‘Time is running out’ (Grassley): For the first time, Senate Finance chairman Chuck Grassley said he was worried Congress might not approve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement this year, telling farm broadcasters, “The clock is ticking, time is running out.”
Inspector general to review USDA and climate change (Politico): The inspector general of the USDA opened a formal inquiry into USDA’s handling of research on climate change and how it communicated the findings to the public following reports that USDA played down adverse research.
What to do about PFAS? (E&E News): State and federal policymakers are trying to figure out how to test for and address PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” in the food supply.
Gore warns of food losses to climate (Washington Post): Former vice president Al Gore says the impact of climate change on food production has been under-estimated for years, and “we may be approaching a threshold beyond which the agriculture that we’ve always known cannot support human civilization as we know it.”
Buffalo return to Wind River Reservation (Wyoming Public Media): For the first time in 131 years, buffalo are now roaming the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming; their return was the result of decades of work and advocacy by Northern Arapaho tribal members.
News deserts in rural America (Stateline): Of the 1,800 newspapers that have closed or merged in the past 15 years, 500 were in rural communities; nearly half of U.S. counties have only one newspaper and it is often a weekly.