The Farm Post eNews

Friday eNews from the Pike and Scott County Farm Bureaus
 

OCTOBER 23, 2015
S. 1140 vote expected soon
As early as next week, the Senate is expected to schedule debate and votes on legislation to undo the waters of the U.S. rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers. The Senate is first expected to take up S. 1140, the Federal Water Quality Protection Act. This bipartisan legislation requires the agencies to withdraw the final WOTUS rule and re-propose a new regulation. If the bill fails to garner the necessary 60 votes for cloture, the Senate will likely take up S.J. Res. 22, legislation that provides for congressional disapproval of the WOTUS rule. That resolution will be considered under provisions of the Congressional Review Act and thus would require only 51 votes to proceed with an immediate vote.   
 
The House previously passed H.R. 1732, the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act of 2015, which also requires withdrawal of the WOTUS rule.
House Passes Budget Bill
The House passed H.R. 1314, the Bipartisan Budget Agreement of 2015, by a vote of 266 - 167 on Wednesday. Language about $3 billion in crop insurance cuts remains in the bill. However, House Agriculture Committee leaders made a deal with House leadership that would strike the cuts to the crop insurance program when Congress works on the omnibus spending bill in the coming weeks. The deal also includes an assurance that the farm bill will not be reopened to find the additional savings. Senate Agriculture Committee leaders are working on a similar deal with Senate leadership. The bill now moves to the Senate.  The Senate will have to pass one procedural vote by a 60-vote threshold and then the final passage vote will be a simple majority; the White House has endorsed the bill.
 
Attention now turns to the Appropriations committees to write an omnibus bill for fiscal year 2016. The current continuing resolution expires Dec. 11. Congress must pass an omnibus bill using the new spending limits, which includes an additional $50 billion for fiscal 2016.
 
AFBF will send a letter to the appropriations committees outlining priorities for funding and specific riders. The letter will highlight the leadership's commitment to not reopen the farm bill. 
 
Conaway - Peterson news release
Red Meat On the Block Again
The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer recently released a report suggesting processed meats and red meats pose a low risk of cancer. In Tuesday's Newsline, Trudy Wastweet, AFBF director of congressional relations, explained that doesn't mean meats should be excluded from a well-balanced diet.
 
"There are a lot of positive benefits for those meat products, we know they can be part of a healthy and balanced diet and we know that folks are really loyal to their favorite meats," Wastweet said. She also pointed out that cancer is a complex disease and a single substance cannot be labeled as the cause of it.                 
TODAY IN HISTORY
OCTOBER 30, 1938
War of the Worlds
 
Shortly after 8 p.m. on the Halloween Eve, 1938, the voice of a panicked radio announcer broke in with a news bulletin reporting strange explosions taking place on the planet Mars, followed minutes later by a report that Martians had landed in the tiny town of Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Although most listeners understood that the program was a radio drama, the next day's headlines reported that thousands of others plunged into panic, convinced that America was under a deadly Martian attack. It turned out to be H.G. Wells' classic The War of the Worlds, performed by 23-year-old Orson Welles.
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