Policy Updates and Issue News July 2018

The House of Representatives is on traditional August Recess until September 4. In an unusual move, the Senate will stay in session during August. The Senate is expected to complete the fiscal 2019 appropriations bills to fund USDA, EPA, FDA, and Interior during this timeframe. Hill work on the farm bill will continue behind the scenes. Agriculture anticipated a House vote on a specific ag worker bill during July and sponsors of the legislation had assurance from House leadership for floor time. Opposition by California interests caused the ag worker bill to be pulled from the calendar. Fake milk and lab grown meat are on FDA’s agenda. The National Grange and several state Granges are helping with the Rx Abuse Leadership Initiative (RALI) to fight the nation’s opioid crisis. Drug prices and pharmacy benefit manager mergers are targets of a House Committee. Trade wars have farmers and ranchers nervous. President Trump announced a $12 billion agriculture relief package July 24.

The 2018 Farm Bill

Both the Senate and House have passed their version of the new farm bill. The House voted to go to conference with the Senate to iron out statutory language differences and come up with a compromise farm bill that will go back to Senate and House floors for final action. The Senate is expected to name their conferees and vote soon to go to conference with the House. Staff and committee leadership will work through the August congressional recess to resolve as many differences as possible and the conference committee should convene in early September. The goal is to complete the farm bill by September 30 when many programs in the 2014 farm bill will expire. Both bill commodity titles and crop insurance titles are similar and largely consistent with the 2014 farm bill. The bills differ in overall conservation funding and their approach to working lands conservation. The most difficult issue to reconcile between the House and Senate will be food assistance known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP). The House bill would require able-bodied persons 18 through 59 without dependent children to work or do job training for at least 20 hours per week. The Senate version does not seek additional work requirements. The legislation is still called the farm bill but 79% of farm bill spending goes toward food programs. The remainder of farm bill spending is for crop insurance 8%, commodity programs 6%, conservation 6% and miscellaneous 1%.

Proposed Relief for Livestock Haulers

Eleven Senators have introduced bipartisan legislation to provide common sense to the Department of Transportation’s new hours of service and Electronic Logging Device regulations. The livestock industry is concerned about the health, safety, and welfare of animals in transit especially during weather extremes and feels this flexibility will add practical guidelines to the DOT’s new rules. The Transporting Livestock Across America Safely Act provides that:

• These regulations do not apply until a driver travels more than 300 miles from their source
• Extends the hours of service on-duty maximum time from 11 hours to a minimum of 15 hours and maximum of 18 hours for on-duty time.
• Loading, unloading and waiting times are exempt from hours of service
• Grants flexibility for drivers to rest at any point during their trip without counting against hours of service
• Allows drivers to complete their trip regardless of hours if they are within 150 air miles from the delivery point
• After delivery, the driver must take a break for a period that is 5 hours less than the maximum on-duty time

Whole Milk, Cheese and Butter Vindicated?

A new study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is yet another addition to the ongoing vindication of dairy products. Evidence continues to mount that perceived health risks of dairy fats are less clear than previously believed. An analysis of 2,907 adults found that people with higher and lower levels of dairy fats in their blood had the same rate of death during a 22-year period. This implies that whole vs. skim vs. 2-percent milk didn’t matter, nor did butter vs. margarine.

Fake Milk

The dairy industry has been struggling for years over use of the term “milk” during the market expansion of plant-based almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk and more. Even though the federal government has formal standards of identity definitions for food items that include the term “milk” as the product of a lactating animal, the FDA has not enforced the definition. That may change. FDA Commissioner Gottlieb indicates his agency will crack down on non-dairy products labeled as milk and yogurt. FDA will solicit public comment before taking further steps to redefine the labeling rules.

Lab-Grown Meat

Now the meat industry faces not only labeling challenges but jurisdictional hurdles as well. Several start-up companies have successfully produced cell-cultured meat and sea food from cells grown in the lab outside of the animal. Several of these companies are pushing for commercial market opportunities. What will be the oversight for these new unusual food products to enter the consumer food chain?

FDA Commissioner Gottlieb points to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act language that FDA has “jurisdiction over food which includes articles used for food and articles used for components of any such articles.” USDA Secretary Perdue has jurisdiction over the Federal Meat Inspection Act that defines “meat” as the muscle of any cattle, sheep, swine or goats, and “meat food product” as any article capable of use as human food which is made wholly or in part from any meat or other portion of the carcass thereof. These statutory definitions appear to give USDA jurisdiction. However, determining who will regulate cell-cultured meat promises to be a heated interagency turf battle.

Are Homegrown Foods Safer?

Food safety is often cited as a primary reason why people grow their own produce. Fact is, food-borne illnesses are almost as likely to be caused by homegrown produce as by fresh foods acquired elsewhere. Disease-causing bacteria can contaminate produce from the soil, compost, manure, and water. Almost half of all food-borne illness outbreaks are caused by fresh produce eaten raw. Thorough washing of produce, hands, utensils and cutlery is imperative.

Emissions Reporting

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced it is implementing legislation passed in March that exempts farmers from having to report emissions from animal manure and other wastes. Current statutory reporting requirements were initially intended for superfund sites many years ago.

Brown Gold?

U.S. dairy producers in growing numbers are making money from what they are calling “brown gold.” These dairymen are using digesters to turn manure into biogas which is later compressed into compressed gas. The leftover liquids and solids are made into fertilizer, plastic, biodegradable flower pots, animal bedding, peat moss substitute and more.  

Meeting the Opioid Crisis

The National Grange is helping coordinate the roll out of the Rx Abuse Leadership Initiative (RALI), a new coalition to fight the nation’s opioid crisis. State Granges in Maryland, New Hampshire, Indiana and Nevada are already part of the coalition in their states. Granges in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont will host RALI coalition activities at the New England Grange House during the Eastern States Exposition in late September.

Lowering Drug Prices and Out-of-Pocket Costs

The National Grange has worked with several patient groups and medical provider organizations in July to provide feedback to the Department of Health and Human Services on their request for information on their HHS Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices and Reduce Out-of-Pocket Costs. Suggestions included taking a close look at prices and rebates along the drug supply chain, putting the patient first in line to receive discounts and rebates, and protecting current Medicare D and Part B programs with the patient in mind.

Spotlight on Pharmacy Benefit Managers

The House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission on July 27 asking for a retrospective review of mergers of pharmacy benefit managers and how these mergers have affected drug prices for patients. Pharmacy benefit managers oversee drug plans for employer and union-sponsored health plans. PBMs negotiate with drug makers to get rebates for putting their drugs on a health plan’s formulary. The three largest merged PBMs account for over 50 percent of market revenues. The concern is that pharmacy benefit managers are getting paid by both sides of a transaction: the insurance companies who pay PBMs a fee as their customer and the drug makers who PBMs are supposed to be negotiating against.

Rural Hospitals Continue to Close

Medical care continues to become an issue of distance for those living in rural America. For many, the doctors who were in the old hospital that was just around the corner are now 100 miles away. Since 2010, at least 85 rural hospitals have closed. Contributing to the closings are lack of personal insurance, cuts to public health insurance programs, struggles with debt, cost of technology upgrades, and sharply worsening finances in states that do not expand Medicaid.

Air Ambulances on the Rise

As rural hospitals continue to shutter their doors, the medical helicopter, or air ambulance, has attempted to fill the gap in many areas. The number of ambulance helicopters has steadily grown from around 100 in the early 1980’s to 1,045 in 2016. The main problem with air ambulances is cost, so they are only used in extreme emergencies. According to the Government Accountability Office, the average cost of a medical flight was about $30,000 in 2016. That same year Medicare paid an average of $6,502 per call. Under Medicare rules, whatever Medicare pays, that’s all the provider will get. Those without insurance or Medicare are liable for the entire bill.  

Any hope of major comprehensive immigration has stalled out for this congressional cycle. Immigration, like so many other issues has become a political football without an end game. On the other hand, the need for ag labor encompasses the whole country and transcends political parties. The National Grange has been part of a large agriculture coalition working to get specific ag worker legislation through Congress separate from comprehensive immigration legislation. Sponsors of the bipartisan Agriculture Guestworker and Legal Workforce Act had commitments from House leadership to address ag labor the week of July 23. But unfortunately, opposition developed from California that caused the legislation to be pulled from the floor. The August recess lasts until September 4. A floor vote in September hinges on bringing the California interests to the table. In the meantime, numerous crops are well into harvest and needing ag labor.

Farm Bill Directs Broadband to Unserved First

The Senate version of the farm bill places new restrictions on the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service Broadband Loan Program. The Senate broadband provision gives priority to loan applications that propose to provide broadband service to rural communities that do not have any residential broadband service.

Telemedicine More Important Than Ever

As rural hospitals close or consolidate, residents have the option to drive an hour or two or three to reach expert medical care. Another option the National Grange is continually focusing on is telemedicine. New telemedicine programs leverage the internet with a local clinic to provide patients with diagnosis and monitoring that previously were only possible at a hospital. A virtual clinic is a third great option. Nurses, doctors and technicians are available to patients online using high speed internet service and two-way cameras. Patients measure vital signs with medical tools that plug into iPads and data is relayed directly to the doctor for diagnosis.  

 Producers on Edge

America’s current trade wars have farmers and ranchers on edge. Our NAFTA agreement could not be finalized with Canada and Mexico before trade disputes erupted with several more countries. As American commodities lose market share because of retaliatory tariffs, other countries jump in to expand their market share. As the President tries to realign America’s trade balance with the rest of the world in items like cars, parts, intellectual property, steel, aluminum, and many more products, retaliation from abroad on U.S. food and agriculture products jumps to the forefront. Agriculture may take more than its share of body blows as the trade war escalates.

Short Term Relief

On July 24, President Trump and Secretary Perdue announced a $12 billion relief package aimed at insulating agriculture producers in the short term to give the President time to work through longer term trade deals. The reaction from most farmers and ranchers was, “We would rather have trade than aid.” But most producers acknowledge short term infusion could help. How USDA will implement the aid package:

• The Commodity Credit Corporation (created in 1933 to provide price support for farmers during the Depression and Dust Bowl) will provide incremental payments through the Farm Service Agency. Still to be determined is how and to whom will these payments be made and in what amounts.
• Additional food program purchases and distribution
• Trade promotion to new markets

“The Earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with fruitful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.” Pope John Paul II

“A leader must be a good listener. He must be willing to take counsel. He must show a genuine concern and love for those under his stewardship.” James Faust

“If more politicians in this country were thinking about the next generation instead of the next election, it might be better for the United States and the world.” Claude Pepper