The Environmental Protection Agency has delayed until May 22, 2018, the effective date for its revised Certification and Training of Pesticide Applicators final rule. [node:read-more:link]
The beleaguered research station, the only USDA-ARS research facility dedicated to the sheep industry, is being threatened with closure for the third time since 2014.The U.S. Sheep Experiment Station at Dubois, Idaho, is one of 17 Agricultural Research Service laboratories slated for closure under President Donald Trump’s Department of Agriculture FY 2018 budget proposal.Brown said it’s a one-of-a-kind facility in the U.S. doing research on sheep breeding, range management, reproduction and wild/domestic sheep interaction. “It would be irreplaceable. [node:read-more:link]
Buried among the revenue-generating ideas in President Donald Trump's new budget proposal is a plan to sell off publicly owned transmission assets, including those operated by the Bonneville Power Administration.For public power companies – and really all utilities in the Northwest – the proposal will ring alarm bells and resurrect a debate about the control of assets that were built with federal dollars but paid for by local ratepayers.Bonneville operates three-quarters of the region's high-voltage transmission system, which it uses to market power from 31 hydroelectric dams in the Columbi [node:read-more:link]
During the Q and A portion of yesterday’s Ag Committee meeting, Chairman Roberts queried, “As we begin to work on our next farm bill, give me the top three factors, or two factors in the agriculture economy that we should be considering, given this trend that everybody is talking about, and the word ‘prolonged.'” Dr. Johannson noted that, “As you mentioned, there are ways that we can see prices rebound. Whether we have some supply side shock in some major producing part of the globe or if we do start expanding trade quickly, those will also push prices up. [node:read-more:link]
President Donald Trump’s budget proposal calls for saving $10 million next year by selling wild horses captured throughout the West without the current requirement that buyers guarantee the animals won’t be resold for slaughter. Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also grappled with the spiraling costs of managing the nearly 60,000 horses on the range and another 45,000 currently kept in U.S. [node:read-more:link]
Two of farmers’ most powerful Republican advocates in the Senate slammed President Donald Trump’s proposal Tuesday to slash crop insurance, warning those and other budget cuts would badly wound one of the president’s most loyal constituencies. Voters who live in rural areas gave Trump a 61-34 percent advantage over Democrat Hillary Clinton in November, according to network exit polls. Kansans voted overwhelmingly for Trump, by 56-36 percent.Kansas Sens. [node:read-more:link]
As USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue outlined major department budget cuts, including a 10 percent overall reduction in personnel, representing 5,263 staff - 973 of them Farm Service Agency positions – for 2018, he didn’t mince words. Perdue said. “I just don't think it's moral to continue to kick a $20 trillion debt down to our grandchildren without any relief. Overall farm bill spending would be cut $240 billion over a 10-year period. Approximately $46 billion of those reductions would come from agriculture programs – while the other $194 billion would be slashed from the nutrition programs. [node:read-more:link]
President Donald Trump's first budget proposal, which is to be released today, calls for cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program totaling almost $193 billion over 10 years and $46 billion in cuts to agriculture programs, according to charts released today by Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.In an afternoon reporters' briefing that was also embargoed until 9 p.m., Mulvaney said that the title of the budget will be "A New Foundation for American Greatness," and that the Trump budget is the first one that has been written with the taxpayer considered ahead o [node:read-more:link]
Despite a push by farm organizations to double the budgets for a pair of USDA export programs, a leaked copy of the Trump administration's proposed budget zeros out funding for both programs. The White House is expected to release President Donald Trump's budget proposal Tuesday for fiscal year 2018. The plan will recommend Congress cut a broad array of domestic programs, which includes programs farmers rely on for trade, conservation and possibly even commodity programs. [node:read-more:link]
The assumption that immigrants take jobs away from native workers presupposes that native workers and immigrants compete in the same labor market. If native and immigrant labor are substitutes, or they would accept the same kind of work, then both types of labor should have similar compensating wage differentials. The standard textbook theoretical discussion on compensating wage differentials implies that firms must compensate workers with more dangerous jobs with higher salaries. [node:read-more:link]
