Policy Updates and Issue News December 2018

The first session of the 116^th Congress opens the first week of January.  Democrats control the House of Representatives with Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) as Speaker.  The Senate continues to be controlled by Republicans with Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as Majority Leader.  The federal government continues in a partial shutdown mode because of a stalemate between President Trump and Democrats over funding for the border wall and several other immigration issues.  The shutdown affects several unfunded departments and agencies including USDA, EPA, and Interior.  Locally, agencies such as county Farm Service Agency offices have closed, new rural development and other grants and loans are suspended, research facilities except for care for animals and plants are closed, and economic and statistical reports will not be issued.  However, USDA’s Market News Service will continue to operate.  On other fronts, protecting Medicare Part B and Part D are ongoing Grange initiatives; rural broadband continues to expand; cable programming may need some safeguards.

In December, the new farm bill passed with huge bipartisan majorities in the Senate (87-13) and House (369-47).  Following its passage, National Grange President Betsy Huber issued the following statement:

“America’s farmers, ranchers and landowners have a reasonable, balanced, common-sense $867 billion farm bill headed to the President’s desk today.  The bipartisan legislation passed overwhelmingly in the Senate by a vote of 87-13 and in the House by 369-47.  The package now gives much needed multi-year certainty to commodity programs, crop insurance, conservation, farm loans, beginning farmers and ranchers, SNAP assistance, nutrition programs, foreign markets promotion and more.  It also establishes a new Foot and Mouth Disease vaccine bank.

“I want to thank Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and Ranking Minority member Debbie Stabenow for their bipartisan leadership to get this done.  Both have proven themselves worthy to have named National Grange Champions of Rural America (Stabenow in 2017 and Roberts in 2018)”.

In early December, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers released their highly anticipated proposal to replace the definition of “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) which determines the scope of waters and wetlands that fall under the federal Clean Water Act.  The proposal would eliminate ephemeral streams (those created by rainfall and snowmelt) from federal jurisdiction, tighten guidelines for when other streams and wetlands are considered for federal protection, exclude ditches unless they contribute flow to a “waters of the U.S”, exclude farm ponds, log cleaning ponds and cooling ponds, and require wetlands to be physically connected to other jurisdictional waters to fall within the scope of WOTUS.  Farmers, ranchers, landowners, builders, and other businesses welcomed the new definition while several conservation and environmental groups were critical.  The proposed rule is subject to a 60-day comment period.  If the rule becomes final, it is almost certain to face legal challenges.

USDA has announced the Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard to require food manufacturers, importers, and certain retailers to identify foods that are or may be bioengineered.  The standard defines bioengineered foods as those that contain detectable genetic material that has been modified through lab techniques and cannot be created through conventional breeding or found in nature.

Late in December, USDA issued a proposed rule to significantly amend the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the first time in 22 years.  The proposed change would prevent states from getting waivers from work and job training requirements unless their unemployment rate is at least 7 percent.  The proposed rule is subject to a 60-day public comment period and will likely face legal challenges if enacted.

Usage of medically important antibiotics in food production has fallen sharply according to the Food and Drug Administration.  Antimicrobials important to human health are no longer allowed to be used for growth promotion purposes in livestock and may only be obtained through a veterinarian’s order to treat sick animals.

Medical Device Tax

The National Grange joined a large group of patient advocates to call for permanent repeal of the medical device tax in a letter to Senate and House leadership.  New medical technology discoveries are critical to diagnosing and treating disease and conditions that significantly impact patients’ lives.  Since the tax is levied on revenues, not profits, it is particularly challenging for smaller companies which make up 80 percent of the industry and are the source of much innovation.

Protect Medicare Part D

Because Part D is so important to Grange members, the National Grange joined other patient groups in a letter to Congress opposing any proposal that would repeal the program’s non-interference clause.  The clause states that manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers, and insurance companies must negotiate directly to reach the lowest possible prices for prescription medications.

Medicare Part B Demonstration Questioned

The National Grange has urged Senate and House leaders to question a potentially harmful Medicare Part B demonstration by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  The proposed CMS International Pricing Index demonstration would import foreign-based price controls regardless of value or innovation and interjects new middlemen between physicians and patients with complex life-threatening conditions.

Rural Veterans Need the Lifeline Program

The National Grange filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission to support access to affordable rural broadband for the 24 percent of America’s veterans who live in rural America.  The filing urged the FCC to preserve no-cost Lifeline offerings, implement the National Verifier in a common sense, straight-forward way, and reexamine the minimum standard regulations that could lead to the elimination of no-cost Lifeline services.

Binding Arbitration for Comcast/NBCUniversal

The National Grange wrote the chairmen and ranking minority members of the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law regarding the expiring terms of the Comcast/NBCU merger.  The Grange suggested that binding arbitration be required to settle program access disputes, that sensible safeguards are necessary to protect consumer prices and assess to programming, and that protections for independent programmers be established.

Raising the Bar for Rural Broadband

The USDA will now require its rural broadband projects to provide access speeds of at least 25 megabits per second upload and 3 megabits per second download as mandated in the new farm bill.  Funded projects must serve communities of less than 20,000 people with no broadband service or where service is slower than 10/I Mbps.  Projects will compete for $600 million provided by Congress earlier this year.