms at all but in the nutrition title, which includes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

The politically fraught process of authoring a new farm bill faces extra challenges this year from a divided Congress, a looming debate over the federal debt ceiling and the potential for extended amendments in the House.

The leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees, Thompson and Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, have each said they will aim to finish a new farm bill on time but acknowledged it will be a challenge this year.

“We know because of the timeline and all of the complexity of everything going on and the challenges in the House that it may take a little bit longer, but we’re committed to getting it done,” Stabenow said in a January interview on the web broadcast Agri-Pulse newsmakers.

Crop subsidies could face attacks

Crop subsidies come under fire in every farm bill debate — both from environmental groups that would like to see the money invested elsewhere and budget hawks who want to trim federal spending.

The Republican Study Committee, whose members make up 80% of all Republican members of Congress, proposed drastic cuts for the farm bill and limits on some farm subsidies in the draft budget it released last summer as a “Blueprint to Save America.”

But Agriculture Committee leaders have not indicated they intend to undertake any massive overhaul in this farm bill.

Thompson has said he does not want to dismantle farm supports, which he and other farm state lawmakers see as a safety net critical for producers and rural communities.

Democrats on his committee have not shown enthusiasm for an overhaul of farm subsidies, either.

In a recent list of farm bill priorities, Georgia Rep. David Scott, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, did not include changes for farm subsidies other than extending programs for livestock producers and  small farmers.

Georgia Republican Rep. Austin Scott, who will chair the subcommittee that oversees farm commodities, said at a farm bill listening session last month that he wants to look at the reference prices that trigger payments for row crops but has not expressed interest in a massive subsidy overhaul.

A farmer harvests corn near Slater, Iowa. on Oct. 17, 2020 (Perry Beeman/Iowa Capital Dispatch).

WASHINGTON — Republicans who may be taking control of Congress in next week’s midterm elections have not been very specific about many policy goals—but the farm bill is an exception.

Members of the GOP in the U.S. House and Senate are sending strong signals they want to strip climate funding from the massive legislation in 2023 if they take control. That would thwart farmland conservation advocates, who had hoped to make it one of the most significant investments ever made for climate-smart practices on American farmland.

Both House and Senate GOP members of the agriculture panels sent letters to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in late October asking for justification for the administration’s recent investment in “climate-smart agriculture,” and protesting what they said was a lack of consultation with Congress.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had announced in September $2.8 billion for research and pilot projects to support climate-friendly food production. The agency plans to announce a second group of “climate-smart commodities” projects later this year.

Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, asked Vilsack on Oct. 27 for a report on the department’s rationale for its spending.

And a group of House Republicans said Congress should have been consulted before launching the climate program “in this difficult farm economy when so many are struggling with rising input costs, drought, and an ongoing supply chain crisis.”

“We are dismayed at the lack of transparency and congressional consultation throughout the development of this process,” Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., and Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., wrote in an Oct. 28 letter along with eight other Republicans from the Congressional Western Caucus, a group of lawmakers that purports to be a “voice for rural America.”

Every five years

Lawmakers must rewrite the sweeping farm bill every five years to set both policy and funding levels for farm, food and conservation programs. The next farm bill needs to be authorized by September 2023.

Both agriculture and environmental advocacy groups have geared up for this next farm bill to potentially have a significant section for “climate-smart” farm practices, such as funding for farmers to plant trees and cover crops, use less water or leave soil un-tilled.

If so, it could be the first farm bill in more than 30 years to explicitly address climate change. The Biden administration has come out in support of such practices—notably using a general fund designated for farm support to finance new research on farmland climate mitigation.

Agriculture Committee members tout the bipartisan process they use to write the farm bill, but the question of how much focus to put on climate change is one that clearly already is dividing on party lines.

The Republican Study Committee, whose members make up 80 percent of all Republican members of Congress, proposed drastic cuts for the farm bill in the draft budget it released as a “Blueprint to Save America.” It rejects investment in a “radical climate agenda’ and outlines a plan to defund farm bill conservation programs that pay farmers to retire environmentally sensitive croplands.

And a major dispute centers around the Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed in August. It has a slate of programs to address climate change, including more than $20 billion for climate investments on farmland. Congress could fold that into the next farm bill for unprecedented farmland conservation spending.

The Inflation Reduction Act would provide about a 47 percent increase over previous farm bill levels, according to an analysis from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

But the top Republicans on both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have said they may forego additional investment in climate provisions.

Boozman categorized the funding for agriculture climate programs as “misplaced priorities” and has said it could undermine the farm bill process.

“It unilaterally creates a multi-billion-dollar slush fund for farm bill priorities shared by the president and his allies,” Boozman said in remarks on the Senate floor in August.

“We have a storied history of working together at the Agriculture Committee… unfortunately with this decision the majority has changed that dynamic…they have undermined one of the last successful bipartisan processes remaining in the Senate,” Boozman said.

Similarly, on the House side, Pennsylvania Republican Glenn Thompson, the top Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, said at a hearing last month that the IRA funding “endangered the bipartisan support” for the farm bill conservation title. Thompson could take over as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee if Republicans win a majority in the House.

“I will not sit idly by as we let decades of real bipartisan progress be turned on its head to satisfy people that at their core think agriculture is a blight on the landscape,” Thompson told other members of the committee. “I have been leaning into the climate discussion, but I will not have us suddenly incorporate buzzwords like regenerative agriculture into the Farm Bill or overemphasize climate.”

“I don’t feel bound by the amount of funding or the specific program allocation passed in the partisan IRA bill. I am especially worried about earmarking all the new money just for climate, rather than letting the locally led process work,” Thompson said.

‘Climate-smart’ agriculture

The pushback from Republicans comes as support for “climate-smart” practices has gained unprecedented momentum in the agriculture community.

“There’s a lot of opportunity for making the next farm bill into a climate farm bill. There’s a lot of momentum,” said Anne Schechinger, Midwest director for the Environmental Working Group.

A group of over 150 progressive, agriculture and environmental groups are pushing for the next farm bill to invest in research, technical assistance and financial incentives to help farmers and ranchers reduce emissions. In a letter to President Joe Biden in September they called on the administration to “meet the climate crisis head on” in the next farm bill.

Supporters include state farm cooperatives, community farm groups and environmental groups, including Environmental Working Group.

But it’s not only environmental groups that are pushing for new research and investment in climate-smart practices.

Major farm groups have also come out in support of investment in voluntary climate initiatives for farmers—part of a gradual shift over the years. In previous farm bill or climate debates, some farming and agribusiness groups resisted climate programs for fear it would lead to too many regulations on farmland.

But in the past two years, major farm groups formed a “food and agriculture climate alliance” to make recommendations for climate policy.

It includes the National Farmers Union, American Farm Bureau Federation, Environmental Defense Fund and trade groups representing sugar, cotton, corn and rice growers.

The National Farmers Union included climate change programs in its “days of advocacy” last year, when farmers came to Washington, D.C. to ask lawmakers for support. And the more conservative American Farm Bureau Federation has come full force behind climate-smart solutions for farmers.

Because of this momentum, some experts think the next farm bill will move toward more investment in climate programs regardless of the party with the gavel—they just might not do so as explicitly if Republicans take control.

“Who knows what phrase the farm bill might ultimately decide to use, but I think it is inevitable, regardless of who is in charge, that this farm bill will tackle climate change more directly,” said Ferd Hoefner,  a Washington, D.C.-based consultant on farm and food policy who has worked on nine previous farm bills.

1990 farm bill

The only farm bill to previously explicitly fund “climate change” was the 1990 farm bill, which had a “Global Climate Change” title drafted in response to the devastating 1988 droughts.

While other farm bills have not mentioned climate change, the conservation title includes billions of dollars for programs that pay farmers to rest sensitive acreage, preserve wildlife habitat or make environmental improvements to working lands.

“We might not necessarily see the word ‘climate’ show up as much in the farm bill if Republicans do take over, but a lot of these conservation programs are really supported by both parties,” said Schechinger.

But Schechinger says USDA needs to do a better job of investing conservation money in practices that are good for the climate. Some programs, like cover crops, have a beneficial effect.

But other practices that the farm bill pays for, like lagoons for animal manure, can actually increase carbon emissions from farms. Nationwide, USDA spent $174 million on animal waste storage facilities since 2017, as part of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, according to EWG’s analysis of federal data.

“We are spending millions of dollars on some of these practices that are actually bad for climate change, that actually increase emissions,” said Schechinger.

The group wants the next farm bill to increase cost share and prioritization for climate-smart practices to encourage more farmers to take on practices that reduce emissions.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (Laura Olson/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Monday questioned the legality of race-conscious policies in college admissions, as the justices weighed two cases that could upend the admissions process many colleges use to try to boost diversity on campus.

At issue are two cases that challenge the lawfulness of affirmative action at Harvard University, the nation’s oldest private university, and the University of North Carolina, one of its oldest public universities.

Depending on the scope of the court’s ruling, the outcome of these lawsuits could affect admissions at hundreds of colleges and universities across the country and even potentially affect broader efforts like workplace diversity programs.

The oral arguments, scheduled to last just over two-and-a-half hours, stretched for nearly six hours in one of the most controversial cases before the court this year

Members of the court’s conservative wing, who now make up a 6-3 majority of the bench, questioned if it is legal for universities to consider race and for how long such policies should endure.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative justice and the only Black man on the Supreme Court, asked each of the lawyers who argued in favor of UNC’s admissions process to explain how racial diversity benefits the educational experience of students.

“I didn’t go to racially diverse schools but there were educational benefits. And I’d like you to tell me expressly when a parent sends a kid to college that they don’t necessarily send them there to have fun or feel good or anything like that. They send them there to learn physics or chemistry or whatever they’re studying,” Thomas said to Ryan Park, the attorney representing UNC. “So tell me what the educational benefits are to that?”

Park referenced studies that found diverse groups of people perform at a higher levels, have less group-think, more sustained disagreement and more efficient decision-making outcomes.

Thomas sounded unmoved: ”Well, I guess I don’t put much stock in that because I’ve heard similar arguments in favor of segregation too.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked how religious diversity is considered in the admissions process and why it has “disparate treatment” from racial consideration.

Liberals defend ‘pipelines to leadership’

The more liberal justices, who are in the minority, defended the use of race in admissions and argued it would be difficult to achieve diversity without any consideration of race.

Justice Elena Kagan, the former dean of Harvard Law School, noted the importance of racial diversity on college campuses because they are “pipelines to leadership in our society.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned if a college could consider the breadth of a student’s experience without consideration of race.

She presented an example of a Black student, descended from slaves who were not allowed to attend UNC, who would not be allowed to write about that in his application. But a white student, descended from generations of UNC graduates, would be able to reference the importance of that family connection.

“What I am worried about is … the context of a holistic review process of a university that can take into account and value all of the other background and personal characteristics of applicants, but they can’t value race,” Jackson said in arguments with the lawyer challenging UNC’s policies.

“What I’m worried about is that it seems to me to have the potential of causing more of an equal protection problem than it is solving,” Jackson added.

Jackson participated in the debate of the UNC case but not the Harvard case. Jackson, the first Black woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice, is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and sat on the Harvard Board of Overseers until last spring.

‘How do you know when you are done?’

Since 1978, the Supreme Court has maintained that colleges and universities may consider race or ethnicity as a “plus factor” in admissions to try to create more diversity on campuses.

Schools cannot have racial quotas or use race as a sole determining factor. It is one factor among many they may consider in acceptance.

But the victories for affirmative action have been narrow in the last three different Supreme Court decisions, where the justices split 5-4, 5-4 and 4-3 to uphold its constitutionality.

The Supreme Court last ruled on an affirmative action case in 2016, recent history in the timeline of case law.

Chief Justice John Roberts, Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito were the dissenters in the 2016 decision. Now they have three more conservatives on the bench with them: Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.

Several of those more conservative justices questioned if the policy should endure. They noted that one of the precedent-setting cases itself warned that such policies should not go on forever. The 2003 Grutter vs. Bollinger case that allowed the limited use of race in college admissions also forecast that affirmative action would no longer be needed 25 years after the ruling.

The court’s conservative justices asked if colleges are reaching the end of that timeline, 19 years later.

“When do you read or do you calculate, to the extent you consider it at all, the 25-year limit?” Kavanaugh asked.

They also questioned how to determine if the goals of affirmative action are ever reached.

“How do you know when you are done? When would you have the endpoint?” Barrett asked.

“I don’t see how you can say that the program will ever end,” Roberts told UNC lawyer Ryan Park.

DOJ predicts broad effects of potential ruling

Gen. Elizabeth Prelogar, solicitor general for the Department of Justice, joined the defendants to argue in favor of current policies. She noted racial diversity is particularly important at the nation’s military schools and academies to help ensure a more diverse officer corps that reflects the diversity of enlisted soldiers.

But she said the effects of a ruling could be much more broad.

“The petitioner seeks a sweeping ruling that would harm students at schools and colleges throughout the nation. A blanket ban on race conscious admissions would cause racial diversity to plummet at many of our nation’s leading educational institutions,” Prelogar said.

“Race-neutral alternatives right now can’t make up the difference, so all students at those schools would be denied the benefits of learning in a diverse educational environment. And because college is the training ground for America’s future leaders, the negative consequences would have reverberations throughout just about every important institution in America.”

Nonprofit pursued challenge

The nonprofit Students for Fair Admissions filed the lawsuits to argue that consideration of race is discriminatory and violates civil rights laws.

In the North Carolina case, it argues the university discriminates against white and Asian American applicants by giving preference to Black, Native American or Hispanic applicants.

The group accuses Harvard in particular of discriminating against Asian American applicants in order to boost representation from other groups. According to the group, Asian American applicants are significantly less likely to be admitted to Harvard than similarly qualified white, Black or Hispanic applicants.

“What Harvard is doing to Asians, like what it was doing to Jews in the 1920s, is shameful, But it’s a predictable result of letting universities use race in highly subjective processes,” Cameron Norris, the lawyer arguing against the Harvard policy, told the court. Harvard limited the number of Jewish students it accepted in the 1920s.

The cases are the pinnacle of decades of legal challenges from Students for Fair Admissions, a group started by Edward Blum, a retired financier and conservative legal activist who has launched other lawsuits over what he sees as racial preferences in school admissions.

An aerial view from a drone shows a combine being used to harvest the soybeans in a field at the Bardole & Son's Ltd farm on Oct. 14, 2019 in Rippey, Iowa. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON —   As lawmakers begin envisioning the next farm bill, some U.S. House Republicans are wary of making climate change a priority for farmers and ranchers.

The pushback from Republicans at a Tuesday hearing came as the Biden administration has tried to make significant new investments in climate change mitigation on farmland, last week announcing 70 pilot projects to support climate-friendly food production.

Lawmakers must rewrite the sweeping farm bill every five years to set policy and funding for agriculture, conservation and nutrition programs. The next farm bill is due in 2023, and some environmental groups are eyeing it as a potential boon for fighting climate change.

It’s also unclear which party will control the U.S. House and Senate following November’s midterm elections.

The farm bill includes massive funding for conservation programs—the previous legislation budgeted nearly $30 billion over five years.

More than 140 million acres of farmland in the U.S. are currently receiving conservation-related financial and technical assistance from the federal government, according to an analysis from the Farm Bureau. By comparison, the national park system has more than 85 million acres, according to the National Park Service.

The farmland conservation programs have received bipartisan support in the past, but some Republicans on Tuesday expressed concern about a growing interest in climate mitigation on farmland.

“Congress must be mindful of this massive amount of funding before amending programs or making policy changes that reorient programs toward climate. No one natural resource concern should be prioritized over others,” California Republican Rep. Douglas LaMalfa said at a hearing in a panel of the House Agriculture Committee.

LaMalfa is currently the top ranking Republican on the Subcommittee on Conservation and Forestry.

New money at hand

At issue is both how to shape the conservation programs in the next farm bill and how to manage an extra funding infusion from the recently approved  Inflation Reduction Act.

That bill, which the House and Senate passed in August, has a slate of programs to address climate change, including more than $20 billion for climate investments on farmland. Those include support for no-till agriculture, cover crops or other programs that affect the soil’s ability to hold carbon.

It will provide about a 47 percent increase over previous farm bill levels, according to an analysis from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

But for his part, the top Republican on the full committee indicated he would prefer to go his own way in directing the funding.

“I don’t feel bound by the amount of funding or the specific program allocation passed in the partisan IRA bill. I am especially worried about earmarking of all the new money just for climate, rather than letting the locally led process work,” Rep. Glenn Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, told colleagues at the hearing.

Republicans were critical of the new USDA initiative.

“We got the White House combined with my colleagues who are a real threat to the family farm today, in the name of this climate god, this new world religion,” said Rep. Rick Allen, a Georgia Republican.

Climate-smart commodities 

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced last week that the administration would invest $2.8 billion in pilot projects.

The program, Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, will fund programs for greenhouse gas reductions on dairy farms, and projects to build markets for climate-smart beef, grains and fruits and vegetables.

“There is strong and growing interest in the private sector and among consumers for food that is grown in a climate-friendly way,” Vilsack said in a statement announcing the new programs.

The Agriculture Department plans a second round of funding for more pilot projects later this year.

Applicants submitted more than 450 project proposals for this first funding pool, according to USDA. The money comes from the Commodity Credit Corporation, a government corporation created in 1933 that has traditionally funded foreign market development projects, price support, domestic farm income and conservation programs.

Vilsack and other Democrats see farmers as key stakeholders in addressing climate change. Agriculture was responsible for just over 11 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, according to the EPA.

Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger, the chairwoman of the conservation subcommittee, said that she hopes to partner with farmers on climate programs.

“We are looking to find on-farm efficiencies and boost the bottom line for producers and make sure we are combating the climate crisis with the first conservationists, who are our nation’s farmers and producers,” Spanberger said at the conclusion of the hearing.

The hearing is one in a series to prepare for the 2023 farm bill.

 High demand

The farm bill’s conservation programs pay farmers to make environmental improvements on working land or to replace crops on highly erodible and environmentally sensitive land.

Despite the funding increases in recent farm bills, demand from producers for the programs still outpaces the availability from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the agency within the Agriculture Department that oversees most of the conservation programs.

“NRCS continues to be oversubscribed,” said Nicole Berg, president of the National Association of Wheat Growers.

Since the 2018 farm bill, wheat farmers have entered 7,500 contracts in conservation programs, but another 5,000 valid applications from wheat growers did not receive funding, according to Berg.

“Noticing that a significant number of producers on the ground want to participate and can’t is a good call to action for us in the future,” Spanberger said.

Other producers complained that the application process is lengthy, and it can take months to get a response—which can be particularly problematic if producers want to address a pressing issue on their land.

“We were in a drought, and we needed some new water infrastructure, it was our biggest dilemma. I applied to NRCS, and we waited and waited but finally had to bite the bullet and do the project ourselves,” Shayne Wiese, a rancher from Manning, Iowa, told the committee—noting that new farmers and ranchers might not be able to finance a project on their own.

Lawmakers agreed they would like to support staffing for NRCS and a simpler application process for producers.

“I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel here. What we need are common sense adjustments to ensure that programs are serving their producers and their land well,” said Rep. Kim Schrier, a Washington Democrat.

In recent hearings on the 2023 farm bill, lawmakers in the U.S. House have discussed expanding crop insurance and trying to address the mounting challenges from drought, severe weather and climate change to the legislation (Scott Olson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Over the course of the next year, lawmakers on the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture committees will draft a new federal farm bill that will shape food, farm, conservation and nutrition programs across the country for the next five years.

The omnibus law that began 90 years ago as crop supports now has an impact far beyond the farm, with programs to create wildlife habitat, address climate change and run the nation’s largest federal nutrition program.

“Any number of economic policies that we establish in farm bills impact everybody’s daily lives,” said former U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee during the 2008 farm bill. The Georgia lawmaker now works at the global law firm DLA Piper.

Chambliss said farm bills affect food prices and availability, global trade and renewable fuels.

But he said the debate going into the legislation is often overshadowed by crop subsidies — the farm bill’s longstanding support system for producers of farm commodities. The payments are intended to provide economic stability for farmers but are usually a target for those who would like to invest the money elsewhere.

“The farm bills have evolved into a political football for all the wrong reasons,” Chambliss said in an interview with States Newsroom.

The current farm bill expires in September 2023. But given the size and implications of the programs, it is already farm bill season for lawmakers and the groups with a stake in the bill.

Advocacy groups are pulling together their farm bill platforms. And the House and Senate Agriculture committees have each started hosting farm bill hearings in Washington, D.C., and in some members’ home districts.

At the Senate Agriculture Committee’s first field hearing in Michigan in April, Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, listed climate change, conservation programs and expanding opportunities for midsized and local producers among her concerns for the new farm bill.

On the House side, Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, has said he wants to support beginning and underserved farmers and ranchers and expand opportunities for conservation and energy programs.

“My goals are to protect the farm bill coalition that has provided a safety net for those struggling to feed their families as well as for those who help to produce that food,” Scott said in an email to States Newsroom.

“We also know that many of our programs are oversubscribed, and our available funding has not kept up with the demand in the conservation and energy titles,” Scott said.

What does the farm bill cover?

Originally a product of the New Deal, the first farm bill in 1933 focused on commodity price support to provide relief for farmers and ensure a steady domestic food supply for Americans during the Great Depression.

Since then, lawmakers have passed 18 farm bills and greatly expanded the reach of the legislation. For example, Congress added a conservation section to the farm bill in 1985 and an energy title in 2002.

The most recent farm bill, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, has 12 titles and includes programs for commodity crops, nutrition, trade, crop insurance, forestry and rural development.

The farm bill’s conservation programs pay farmers to make environmental improvements on working land or to replace crops on highly erodible and environmentally sensitive land.

One year of outlays for farm bill conservation programs exceeds the annual budget for the National Park Service.

More than 140 million acres of farmland in the U.S. are currently receiving conservation-related financial and technical assistance from the federal government, according to an analysis from the Farm Bureau. The national park system has more than 85 million acres, according to the Park Service.

But the largest spending in the farm bill — three-fourths of the funding — goes to nutrition programs, particularly the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

“Most of the farm bill affects eaters, not farmers,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at Environmental Working Group, one of the advocacy groups that tracks farm bill spending.

How much money is at stake?

Like many bills on Capitol Hill, the farm bill has some “discretionary” programs, which are set up in the bill but have to be funded through the annual appropriations process.

But most of the farm bill programs are “mandatory” spending. That funding is set in the farm bill itself and goes out over the next five years, regardless of congressional appropriations. Those mandatory programs include crop subsidies, conservation programs, some forms of crop insurance and SNAP.

The 2018 farm bill was projected to spend $428 billion over five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  When crafting a new farm bill, lawmakers must keep the total within the baseline estimates for the previous farm bill or find another new funding source. The current baseline for farm bill programs for the next five years is $648 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s May 2022 estimates. A new estimate in spring 2023 will set the budget for the new farm bill.

“The difficult issue that we have every time we head into a farm bill is the budget,” said Chambliss.

Advocacy groups and lawmakers usually propose shifts in funding levels to try to direct more money to their favorite programs.

“The biggest problem is that there is only a certain amount of money we can have, so if we want more money we have to rob from Peter to pay for Paul,” Tom Haag, a vice president of the National Corn Growers Association, said at a recent panel discussion on the farm bill.

But conservation and other climate-related programs will receive another funding infusion this year from the Inflation Reduction Act, which gives a boost of more than $20 billion for climate investments on farmland. The bill is up for a vote before the U.S. House.

That will provide about a 47 percent increase over previous farm bill levels, according to an analysis from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

But folding that budget authority into the farm bill may not be a straightforward process, as Agriculture Committee members look for ways to direct it to their interests.

“Everyone is going to want a piece of that climate money,” said Ferd Hoefner, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant on farm and food policy who has worked on nine previous farm bills.

What crops are most affected?

Most farm bill crop subsidies go to the major commodity crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice.

The big three of corn, soybean and wheat farmers receive more than 70 percent of farm subsidies, according to an analysis from the Cato Institute.

Some other producers are eligible for the federal safety net through crop insurance, intended to help farmers manage for risk of loss from severe weather or market disruptions. Lawmakers have expanded the crop insurance program in recent farm bills, and its total spending now slightly exceeds that of crop subsidies.

The federal government provides policies for more than 100 crops, according to the USDA. But some small farmers with varied crops have said it is still hard for them to get crop insurance, since policies are regional and limited to certain “insurable commodities.”

The farm bill has smaller programs for organic agriculture and “specialty crops,” fruits, vegetables and nuts. It includes a cost-share program for organic certification, market development grants and research programs on citrus disease.

What states are most affected?

Agriculture subsidies, crop insurance and conservation programs have participants nationwide but tend to center on the Midwest, Great Plains and Texas.

Overall, Texas landowners get the most federal farm bill subsidies, according to an analysis of federal data from 1995-2020 from the Environmental Working Group. The analysis added commodity, conservation, disaster and crop insurance payments combined.

The rest of the top 10 states for farm subsidies are: Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri and Indiana.

The farm bill’s nutrition programs are nationwide, distributed based on household income in both rural areas and cities. The percent of residents receiving SNAP benefits in 2019 ranged from 19.8 percent in New Mexico to 4.2 percent in Wyoming, according to USDA.

Who are the players?

The farm bill is unique on Capitol Hill because it creates regional alliances around issues, rather than splitting along party lines. House and Senate Agriculture Committee members often tout their bipartisan approach.

“The issues in a farm bill are not between Republicans and Democrats — the difference primarily is regional,” said Chambliss.

Scott and Stabenow currently lead the House and Senate committees, but if Republicans take control of the House or Senate after the midterm elections, the leadership would shift to Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania in the House and John Boozman of Arkansas in the Senate.

Thompson represents rural central Pennsylvania and comes from a long line of dairy farmers. Boozman won the “golden plow” award from the American Farm Bureau in July for his support for farmers.

The presidential administration usually offers policy advice and program recommendations for the farm bill. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, is no stranger to the process, having also been at the helm of the USDA from 2009 to 2017 during the Obama administration.

A presidential veto of the farm bill is rare but not unprecedented. Since 1965, only the 2008 farm bill was vetoed as a standalone measure, according to the Congressional Research Service. President George W. Bush vetoed that bill twice in an effort to get more of his priorities in the bill. Congress overrode his vetos.

As the farm bill’s scope has expanded, more and more lobbyists and advocacy groups have joined the fray each year to try to influence the process.

Agribusiness groups, environmental organizations, climate change experts, poverty and hunger groups and religious organizations will all weigh in on the farm bill. Many of those groups are working with their members to create farm bill policy platforms that they will release in the coming months.

When will it get done?

The current farm bill’s mandatory programs expire at the end of September 2023, which creates a deadline for Congress to reauthorize a new bill before then.

Staff from the House and Senate Agriculture committees said they plan to hold more hearings on each title of the bill in the coming months, with the hopes of voting on a final bill well in advance of the deadline.

But in practice, in the last several farm bill cycles Congress has not met those deadlines and usually passed temporary extensions to keep programs running while they continued to negotiate until the end of the calendar year.

What might change this year?

The extra funding from the Inflation Reduction Act could lay the groundwork for a push for new climate policies in farm bill conservation programs.

In recent hearings, House lawmakers have also discussed expanding crop insurance and trying to address the mounting challenges from drought, severe weather and climate change.

At a farm bill hearing in July, Rep. Rick Allen, a Georgia Republican, urged his fellow lawmakers to tread carefully, given how chaotic the past few years have been for agriculture and the economy.

“We should not make major changes unless we are able to fully evaluate the consequences of those changes,” Allen said.

Lawmakers will likely include some pilot programs to test new ideas. Those could lay the groundwork for major changes in the future.

For example, former Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, championed a pilot program to give schoolchildren fresh fruits and vegetables as a snack. In 2005, it was scaled up to cover the entire country.

Farm bills traditionally have not included much for livestock producers, but some agriculture experts expect that to change this year, in response to the turmoil the sector faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

House Agriculture Chairman Scott introduced a small farmer or rancher relief act in July, indicating his interest in the issue. His proposal would provide targeted insurance to small ranchers with fewer than 100 cattle and a grant program for producers that sell direct to consumers.

How can I have input into what’s in the bill?

The House and Senate Agriculture Committees are both collecting ideas and feedback. The Senate Agriculture Committee has an online form for input on the farm bill. And House Agriculture is collecting feedback through a form on their website.

Every five years, Congress sets programs and mandatory funding levels for crop subsidies, crop insurance, farmland conservation programs and energy programs in the farm bill (file photo).

Major U.S. agricultural production groups are pulling together their requests for the next farm bill — the massive legislation that Congress rewrites every five years to set farm and food policy — with crop insurance and disaster assistance on the top of their lists.

A panel of executives from farm groups detailed some of their concerns and requests for the next farm bill Tuesday at the Minnesota FarmFest, an agribusiness fair organized by the American Farm Bureau.

The panel brought together major agriculture groups representing pork, cattle, corn, soybean and other growers. The groups all have a vested interest in supporting agriculture but some different priorities for where Congress should invest in farm policy.

Every five years, Congress sets programs and mandatory funding levels for crop subsidies, crop insurance, farmland conservation programs and energy programs in the farm bill. The farm bill also includes nationwide food and nutrition programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, and assistance programs for low-income parents and children.

The current farm bill expires in September 2023. But given the size and implications of the programs, it is already farm bill season for the groups with a stake in the bill.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, one of the large groups that represents a variety of farm producers, has a farm bill task force with representatives in each state.

They will coalesce by the end of the year around a set of official recommendations. Other large agriculture groups have a similar process.

But even as the groups work on their specific recommendations, they shared some early priorities – including funding, crop insurance and a forward-looking view for the next farm bill.

Money, money, money

The farm bill includes both mandatory and discretionary spending. Congress can change discretionary spending in the annual spending bills.

But most farm bill programs are mandatory spending, including crop subsidies, farm bill conservation programs and some forms of crop insurance. For those programs, the farm bill will set the funding structure for the next five years.

Given that structure, spending levels are always a huge debate in the farm bill.

“Some of the priorities that we have certainly would be to hold the funding together from the last farm bills,” Scott VanderWal, vice president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, told producers at FarmFest.

VanderWal said he knows some groups will ask for more money, but it will likely be a challenge to get any. The proposed Senate budget reconciliation bill in its section on climate change also includes major funding boosts for farm bill conservation programs.

But that is not stopping the American Soybean Association, which wants to push for more money for both nutrition programs like SNAP and the crop subsidies that fall under “Title One” of the farm bill.

“We really want to increase the funding for the farm bill. We think right now is the right time to ask for more funding, which will increase funding for the nutritional side and also for the Title One side,” said George Goblish, a representative of the executive board of the American Soybean Association

Insurance against disaster 

The 2018 farm bill did not make major changes to food and agriculture programs.

But one change it did include was an expansion of the crop insurance program, which gives farmers the opportunity to purchase insurance against losses from weather or market conditions.

Crop insurance was once a sliver of the farm safety net but now exceeds the traditional farm subsidy programs in size and spending. Crop insurance is available for more than 120 crops and to farmers of all sizes and in all 50 states.

Farm groups say it is a top priority for their growers to preserve the crop insurance programs.

“Crop insurance is our best safety net, and we can go from there,” said Tom Haag, first vice president of the National Corn Growers Association.

VanderWal of the Farm Bureau agreed that one of the top requests he has heard from their members is to preserve crop insurance or expand it to even more crops.

For animal producers, representatives from the pork and cattle industry said they are concerned about animal diseases from overseas and want support for potential catastrophe if diseases make it into American animal populations.

For instance, the African swine virus has been identified in the Dominican Republic, the closest it has ever been.

“The pork industry does not have a lot of asks, but our main asks are around supporting labs, vaccine banks and insurance for catastrophic loss,” said Terry Wolters, immediate past president of the National Pork Producers Council.

Don Schiefelbein of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association said his producers do not want the government to interfere in their business but do need assistance if there is a disaster like foot-and-mouth disease, a viral infection.

“Where we need them (government) is in a disaster type situation where we need a big brother helping out. If we look worldwide, there is a lot of foreign disease risk,” said Schiefelbein.

Looking ahead

The farm bill comes at a challenging time for U.S. producers, who are struggling with rising costs for fertilizer, fuel, seeds and chemicals — due in part to the war in Ukraine, strains on the global supply system, inflation and severe weather.

But Rob Larew, vice president of the National Farmers Union, said farm bill authors need to be sure to craft legislation that can support farmers regardless of circumstances.

“One of the chief mistakes that I think we all want to make sure that we learn from is that we don’t write a farm bill for the current date, or today’s conditions,” said Larew. He noted the flaws of past programs that assumed prices for certain crops might remain high.

“We don’t know yet what those challenges are going to be tomorrow — let’s make sure we have a farm bill that’s prepared,” Larew said.

A farmer plants corn into a cover crop of barley (Photo courtesy of U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service).

WASHINGTON —   More than half of American farmers will reach retirement age in the next 10 years, but the steep price of entry to start a farm, along with rising input costs and volatile markets, make it tough for young and beginning farmers to take their places.

“Farming is inherently a risky business, but in the environment we are in right now, that risk is elevated,” Nathan Kauffman, vice president and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in Omaha, Nebraska, testified at a U.S. House Agriculture Committee hearing Thursday.

The current financial outlook for farmers is particularly challenging.

Farmers face rising costs for not only farmland, but also fertilizer, fuel, seeds and chemicals. These rising costs are due in part to the war in Ukraine, strains on the global supply system, inflation and severe weather.

Meanwhile, high crop prices that have buoyed farmers over the past year are expected to go down.

“Uncertainty about the outlook for the U.S. agriculture economy is high and will depend significantly on global factors, particularly the war in Ukraine and the strength of global economic activity,” said Kauffman.

Demand for farm loans is expected to rise notably, and capital expenditure is expected to decline in the coming months for the first time since 2020, according to Kauffman.

House lawmakers are looking for ways to mitigate some of these risks and support young and beginning farmers in the next farm bill, the sweeping legislation that will set programs and funding levels for farm and food support for the next five years.

“It is a national and very critical issue. And we must ensure that the next generation of men and women can take the place of those who are retiring from this grand occupation called farming,”  House Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, told his colleagues at the hearing.

“This is very critical to me. And credit is one of those tools that we must make readily available,” Scott said.

An aging demographic

Aging farmers and the price of entry in the industry pose a challenge for U.S. agriculture.

A third of America’s 3.4 million farmers are over 65, according to the most recent agricultural census from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The census was taken in 2017 and published in 2019.

At the time, nearly a million more farmers were within a decade of the milestone retirement age of 65.

The census found that 27 percent of farmers qualify as “new and beginning producers,” with 10 years or less of experience in agriculture. Most of those farmers have operations that are smaller than average, both in terms of acres and value of production, according to USDA.

Members of the House Agriculture Committee said they are particularly interested in whether young, beginning or underserved farmers have access to credit, so they can get started in the high-capital world of agriculture.“In any agriculture operation, one of the most critical relationships the farmer may have is with his or her lender. This is especially true for young and beginning producers. Farming is capital intensive,” said Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the committee.

“The cost of entry is incredibly high and can act as a barrier to entry for these new agriculturalists trying to start or grow their farm operations.”

Challenge for federal loans

The Agriculture Department’s Farm Services Agency has an array of different loans available to farmers, including one targeted at young and beginning farmers.

But in practice, producers say the federal loan process can be laborious, slow and hard to access.

The struggle to obtain a loan can be especially acute for Black farmers, who can face racism and discrimination in applying for a loan, according to Dania Davy of the Alcorn State University Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Policy Research Center in East Point, Georgia.

Black farmers have reached out to her group for help when the Farm Services Agency recommended they use their credit card instead of a federal loan, or when loan delays put a generational family farm at risk.

“As we review the farm bill and prepare for the scheduled reauthorization, we must make use of the opportunity to prevent the looming threat of loss of Black farms, land and livelihoods that has been institutionalized by racially disparate credit access,” Davy told the committee.

Davy recommends a more robust civil rights process at the local level with farm loan field agencies.

Julia Asherman, who owns a small organic farm in Jeffersonville, Georgia, was able to finance her operation with three different Farm Service Agency loans.

But she said even her success story highlights some roadblocks in the process. It took two months for her to get approval for her loan and there was no option for pre-approval before she identified land to purchase. In a competitive market, a landowner would likely move on to the next bidder rather than wait that long for a loan.

“Farmers easily lose out on potential properties by not being able to act fast, and I’ve known several farmers personally who have not been able to use FSA loans to purchase for this reason,” Asherman said.

Asherman has a three-acre certified organic vegetable and specialty cut flower farm with five employees, three full-time and two part-time — a business she runs with no off-farm income.

But the FSA loan process is geared toward much larger operations, and it was a struggle to prove the validity of her farm.

“Their expectation of what a farm would look like, what it would gross per acre, and what it could produce per acre was in a totally different realm from what my understanding was, because they were really talking about a different kind of farming,” Asherman said.

The hearing was one in a series as the House Agriculture Committee ramps up its oversight work for the 2023 farm bill.

Hearings are set in Washington this month to examine farm credit, crop insurance and forestry programs. Lawmakers plan to take their show on the road in August with field hearings slated in committee members’ districts across the country.

The U.S. House passed legislation in March that would cap insulin co-pays at $35 for Americans with private health insurance. A dozen Republicans supported that bill, but the majority of House Republicans voted against it. The Senate proposal is more broad and could potentially draw more opposition (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Two key senators have unveiled the details of a bipartisan plan to lower costs for insulin, a lifesaving drug that some Americans have struggled to afford in recent years as prices have skyrocketed.

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, and Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, introduced the measure in June, after months of work to forge an agreement. It builds on legislation the pair first introduced in 2019 and would cap monthly co-pays for privately insured consumers as well as limit insulin rebates in an attempt to reel in list prices for the drug.

“Too many Americans are forced to ration their insulin, forced to decide what else to pay for, which puts their health and lives in danger. It is time for this to change,” Shaheen said at a press conference in the Senate announcing the bill. “We are calling for Senate leadership to move as expeditiously as possible on this bill.”

Shaheen and Collins said they are in talks with colleagues to try to get wide-ranging support and hope to see the bill on the Senate floor for a vote after the July 4 recess.

Central to their push is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who has vowed to try to advance the issue.

“No American should have to go broke to access the medicines they need to stay alive,” Schumer wrote on Twitter. “We will vote on this important bill.”

Difficulties ahead

But even with Schumer’s backing and bipartisan cosponsors, the bill could face a tough road in the Senate.

Shaheen and Collins will need unanimous support from Democrats and at least nine more Republicans to advance the legislation — a threshold that has been hard to reach for any legislation in the evenly divided Senate. A bipartisan guns package, however, was one recent example.

Collins said she has been talking to colleagues to try to gain support. Many have heard from constituents who have had trouble paying for their insulin.

“What I would suggest is this is an issue that transcends partisan lines. If you have diabetes, the disease does not care if you are a Democrat or a Republican,” Collins told reporters at a June press conference.

The U.S. House passed legislation in March that would cap insulin co-pays at $35 for Americans with private health insurance. A dozen Republicans supported that bill, but the majority of House Republicans voted against it. The Senate proposal is more broad and could potentially draw more opposition.

Earlier this year, Schumer placed the House bill on the Senate calendar as a placeholder. The procedural move allows the issue to come to the Senate floor without going through the full committee process first.

Insulin costs

Insulin is a life-saving medication for those with diabetes, but it has been increasingly difficult for some people to afford it. The cost of the four most popular types of insulin has tripled over the last decade, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Insulin prices have increased far beyond inflation rates — more so in the United States than the rest of the world.  Americans pay 10 times more on average for insulin than people in other developed countries, according to an analysis from the federal government.

For people with Type 1 diabetes, their body stops naturally making insulin, and they need daily medication to survive. But 1 in 4 Americans with diabetes have rationed their insulin, according to ADA. Skipping doses can cause grave short-term or long-term health effects.

Leaders of the three major companies that manufacture insulin — Eli Lilly, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk — have said they are not to blame for the rising prices. They told lawmakers in congressional hearings in 2019  that they could not lower the prices of insulin because of the way health insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers operate.

Entrenched rebate systems create a gap between the manufacturer’s list price and the price of insulin at the counter for purchasers. Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate rebates and coupons for their members, but those savings are not always available to purchasers and the uninsured are often left paying the full list price.

Representatives from the drug manufacturers told States Newsroom that they are still reviewing the Senate proposal.

“We just received the working draft and will be reviewing it this week,” said Antoinette Forbes, a spokesperson for Eli Lilly. “But, we are encouraged by the patient-centric language that is a step in the right direction.”

Likewise, a spokesperson for Sanofi said the company is still reviewing the proposed legislation and could not speak to its specifics yet. In the past, the company has supported caps on monthly co-pays and legislation that would require rebates to be shared with patients at the pharmacy counter.

Sanofi also recently announced a new program that will beat the federal government to the punch in lowering costs for some consumers.

The Paris-based company said on June 29 that it will cut the price of its insulin from $99 per month to $35 per month for uninsured U.S. residents. The savings, which go into effect July 1, go to uninsured people who have a savings card with the Insulins Valyou Savings Program.

Both co-pays and list prices

The Senate bill, called the Improving Needed Safeguards for Users of Lifesaving Insulin Now, or INSULIN, Act, aims to address both patient co-pays and list prices.

It would cap monthly co-pays for insulin at $35 a month or 25 percent of the list price — whichever is lower. This would affect those in commercial health care plans and Medicare Part D.

That language is similar to the legislation Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, has been pushing all year.  His bill has 35 Democratic cosponsors.

The Warnock language could provide financial relief to at least 1 out of 5 insulin users with various kinds of private health insurance, according to an analysis of insurance claims data from the Peterson Center on Healthcare and Kaiser Family Foundation.

Shaheen and Collins also included additional language that aims to reduce the overall price of insulin, not just how much insured patients have to pay for it.

Their proposal would prevent insurance plans and pharmacy benefit managers from collecting rebates on insulins, as long as manufacturers agree to cap their prices at the 2021 “net price,” the level consumers with a rebate would have paid after the rebate.

The language is meant to encourage drugmakers to lower prices and keep the middleman rebates out of the equation — which drive up drug costs at the point of sale.

The price of insulin at the counter is a combination of the amount that goes to manufacturers and to pharmacy managers — which also includes coupons and rebates. Currently, manufacturers say they are stuck in a system where pharmacy benefit managers favor products with high list prices and deep rebate coupons that help them attract clients. But that system puts those who cannot access the rebates in trouble.

For insulin the differential is extreme. In 2013, the average rebates for long-acting insulin were around 2 percent to 4 percent.  But six years later, rebates were nearly 80 percent, according to an investigation by the Senate Finance Committee.

The Senate proposal already has the support of some major diabetes advocacy groups, including the American Diabetes Association and  Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

“Right now we have a broken system, where people with diabetes can pay $300 or more for a vial of insulin while others in the health system receive discounts,” said Cynthia Rice, chief mission strategy officer at JDRF. “The INSULIN Act will take important steps for the diabetes community.”

“What this legislation and leadership provide is a more comprehensive solution that addresses the multiple factors that lead to the in-affordability of insulin,” said Robert Gabbay, the chief scientist at ADA.” This legislation is what people with diabetes need around the country.”

Scrutiny for the middleman

Pharmacy benefit managers are an unseen part of the drug pricing system with enormous influence. The middlemen negotiate rebates and fees with drug manufacturers and create the lists of drugs covered by insurance and reimburse pharmacies. The largest pharmacy benefits managers are vertically integrated with large health insurance companies.

Their role in the drug pricing system is facing increased scrutiny in the federal government — both in the Senate insulin legislation and elsewhere.

The Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation into the industry.  Republican members of the House Education and Labor Committee recently asked the Government Accountability Office to study PBMs and their role in the supply chain.

And the Senate Commerce Committee recently approved legislation from Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that would give the FTC more oversight power over PBMs and require them to report on pricing and pharmacy fees.

The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a group that represents PBMs, opposes that legislation. The group says PBMs serve an important role to reduce drug costs and hold drug manufacturers responsible for raising drug prices.

“Only drug manufacturers set prices, PBMs negotiate rebates to get the lowest net cost,” Kristin Bass, chief policy and external affairs officer at the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, said in a statement to the FTC.

Congress is considering capping co-pays for insulin at $35 but critics say it will only help some of the diabetics caught out by spiraling prices. (Getty Images)

Farmers told members of the U.S. House agriculture panel they are struggling with rising costs for fuel, fertilizer and other inputs (Kathie Obradovich/Iowa Capital Dispatch).

WASHINGTON —   Members of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee are considering how to help farmers struggling with rising costs for fertilizer, fuel, seeds and chemicals — the unfortunate harvest of the war in Ukraine, strains on the global supply system, inflation and severe weather.

A panel of the committee heard from agricultural economists Thursday, as lawmakers debate how to structure the federal  safety net in the next farm bill, due when current programs expire in 2023.

The debate comes as traditional corn, soy and wheat farmers straddle both sides of inflation and the economic effects from the war in Ukraine. They’re seeing both huge increases in prices for their crops and soaring costs for everything they have to purchase to plant them.

“Since 2018, when the last farm bill was written, farmers have experienced the economic impacts of a trade war with China, marketing and supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic,  historic weather events and now extreme volatility in commodity and input markets,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat and the chairwoman of the subcommittee that oversees farm commodities.

“This all has implications for the next farm bill,” Bustos added.

Rep. Glenn Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he wants to pay special consideration to the margins for farmers as members work on the next farm bill. Thompson is the top Republican on the Agriculture Committee and could helm the farm bill process if Republicans take control of the House.

“The bottom line is that agriculture is a business, and at the end of the day, it is not what you bring in but the margin you are left with,” said Thompson. “I have tremendous concerns with where we are headed right now.”

Holes in the safety net

The farm bill includes long-standing safety net programs that offer some risk protection and financial support to American farmers.

That includes crop insurance and farm commodity programs, which pay farmers if crop prices drop. But the programs don’t account for the current challenge for farmers of rising costs for fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, and seeds.

Economists suggested lawmakers consider pilot programs geared to aid farmers struggling in those margins.

“Input costs are increasing and with inflation, you’re going to have intense pressure where that safety net will be weakened,” said Ronald Rainey, director of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

The big commodity crops, especially corn and wheat, are seeing high prices — due in part to disruption of a global market that usually has Ukraine and Russia as important players.

Anticipated prices for the 2022 U.S. wheat crop are 50 percent higher than they were in January, according to Joseph Janzen, an agricultural economist at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Futures prices for corn and soybean prices are also on the rise: 30 percent for corn and 20 percent higher for soybeans.

But agricultural economists told lawmakers that the sky-high prices may give a false impression, since farmers are also paying more than ever for fertilizer and fuel. The benchmark prices on crude oil and U.S. fertilizer prices approximately tripled between January 2021 and March 2022.

Russia and Belarus are also major fertilizer producers and exporters. Those input prices are expected to stay high for the next few years.

“What we know is going to happen, is prices are going to decline but input prices are going to stay up for a while, they always do. And that is going to leave people in a cost-price squeeze,” said Joe Outlaw, co-director of the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University.

The high fertilizer and energy prices have both short and long-term effects for agriculture. If farmers respond by planting less and using less fertilizer, they will have a smaller harvest — bringing in less income for their farms and potentially exacerbating rising food costs.

Farm bill process

Every five years lawmakers have to reauthorize the farm bill — a laborious process to re-examine the policy and funding structure for federal agriculture and food assistance programs.

The farm bill is unique in that it provides “mandatory” funding for many of the programs it authorizes, so the programs do not have to go through the congressional appropriations process every year. As such, farm bill authorization is a complex and contentious process, as lawmakers debate how and where to spend more money.

Most lawmakers at the subcommittee hearing Thursday did not call for a major overhaul of the longstanding safety net for farm commodities.

“Our main approach to writing a new farm bill should be a cautious one,” said Rep. Rick Allen, a Georgia Republican, noting how chaotic the past few years have been for agriculture and the economy. “We should not make major changes unless we are able to fully evaluate the consequences of those changes.”

But some said they should consider more flexibility and innovation in farm programs to try to address  mounting challenges from drought, severe weather and climate change. For instance, more than half of Arizona is in severe drought and an additional 10 percent is enduring extreme drought.

“I have never seen conditions like this with no relief in sight. We have something that has to be overcome, and we can’t do it by half measures,” said Rep. Tom O’ Halleran, an Arizona Democrat.

In addition to the commodity programs, the farm bill includes crop insurance, conservation programs and food assistance programs. The bulk of farm bill spending goes to food programs, like the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) for low-income individuals and families.

A view of the front portico of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices could fundamentally reshape the college admissions process later this year when it takes up two landmark cases challenging affirmative action in higher education.

The court recently agreed to hear two cases that challenge race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and public universities. The decision to take up these cases indicates the conservative justices who now make up a 6-3 majority of the bench could be poised to make significant changes to the legal standard on affirmative action, according to legal experts.

However, one voice that would likely not be heard on the decision is that of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Harvard graduate. Jackson has been nominated by President Joe Biden to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, a member of the liberal faction on the court who announced earlier this year he would step down at the end of the current term.

Jackson said March 23 at her Senate confirmation hearings that she would recuse herself if confirmed as a justice before the court hears the marquee cases this fall.

Jackson, who would be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court if confirmed, is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and will complete a six-year term on the Harvard Board of Overseers this spring.

When questioned about the potential conflict of interest, Jackson was unequivocal.

“If you’re confirmed, do you intend to recuse from this lawsuit?” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said of the affirmative action case.

“That is my plan, senator,” Jackson said.

Discrimination argued

The cases against Harvard and North Carolina argue that Asian American students have suffered discrimination in the admissions process at both schools. Those familiar with the cases say they could open the door for a significant ruling.

“I think this could pose a very real threat to the ability of schools to pursue diversity as well as equity in their admissions process, as well as in the way they shape and think about the academic environment that is created on higher education campuses,”  said Sarah Hinger, a staff attorney in the racial justice program at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Supreme Court last ruled on an affirmative action case in 2016, recent history in the timeline of case law. Taking up a related case so soon indicates the court may be intending to revisit the precedent on the constitutionality of race in college admissions.

The potential shakeup comes as many colleges are shifting away from a reliance on standardized test scores, a trend that grew out of the educational disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Scores traditionally have been relied upon by many colleges and universities in their admissions processes, despite arguments by some that they are not as good a predictor of a student’s success as a high school GPA.

Harvard University recently made standardized test scores optional for the next four years. And leaders in Iowa, Colorado, Montana, Illinois and Washington have made tests optional for admission to many of their public colleges and universities.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs at the Supreme Court want universities to have a more objective admissions process.

The case against Harvard argues it discriminates against Asian American students by using subjective standards to weigh admissions. According to the group, Asian American applicants are significantly less likely to be admitted to Harvard than similarly qualified white, Black or Hispanic applicants.

In the North Carolina case, the plaintiffs argue the university’s consideration of race in the application process violates the Constitution and discriminates against white and Asian American applicants by giving preference to Black, Native American or Hispanic applicants.

Both cases have been pursued by a nonprofit, Students for Fair Admissions. The president of the group is Edward Blum, a retired financier who has launched other lawsuits against the use of race in the college admissions process.

Blum says UNC and Harvard have “racially gerrymandered” their freshman classes and should use an admissions process that is blind to race.

“We are grateful the Supreme Court accepted these important cases for review. It is our hope that the justices will end the use of race as an admissions factor at Harvard, UNC and all colleges and universities,” Blum said in a statement.

Both universities have defended their processes as consistent with the law and denied discrimination against other applicants.

“The Supreme Court decision to review the unanimous decisions of the lower federal courts puts at risk 40 years of legal precedent granting colleges and universities the freedom and flexibility to create diverse campus communities,” Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said in a statement.

“Considering race as one factor among many in admissions decisions produces a more diverse student body which strengthens the learning environment for all.”

The ‘plus factor’

Since 1978, the Supreme Court has maintained that colleges and universities may consider race or ethnicity as a “plus factor” in admissions to try to create more diversity on campuses. Schools cannot have racial quotas or use race as a sole determining factor.

But the victories for affirmative action were narrow in the last three different Supreme Court decisions, where the justices split 5-4, 5-4 and 4-3 to uphold its constitutionality.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were the dissenters in the 2016 decision. Now they have three more conservatives on the bench with them: Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.

“Affirmative action has survived by only one vote, literally, for the past 45 years,” said Kevin Brown, law professor at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law.  “What makes it more problematic this time is the lineup of the court is more conservative, so we might end up with a different judgment.”

If the Supreme Court prohibits the consideration of race in applications, Brown and other scholars predict lower enrollments from historically underrepresented minorities, especially Black and Latino students.

The most profound effects would play out in selective universities and graduate programs, where more of the “plus factor” comes into play to narrow down the abundance of highly qualified candidates that exceed available spots.

Brown said it could have negative effects not only for those that do not get the opportunity to go to those schools, but also for the students in less diverse classrooms.

For example, he said many of his students come to law school with few experiences around people of color. And the conversations in his race and law course are much richer when Black and Latino students are in the room.

“We are running the tremendous risk of putting people in positions of power who know very little about half the population,” Brown said.

Increasing diversity

Affirmative action policies were designed to increase diversity on campus and respond to a history of inequality and segregation in the United States, where students of color were kept out of many schools for years.

President Lyndon B. Johnson described the policy in a commencement address at Howard University  on June 4, 1965. “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”

But the policies have been controversial.  A 2019 Pew Research Center survey  found that nearly three-fourths of respondents said colleges and universities should not consider race or ethnicity when making decisions about student enrollment.

Some states have banned affirmative action over the past 26 years. Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington all have bans, mostly through ballot initiatives or legislative referenda. The Supreme Court reversed a Texas ban in 2003.

Those states may offer some indication of what could happen if the Supreme Court overturns affirmative action. In states with a ban, researchers have found that enrollment of under-represented minorities, especially Black and Latino students, decreased at selective institutions, graduate and professional schools.

A 2020 study from researchers at the University of Washington and Brookings Institution found “persistent declines in the share of underrepresented minorities” at flagship universities in the states with an affirmative action ban.

This is despite efforts in some colleges to try other tactics to help make their colleges more diverse, like admitting the top 10 percent of each high school class or accounting for socio-economic status.

“The danger is a Supreme Court decision that outlaws affirmative action or racial awareness as a college builds a class of students at a school, will result in lower enrollment, especially of Black students, at our most elite colleges,” said Robert Shireman, who studies higher education as a fellow at The Century Foundation.

But many colleges and universities have already seen waning enrollment of Black students in recent years.

An analysis of federal data from before the pandemic found overall declines in college enrollment nationwide and especially among Black students, whose enrollment declines exceeded changes in population growth, according to a report from the Center for American Progress.

Jared Bass, senior director for higher education at the Center for American Progress, said those declines have continued through the pandemic.

“We are seeing a decline among Black students in higher education, and this is also feeding into the concern about representation in highly selective institutions,” said  Bass. “It is definitely a concern when you think about the college culture and the students impacted.”

Bass and other experts are worried that if the court bans affirmative action, those gaps could be even bigger , especially at highly selective schools. When college admissions officers consider a student’s race, it is part of a holistic assessment of the pool of qualified students to try to bring in a balanced and diverse set of students.

In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in 2015, the state of California said that as a result of its affirmative action ban, the University of California has struggled to attain a level of racial diversity on its campuses that reflects the state. Vice President Kamala Harris, then the attorney general for the state, led the brief.

One of two wind turbines off the coast of Virginia Beach that comprise Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot project (Sarah Vogelsong/ Virginia Mercury).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is making a significant push for new offshore wind development to meet ambitious climate goals, but industry leaders say they also need long-term commitments and support from Congress to reach their potential.

Leaders of the burgeoning U.S. offshore wind industry called on Congress to invest in renewables at a hearing of a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel Thursday.

The hearing comes as the Biden administration aims to ramp up offshore wind development from pilot projects to a viable power source. It is an opportunity for Democrats to address two major goals: reducing carbon emissions and creating jobs.

The Biden administration set an ambitious goal earlier this year to generate 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by the end of the decade, enough to power more than 10 million homes and cut 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That’s roughly the carbon equivalent of taking 17 million cars off the road for a year.

The United States currently only produces 42 megawatts of power from offshore wind. The nascent industry here trails far behind Europe and Asia, where it has been developing for years and offshore wind turbines are producing 34,000 megawatts of power.

“Europe has had several decades to build the infrastructure needed to support a mature offshore wind industry, and although we’re making considerable progress to building a U.S. supply chain, it remains a challenge that needs regulatory certainty and incentives if we want to achieve the goal of 30 gigawatts by 2030 and reach our potential,” said David Hardy, CEO of Orsted Offshore North America.

Orsted, a company that started in Denmark, operates the Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island and is involved in the new projects off the coast of Maryland and with Dominion Energy in Virginia.

Massive growth

The offshore wind  industry is poised for massive growth over the next decade.

Dominion Energy, a Virginia utility, plans to install nearly 200 more ocean turbines east of Cape Henry over the next five years. And developers have permits pending for 10 more offshore wind projects along the East Coast, from North Carolina to Maine.

Last week, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced plans for her agency to hold seven new offshore lease sales by 2025, for areas in the Gulf of Maine, central Atlantic, off the coast of North and South Carolina, California, Oregon and New York.

As the industry ramps up, it is supporting inland manufacturing jobs for ships and materials, including projects already underway in Louisiana, New Jersey and Texas.

But with the steep cost of starting a project, leaders want to know they won’t be subject to the political winds.

“We need certainty and predictability,” said Heather Zichal, the chief executive officer of the American Clean Power Association.

Specifically, the renewable energy industry wants lawmakers to support tax credits, research programs at the Department of Energy, a national offshore wind transmission plan and upgrades to ports.

House Democrats’ infrastructure package has incentives for offshore wind and would build out transmission lines for renewable energy, including offshore wind. Negotiators are in the process of trimming the package to lower its price tag, but Democrats at the hearing said they hope to continue to support renewables.

“We can’t rely on existing trends or wishful thinking to get us to net zero electricity sector emissions, and that is why investments in the Build Back Better Act are so critical in our efforts to tackle the climate crisis,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

“Offshore wind is good for workers, good for the economy and especially good for the planet,” said Rep. Ann Kuster, D-N.H.

“The U.S. offshore wind  industry is a game changer for renewable energy and our efforts to combat climate change,” said Rep. Mike Doyle,, D-Pa.

Partisan divide

But the partisan divide on investment in renewables was on display at the hearing, as Republican members of the committee complained that their panel would even consider a hearing on offshore wind at time of rising energy prices and concerns about further strain in the winter months.

“While I am optimistic that technology and American ingenuity will bring advancement in offshore wind, I believe this committee should be focused on how to lower energy prices in the near term,” said Rep. Fred Upton, (R-Mich.), the Republican leader of the subcommittee.

“Folks, I think the windmill hearing could have waited,” said Rep. Bill Johnson, (R-Ohio).

Florida Democrat Kathy Castor pushed back against that perspective, noting that the costs of climate change are also significant.

“Anyone who is concerned about the rising costs and risks on American families and businesses should be pressing for ambitious investments in clean energy,” Castor told her colleagues.

Hardy, the CEO of Orsted, said the investment and commitment for offshore wind needs to be for the long term.

“I think it is important to recognize this is a long-term play, a long-term solution, and we’re making investments now that will make us competitive and less reliant on carbon fuels in the long-term,” said Hardy. “We are not going to solve a 2021 winter crisis with offshore wind, but we might prevent  a crisis in 2026 or 2029 if we invest now.”

Democrats and Republicans in Congress differ on how best to reduce the number of passengers bringing guns to airports (Russ Rohde/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans blocked the advance of voting rights legislation Wednesday, the second time this year — thwarting again Democrats’ attempts to pass federal protections for voters amid a slew of new state elections laws.

“When we are faced with a coordinated effort across our country to limit the freedom to vote, we must stand up and do what is right,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who sponsored the bill, said on the Senate floor just before the party-line vote.

The Freedom to Vote Act would make Election Day a national holiday and set minimum standards each state must have for elections, including two weeks of early voting and an option for same-day voter registration.

Supporters of the legislation say it is necessary to protect American democracy from a recent push to restrict voting access.

Nineteen states have approved more stringent voting requirements this year.  Republican state legislators pushed for the restrictions, partly in response to former President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 election.

“If there is anything worthy of the Senate’s attention, it is unquestionably this,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who vowed to bring up the issue again.  “If there is anything that merits debate on this floor, it’s protecting our democracy from the forces that are trying to unravel it from the inside out”

But the 49-51 vote along party lines—with Schumer voting in opposition for procedural reasons—demonstrates the challenge Democrats face to advance their agenda in the evenly divided Senate. They need 60 votes and support from Republicans to get past a filibuster and move to debate and a vote on a bill.

Even after moderate Democrats made concessions, no Republicans were willing to let the bill advance and for now it is stalled.

The failure likely will encourage those who want to change the Senate’s filibuster rule.

“Protecting the fundamental right to vote is not a partisan issue, and the Senate filibuster should not be used to block debate of this critical legislation,” said William Roberts, managing director for Democracy and Government Reform at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress.

“Lawmakers should take immediate action to reform the arcane filibuster rules so the Senate can debate and pass this measure. The future of our democracy is at stake,” Roberts said.

The Manchin effect

House Democrats passed a more expansive voting rights proposal, called the For the People Act, last March.

But Republicans blocked debate on it in the Senate last summer.

In response, a group of Senate Democrats drafted a scaled-back proposal.They added a requirement for voter identification at the behest of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III, who had voted to advance the earlier bill but still had problems with it.

The new proposal also scaled back controversial provisions affecting the Federal Elections Commission and threw out some revisions to the ethics laws.

Klobuchar introduced the Freedom to Vote Act. Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Manchin were among the original cosponsors.

“Now, crafting this bill, as you know, was no easy feat,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “It took months of hard work, compromise, and gathering feedback from experts on sensible policies that have been proven to work.”

Manchin was key in trying to gain GOP support for the bill, according to Schumer, and met with Republican senators over the past few weeks.

But in the end, Democrats were far from the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky remained staunchly opposed to the bill, which he described as a federal “election takeover.”

“This latest umpteenth iteration is only a compromise in the sense that the left and the far left argued among themselves about exactly how much power to grab in which areas,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

The Republican leader urged his colleagues to vote against the proposal and “continue to do the job the framers assigned it, and stop terrible ideas in their tracks.”

Schumer asked Republicans to support the cloture vote and said he would allow a “full-fledged debate” with amendments.

“What we can’t accept is a situation where one side is calling for bipartisan debate and bipartisan cooperation while the other refuses to even engage in a dialogue. If our Republican colleagues don’t like our ideas, they have a responsibility to present their own,” Schumer said.

There is a growing push from progressives to weaken or eliminate the filibuster.

More than 80 progressive groups have formed a coalition, Fix Our Senate, to call for filibuster reform. Eli Zupnick, a former Senate Democratic leadership aide who now works as spokesman for the group, called Wednesday’s vote a “moment of truth” for Democrats to overhaul the filibuster.

Democrats do not yet have enough votes to kill the filibuster altogether. At least two Democrats, Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, oppose eliminating it.

But some lawmakers have suggested changing Senate rules to exempt voting rights from the filibuster or altering the rules on debate and amendments so more members of the minority might be willing to proceed.

State voting restrictions 

The federal effort comes amid a wave of new restrictions enacted this year in  state legislatures across the country, most of them from Republicans.

The number of restrictive voting laws approved in states in 2021 was unprecedented: Nineteen states enacted 33 laws with provisions that will make it harder for some constituents to vote, according to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law.

State lawmakers in 49 states introduced more than 425 bills with provisions to restrict voting in the 2021 legislative sessions, according to the center.

Some new state laws include provisions to impose more stringent voter identification requirements, ban snacks or water to voters waiting in line, reduce polling place availability, shorten the time-frame for mail ballots or limit the number of mail ballot drop boxes.

Kaine said in a call with reporters Wednesday that his motivation to work on the bill was driven in part by the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, from rioters who wanted to overturn the presidential election.

“Those same lies are being used in states across the country to make it harder for people to vote,” Kaine said.

Likewise, Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, urged his colleagues to protect voting rights.

“Most countries that have a January sixth never survive to a January 20th,” Bennet said.

Some advocacy groups pushing for federal protections for voting rights—including the NAACP—have said the Biden administration and Democrats should be working with more urgency.

Small groups of protestors stood outside the White House and the vice president’s residence this week with signs about voting rights.

Just before the voting rights vote, Vice President Kamala Harris came to the Senate floor to break the tie on a vote to confirm a nominee, and she stayed throughout the vote on the voting rights bill.

Biden and Harris this week called the Democratic senators who have been leading the effort, according to the White House.

In a press briefing earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki pushed back against the notion that Biden has not done enough to support the bill, placing the blame on Republicans who will not allow it to move forward.

Biden called the party-line Republican opposition “unconscionable” in a statement released today asking for support of the bill.

“The right to vote—to vote freely, to vote fairly, and to have your vote counted—is fundamental. It should be simple and straightforward. Let there be a debate and let there be a vote,” Biden said.

U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, speaks during a news conference with fellow New Democrat Coalition members outside the U.S. Capitol on May 19, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Democratic lawmakers are pushing federal agencies to provide support for survivors of and communities affected by American Indian boarding school policies, the decades-long practice of forcibly sending American Indian children to faraway boarding schools that rejected their tribal cultures.

Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kan., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a request this month for the government to set up “culturally appropriate supports” for the trauma that American Indian communities may experience as the federal government begins to investigate the painful history of these schools.

That support could include creating a crisis hotline or offering counseling services. Nineteen other members of Congress signed on to the letter to leaders of the Indian Health Service, Interior Department, and Department of Health and Human Services.

They include Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Tina Smith, D-Minn., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Reps. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Mark Pocan, D-Wis.

At issue are years of trauma from the federal government’s push, starting in the late 1800s, to remove hundreds of thousands of American Indian children from their communities.

Interior secretary Deb Haaland has directed her agency to investigate the painful chapter of U.S. history. That probe will include attempting to identify the children who attended, as well as finding records of cemeteries or burial sites connected with the schools that may contain unidentified human remains.

As the investigation unfolds, the 21 members of Congress want the federal government to do more to aid American Indian communities in processing the probe’s findings.

“The legacy of these policies continues to impact Native communities through intergenerational trauma, grief over the loss of children who never returned, cycles of violence and abuse, disappearance, health disparities, substance abuse, premature deaths, despair, and additional undocumented psychological trauma,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter.

Specifically, they want to see the Indian Health Service work with other agencies to support survivors, their families and their communities as the investigation “will inevitably shed light on extremely troubling episodes in our nation’s history.”

The lawmakers’ letter was prompted by a request from the National Indian Health Board, a nonprofit that provides health policy research for all 574 federally recognized tribes, and the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, a nonprofit formed by American Indian groups a decade ago.

“The first step we need to take is caring for our boarding school survivors,” said Deborah Parker, a member of the Tulalip Tribes and the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition’s director of policy and advocacy.

Parker added that she’s grateful the lawmakers on the letter “have recognized the importance and urgency of putting in place trauma-informed supports for our American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian relatives.”

A painful history

The Indian Health Service is reviewing the lawmakers’ request and is discussing next steps, according to a statement from an agency spokesperson.

“The IHS acknowledges the role that trauma, resulting from violence, victimization, colonization, and systemic racism plays in the lives of American Indian and Alaska Native populations, specifically Native youth who are 2.5 times more likely to experience trauma compared to their non-Native peers,” the agency said in the statement.

The Interior Department plans to begin tribal consultation in the late fall to discuss how best to share sensitive information and protect grave sites and sacred burial traditions, an agency spokesperson told States Newsroom. Officials say they are working on compiling decades of files and records for the project, so they can identify available and missing information.

The scope of that work is significant: The federal government conducted a large-scale drive over nearly a century to assimilate hundreds of thousands of American Indian children through boarding schools that separated children from their families and culture.

Students had to hand over their belongings, wear uniforms, cut off their braids, adopt new names, and abandon their languages and cultural practices.

The children studied English, memorized the names of U.S. presidents, and worked on the school grounds or on assignments in neighboring towns. Disease and poor health care ravaged some schools, and in some cases, the children never returned home.

The federal government operated 25 federal off-reservation boarding schools — starting in the 1800s and continuing through the 1970s. There were more than 300 other schools run by religious groups with support from the government.

Haaland, a former member of Congress from New Mexico, is the nation’s first American Indian Cabinet secretary and an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna. She tasked the Interior Department in June with investigating the legacy of the schools— a process that she acknowledged would be “long and difficult.”

Learning from Canadian investigation

Halaand’s announcement of the investigation came as two mass graves were discovered near defunct boarding schools in Canada after an ongoing investigation there. The Canadian government started a truth and reconciliation commission in 2008 to address the legacy of its boarding schools.

Based on the experience in Canada, some American Indian advocacy groups in the United States want the U.S. government to be more proactive in setting up support for their communities. The National Indian Health Board and the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition asked Warren and other lawmakers to request the support services.

The groups would like to see the United States set up resources like a national hotline, trauma-informed mental health counseling available for survivors and their communities, and financial help for American Indian communities to search burial sites and honor their dead.

“We believe that healing will need to be community-led, and tribal nations should be at the forefront of determining what mental, spiritual and physical supports their citizens will need as this truth-telling process unfolds,” said Christine Diindiisi McCleave, a member of the Turtle Mountain Anishinaabe and the CEO of the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

Ultimately, her group would like to see the creation of a formal truth and healing commission on boarding schools to guide the process.

Last year, Warren and Haaland — who was then a member of Congress — introduced legislation that would create such a commission to investigate, document and acknowledge past injustices of the federal government’s Indian boarding school policy.

Aides for Warren said she is working with partners on plans to reintroduce the bill this year.

Earlier this month, the Canadian federal government committed $321 million for programs to help support survivors and their communities in Canada. Some of that money will go to help fund searches of more burial sites and commemorate the children who died. Other funding is slated for mental health services to support healing.

As reported by the CBC, Canadian government officials said they had heard from members of First Nations in Canada that the discovery of the burial sites over the summer had opened old wounds.

A lesser prairie-chicken on a lek in the Red Hills of Kansas. The service proposed listing the bird as threatened in Kansas. (Greg Kramos / USFWS)

WASHINGTON — The lesser prairie-chicken, a rare dancing grouse once abundant on the Great Plains, could benefit again soon from the protection of the U.S. government.

So could the rusty patched bumblebee, a black-headed pollinator that at one time ranged from Georgia to Maine and across the Midwest.

The Biden administration is rewriting how it protects endangered species—making significant shifts in regulations that could affect how habitat is kept safe for these and other imperiled birds, fish, insects, mammals and plants across the United States.

Biden administration officials announced this month that they would revisit five key regulations in the Endangered Species Act. In doing so, they will overturn changes the Trump administration had made to narrow the scope of the law and make it easier to approve development.

The revamped regulations could give stronger protection to some 2,700 species protected under the act. There are dozens of candidates in some states—72 in Arizona, 24 in Louisiana, 134 in Florida, 26 in Michigan, 24 in Maryland.

Among those that could benefit are birds like the lesser prairie-chicken, which has declined 97 percent in the past century, largely due to habitat loss and fragmentation, some of which came from oil and gas development.

The Fish and Wildlife Service last month proposed listing it as threatened in Colorado and Kansas and endangered in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

Then there’s the rusty patched bumblebee. It received endangered status in 2017, due to habitat loss, climate change and threat from pesticides.

But the government did not protect any critical habitat for the bee, a decision environmentalists sued to try to reverse.

Years of battles

The Biden administration’s regulatory reversals are the latest in years of tug-of-war between Democratic and Republican administrations over how to implement the Endangered Species Act, passed by Congress in 1973.

Environmentalists hail the landmark law as one of their most powerful tools and credit it for rescuing the American crocodile, gray wolf and bald eagle.  Republicans have criticized it for becoming mired in lawsuits and land restrictions, while relatively few species graduate off the list.

Over the years, members of Congress have made several failed attempts to rewrite the act.

However, the Trump team was able to make significant changes to how it implemented the act through regulations that required no approval from Congress.

“The Trump administration changes significantly weakened the act, way beyond what was done in the past. They really moved away from Congress’ original intent of the law to protect any and all imperiled wildlife, animals or plants,” said Jacob Malcolm, director of the Center for Conservation Innovation at Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit that aims to find creative solutions to save species through research and policy.

Malcolm, a former Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, applauded the Biden team’s decision to reverse those moves and said it could potentially put species protection back on track.

The Trump administration sought to “ease the regulatory burden” of the Endangered Species Act. Its changes narrowed habitat protections, reducing both the timeline and area that could be considered for critical habitat.

They also got rid of some automatic protections for “threatened” species, the classification one step below “endangered.”

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, endangered means a species is in danger of extinction through all or a significant part of its range, while threatened means a species is likely to become endangered sometime in the foreseeable future.

The Biden administration said it would reinstate a regulation that gives any threatened species, like the lesser prairie-chicken, default protection unless the agency writes a specific plan for the species.

The Biden team also plans to reverse Trump-era rules that allow regulators to consider economic assessments when deciding whether to protect habitat—like calculating potential lost revenue. Previously, the law required regulators to make the decision solely based on science.

For some industries, the Trump administration’s rewrite was a welcome change.

For instance, the National Association of Home Builders says some Trump rules improved timelines on consultations, which can take 18 months or longer and slow down their projects.

“Returning to an inefficient ESA permitting process will not only raise the cost of housing, but will also delay countless other infrastructure projects that require either a federal permit or use federal funds,” said Michael Mittelholzer, NAHB’s assistant vice president of environmental policy.

Many Western Republicans also favored the Trump rules. Idaho Governor Brad Little said the Biden team’s reversal is a “major disappointment.”

“It only serves to reinstate unnecessary regulatory burdens on the states and local communities that are most critical to the ESA’s success,” Little said in a statement.

White House directive

The turnaround on endangered species decision followed a directive from the White House for all federal agencies to reconsider Trump-era rules that run counter to Biden’s objectives like addressing climate change.

Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Martha Williams said in a statement that her agency would work with partners to make sure the regulations recover wildlife and help “meet 21st century challenges” like climate change.

Williams said listing decisions would be made “without reference to possible economic or other impacts.” She also promised to throw out regulations that limited the scope of habitat protections and reinstate protections for plants and animals listed as “threatened species.”

The acting administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees protections for the 165 endangered and threatened marine species, also promised to revisit the agency’s regulations.

A push to do more

While environmental groups applauded the changes, some say that the Biden administration needs to go farther to protect plants and animals from climate change and other threats.

“I am really glad they are going to rescind and revisit these disastrous rules, but they’ve got their work cut out for them with dozens of other decisions that really leave imperiled species at risk of extinction,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit that files lawsuits and scientific petitions to try to compel the government to protect species.

For instance, his group recently threatened to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect 21 different species that the Trump administration had decided not to list. Greenwald says the agency drastically underestimated the threat climate change poses to the species.

But the agency said in a letter last month that the species had been properly evaluated and did not merit protection.

The list of species includes Florida’s Cedar Key Mole Skink, a small lizard that makes its home in the beach wrack that washes up during high tide. The group says the skink is threatened by sea-level rise, but the Trump administration only looked 30 years in the future to make its decision not to protect the lizard.

A farmer harvests corn near Slater, Iowa. on Oct. 17, 2020 (Perry Beeman/Iowa Capital Dispatch).

Joe Biden during the final debate with President Donald Trump in Nashville, Tenn. (Photo by Jim Bourg-Pool | Getty Images).

WASHINGTON —  Community activists and some Democratic lawmakers have long sought to give low-income communities more latitude to challenge the cumulative effects from air, water and industrial pollution and climate change.

And they expect to have a ready ear in the White House in 2021, unlike the last four years.

“We have somebody to talk to now,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who pushed a broad environmental justice bill that cleared the House this fall as part of a broader energy package.

The issue of environmental justice has gained more traction as the COVID-19 pandemic revealed disproportionate health concerns facing members of marginalized communities.

The NAACP estimates that 71 percent of Black Americans live in counties in violation of federal air pollution standards. Those communities often have worse health outcomes and higher rates of asthma and cancer, problems that have become more pronounced as the COVID-19 respiratory illness has added another threat.

President-elect Joe Biden’s new transition plan highlights environmental justice as one of his incoming priorities — a significant shift for an issue that has been on the margins before.

The Biden team updated its website last week with four policy areas the incoming administration will focus on: COVID-19, economic recovery, racial equity and climate change.

The climate change plan says it will “ensure that environmental justice is a key consideration in where, how, and with whom we build … righting wrongs in communities that bear the brunt of pollution, and lifting up the best ideas from across our great nation — rural, urban, and tribal.”

Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris both spoke on the campaign trail about the importance of protecting fenceline communities from pollution. And Harris, a Democratic senator from California, introduced sweeping environmental justice legislation in the Senate last summer, just days before Biden tapped her as his running mate.

‘It makes it so much easier’

Advocates who have been pushing for environmental justice protections said having Biden and Harris in the White House will help their cause.

“It makes it so much easier. It is never going to be easy, but it does make it easier to have somebody who is there in the White House … who is anchored in a positive way to these issues and thinking critically about them,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali, vice president of environmental justice, climate and community revitalization at the National Wildlife Federation.

Ali helped found the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice office in 1992, under the George H.W. Bush administration. He had a 24-year career in the federal government before he resigned from leadership of the EPA’s environmental justice office at the beginning of the Trump administration.

“The Trump administration brought us back to a low point,” said Ali.

The Trump administration suspended key environmental reviews  and proposed rollbacks to the National Environmental Policy Act, the nation’s bedrock environmental law that sets standards for public comment.

Biden and Harris could reverse some of those changes through new regulations or executive orders or prioritize environmental justice reviews with new agency positions.

During the Obama administration, Ali oversaw an interagency working group on environmental justice but said he was the only senior adviser on the issue.

“It was impossible for me to be in all the agencies and departments, so hopefully the next administration will have senior level people [in all of the agencies] who have environmental justice experience and can help navigate a set of choices,” Ali said.

The Climate Equity Act that Harris proposed in the Senate would create a dedicated Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Accountability within the White House and require the federal government to consider the effects of all environmental regulations on low-income communities.

The proposal is an expanded version of a bill she and Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduced last year.

Biden also put forward a $2 trillion climate plan as part of his campaign  that set a goal for 40 percent of all clean energy spending to go to disadvantaged communities.

‘A really good shot’ at legislation

Meanwhile, Grijalva plans to push his environmental justice bill in Congress again. His proposal would give communities like those in St. James more recourse to challenge the cumulative effects of multiple industrial facilities in their area.

Grijalva and Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.), the original cosponsors of the environmental justice bill, each said after the election that it is one of their top priorities heading into the new Congress.

“Our country is in the midst of unprecedented, intersecting crises and the American people are demanding a bold, whole-of-government response. The Environmental Justice for All Act—and the process to create this comprehensive legislation—is a critical part of the solution,” said McEachin, in a statement.

The major hurdle, Grijalva says, remains the “bastion of ‘no’” in the Senate. But he is hopeful environmental justice concerns in both rural and urban areas may be able to break the partisan divide.

“I say this with hope probably more than reality, but this federal legislation we have has a really good shot,” said Grijalva.

Their proposal made significant progress in the House this year, when House lawmakers included most of it as part of a large energy bill that cleared the House. The Senate did not consider it.