There’s still work left to do on a new slimmed-down farm bill after key items made it into the president’s tax bill, and one senator says he’s already got a list of things he wants included. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is not giving up on long-standing farm bill goals that he now wants in a ‘skinny’ farm bill.
“Commonsense payment limits. Then, another one would be working with Senator Ernst and Marshall to pass a nationwide solution to California’s Proposition 12 and Massachusetts’ Question 3,” says Grassley. “We have those states trying to dictate how Iowa pig farmers should operate their farm.”
Grassley and other GOP senators also want to rein in the USDA secretary’s CCC spending authority. He says, “In recent years, this pot of money has become a ‘slush fund’ for the administration to use at their disposal, but Congress has the power of the purse.”
That prompted Grassley earlier to introduce the USDA Spending Accountability Act after criticizing the first Trump and Biden Administrations for climate programs and tariff offsets. And on adversaries’ buying U.S. farmland, the Farmland Security Act to beef up 1978 enacted reporting.
“Which was the first reporting of farmland ownership, because we didn’t have any guidance to go on about how much was owned. But that legislation has had to be beefed up since then and needs further beefing up,” says Grassley.
The renewed effort follows Secretary Rollins’ announcement that the U.S. will move to ban sales of farmland to China and other adversaries by executive order and working with the states.
SOURCE: NAFB News Service
