The widely unpopular “WOTUS” rule from EPA may be the easiest item on the list. The Republican-controlled House voted last fall to stop work on the bill. Similar legislation was filed in the Senate, which shifts to Republican control in the new session.
CFTC reauthorization, which stalled in the Senate last year, may be the only item squarely in the jurisdiction of the House and Senate Agriculture committees. Senate Ag controls child nutrition as well, but the House panel does not – the Education and Workforce Committee is in charge. Taxes are the bailiwick of Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committee; the Judiciary committees have primary jurisdiction over immigration and the Appropriations committees write the annual federal funding bills.
The incoming chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Pat Roberts of Kansas, and Democrat Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota sponsored a bill, S 2601, last year to give customers an additional day to cover margin calls by the brokers. Roberts said the extra time to meet margin calls would be friendlier to farmers, ranchers and grain elevators than a rule proposed by CFTC in the wake of the collapse of trading house MF Global more than three years ago. “Thls legislation ensures that the CFTC rules work in the countryside as well as on paper,” Roberts said in filing the bill last July.
The Roberts-Heitkamp proposal is similar to a provision in a CFTC reauthorization bill, HR 4413, that passed the House last June 24. The new chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Mike Conaway of Texas, was a leading sponsor of that bill. The House bill would reduce regulation of agricultural “end users” who use physical delivery contracts, futures, swaps and other derivatives to hedge risk of price fluctuations or to assure a supply of raw materials.
Legislative renewal of the child nutrition programs will give skeptics a chance to revise the 2010 law that requires schools to serve meals with more fruits, vegetables and grains and less salt, sugar and fat. Illinois Rep Rodney Davis was a leading Republican critic of the new rules, saying they were costly for schools to implement and resulted in food that students did not eat.
“As the opening bell sounds for the 114th Congress, don’t be surprised to see GOP lawmakers take on school nutrition,” said Politico in a Dec 30 story. “The $1.1 trillion omnibus this month included provisions to allow states more flexibility to exempt schools from the Department of Agriculture’s whole-grain standards if they can show hardship and to halt future sodium restrictions.”