Donald Trump

President Trump will sign an executive order today for a government-wide review of regulations, policies and laws "that hinder economic growth in agriculture," said White House agriculture adviser Ray Starling. Ag groups typically regard USDA as their advocate in the federal government and generally say their problems come from other agencies, EPA most prominently.

The EPA, facing a 31-percent cut in funding, has set a goal of downsizing its workforce by Sept. 30, according to a memo given to employees. Government Executive said the agency "will continue a freeze on external hiring and begin offering early retirement and buyouts," although details were not immediately clear.

President Trump has ordered replacement of the Waters of the United States rule, and Politico says industry groups allied with EPA administrator Scott Pruitt have an idea who should write the replacement: private lawyers.

The Trump administration’s proposed budget would cancel four NASA climate science missions, which would have measured the flow of carbon dioxide and tracked long-term weather patterns. “Long before President Trump was elected, climate researchers have warned that the nation’s climate monitoring capabilities — which include satellites as well as air- and surface-based instruments — were less than adequate and faced data collection gaps and other uncertainties,” reports The New York Times.

Kansas is an intensely Republican state, yet Democrats have hopes of an upset in the first U.S. House race in the age of Trump, a special election today to replace Mike Pompeo, who quit Congress to become CIA director. The Democratic nominee, civil rights lawyer James Thompson, "has spooked Republicans in Washington" with a Bernie-Sanders-style campaign, says The Nation.

The first order of business for the Senate when it returns on April 24 from a two-week recess will be a vote on the nomination of Sonny Perdue for agriculture secretary. The last of President Trump's nominees for the cabinet, Perdue, a former two-term governor of Georgia, is arguably the last controversial nominee for the cabinet and has moved steadily, if slowly, toward confirmation.

The Western Growers Association, speaking for produce growers in Arizona, California and Colorado, says immigration reform should go hand in hand with the Trump administration's priority of deporting undocumented immigrants guilty of serious crimes. Western Growers chief executive Tom Nassif said, "Much of our [U.S.] agricultural productivity is owed to the hard work of foreign hands, in particular the harvesting of our nutritious fruits and vegetables."

The Paris climate treaty is a “bad deal” for the U.S. said Scott Pruitt, while adding that the country should stay “engaged" in international climate discussions.

In the past it’s been the U.S. pushing China to clean up its energy portfolio and lower emissions, but under Trump the tables could turn, says The New York Times. China has publicly called on all signatories, including the U.S., of the Paris climate treaty to respect the pact. Trump has said he will back out of the deal and this week signed an executive order to reverse the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which lowered carbon emissions from coal plants.

President Trump will sign an executive order this week to undo President Obama’s 2015 clean-power plan, EPA secretary Scott Pruitt revealed in an interview with ABC’s This Week. The plan was designed to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S. by 30 percent from 2005 levels before 2030, in part by targeting carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.