Trump administration
Trump administration tried to influence state responses to meatpacking plant outbreaks, documents reveal
Top staff at the Department of Agriculture, including former agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue, and at the Vice President’s office sought to influence how states responded to early outbreaks of Covid-19 in meatpacking plants last spring, a trove of documents reveals.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
EPA wants to retract three last-minute RFS waivers
Environmentalists, fishermen protest bill to allow open-ocean aquaculture
Environmental advocates, fishermen, and residents of several states on the Gulf of Mexico appeared at a virtual hearing on Wednesday protesting a bill and other measures to expand ocean aquaculture. Under the new legislation, which is looking to settle a long-running debate over the future of aquaculture in the United States, fish farming would be allowed in federal waters.
Religion comes with the USDA food box
Trump administration seeks overhaul of fishing industry with new executive order
As the coronavirus pandemic ravages the meatpacking sector, the Trump administration late last week made a major announcement about another essential food industry: seafood. With a late-afternoon executive order, the administration laid out a pathway for the approval of ocean aquaculture in federal waters, a controversial departure from existing policy that could reshape the country’s seafood production.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Farmers to Congress: make sure coronavirus aid isn’t just for agribusiness
Trump SNAP rule called unwieldy
Trump administration weakens fuel economy standards
‘Public charge’ rule chills nutrition program enrollment among immigrants
Senate Democrats slam inequities in Trump tariff payments
New Trump administration rule could deny green cards to immigrants using SNAP
The Trump administration announced a rule on Monday that would allow federal officials to deny green cards and visa extensions to legal immigrants who have used certain public assistance programs, including food assistance.
Tougher SNAP rules may worsen food insecurity, per USDA analysis
To get around the shutdown, SNAP benefits will be paid nearly two weeks early
The Trump administration will release an estimated $4.8 billion to SNAP recipients on January 20, nearly two weeks early, to ensure they get their February food stamps despite the partial government shutdown, announced Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Tuesday. The USDA said its other public nutrition programs, including WIC, school lunch and food donations, are funded through February, alleviating concerns of hunger among millions of Americans during a protracted shutdown.
NAFTA is mutually beneficial, say ag ministers, but needs to be ‘modernized’
President Trump calls NAFTA a bad deal for the United States and insists it needs a major overhaul. But today the agriculture ministers of Canada, Mexico, and the United States said that while the agreement should get an update, it has been beneficial for North America’s farmers and ranchers.
Trump tabs Stump for CFTC, Gerrish as USTR
President Trump will nominate Dawn Stump, a former vice president of NYSE Euronext, as a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He has also selected Jeffrey Gerrish to be a deputy U.S. trade representative.
Field of candidates for USDA posts becoming clearer
The White House has settled on Steve Censky, a top foreign trade official at the USDA before becoming a farm group executive, for the No. 2 job at the department, according to published reports.
Scientists plan march on Washington, but some think they should stay in the lab
Inspired by the Million Woman March on Washington, D.C., scientists are planning their own march to urge policymakers to base their rules on sound research. “There's been a lot of concern about the fate of science under President Trump. His appointees include climate change skeptics; he's met with an anti-vaccination campaigner. He regularly cites false numbers on things like voter fraud and crime rates, while his surrogates defend the use of "alternative facts," says NPR.