Cory Booker
Utah senator’s bill would make checkoffs voluntary
Farmer and rancher participation in federally created "check-off" programs, which raise money for research and promotion of two dozen commodities from cotton to beef and milk, would become voluntary rather than mandatory under a bill filed by Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican. A conservative, Lee said mandatory collection of check-off fees "is crony capitalism at its worst."
Senate bill would ban broad swath of pesticides
The United States would ban the use of two classes of insecticides—organophosphates and neonicotinoids—and the herbicide paraquat under a bill unveiled by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey on Monday. More than 100 pesticides would be affected, including chlorpyrifos, recently slated by the EPA for termination as an agricultural aid.