Tag: Trump Agriculture Department

Trump Administration Rigs Market For Big Beef Packers

Trump’s Agriculture Department is turning our nation’s cattle ranchers and feedlot operators into modern-day sharecroppers as beef prices soar during the pandemic.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) asked the Senate Judiciary Antitrust subcommittee to hold a hearing on claims of price manipulation and collusion in the beef meatpacking industry. Fischer pointed to the spike in the index of prices for butchered beef compared with the 30 percent drop in cattle futures after Jan. 24, when the country’s first coronavirus case was reported.

“Beef production is the largest section of agriculture in Nebraska,” Fischer wrote. “We feed and market more than 4.7 million cattle each year.” Continue reading.

Perdue Using Taxpayer-Funded USDA Podcasts To Promote Trump

Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer used a taxpayer-funded USDA podcast to suck up to their boss, President Donald Trump, and praise his agricultural trade policies, which have left farmers hurting.

Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer used a taxpayer-funded USDA podcast to suck up to their boss, President Donald Trump, and praise his agricultural trade policies, which have left farmers hurting.

Perdue peppered his podcast with Lighthizer, the president’s top trade policy adviser, with his signature praise of Trump. Introducing his guest, Perdue described Trump as “an unapologetic advocate for America around the globe” and said that he wanted to congratulate Lighthizer because he “can’t think of anyone who can support President Trump better than you have in these trade negotiations. You’re tough and you reinforce his ability to use leverage … You’ve been quite a sidekick to the president.”  Continue reading.

Forest Service Opens ‘America’s Amazon’ To Loggers

Trump’s National Forest Service is using a refuted scientific theory to justify building roads in our country’s largest national forest, what some call “America’s Amazon.”

Loggers want to raze trees more than 1,000 years old.

The Forest Service says guidelines from the United Nations’ climate authority would be followed. Two scientists whose research was cited in the U.N. study says the Forest Service is espousing junk science.

Continue reading

Farmers’ Frustration With Trump Grows as U.S. Escalates China Fight

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Peppered with complaints from farmers fed up with President Trump’s trade war, Sonny Perdue found his patience wearing thin. Mr. Perdue, the agriculture secretary and the guest of honor at the annual Farmfest gathering in southern Minnesota this month, tried to break the ice with a joke.

“What do you call two farmers in a basement?” Mr. Perdue asked near the end of a testy hourlong town-hall-style event. “A whine cellar.”

A cascade of boos ricocheted around the room.

American farmers have become collateral damage in a trade war that Mr. Trump began to help manufacturers and other companies that he believes have been hurt by China’s “unfair” trade practices.

View the complete August 27 article by Alan Rappeport on The New York Times website here.

Trump pushes to allow new logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

Washington Post logoPresident Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7-million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago, according to three people briefed on the issue, after privately discussing the matter with the state’s governor aboard Air Force One.

The move would affect more than half of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, opening it to potential logging, energy and mining projects. It would undercut a sweeping Clinton administration policy known as the “roadless rule,” which has survived a decades-long legal assault.

Trump has taken a personal interest in “forest management,” a term he told a group of lawmakers last year he has “redefined” since taking office.

View the complete August 27 article by Juliet Eilperin and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

NOTE:  With the Amazon, the “lungs of the world”, losing a soccer field size piece of forest every minute, losing any trees that can help clean carbon from the air could increase the chance for climate disaster.

Trump proposal would push 3 million Americans off food stamps

Washington Post logoThe U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed new rules Tuesday to limit access to food stamps for households with savings and other assets, a measure that officials said would cut benefits to about 3 million people.

In a telephone call with reporters, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Acting Deputy Under Secretary Brandon Lipps said the proposed new rules for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) were aimed at ending automatic eligibility for those who were already receiving federal and state assistance.

“This proposal will save money and preserve the integrity of the program,” Perdue said. “SNAP should be a temporary safety net.”

View the complete July 23 article by Laura Reiley on The Washington Post website here.

Zinke takes forestry fight to fire-ravaged California

The following article by Miranda Green was posted on the Hill website August 12, 2018:

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is seizing on California’s wildfires to promote a policy long-supported by Republicans — that fires could be stopped if forests were logged.

The former Montana congressman is poised to push the benefits of what’s known as forest management at an event with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in California on Monday next to the state’s largest forest fire in history.

Yet it’s not just the blaze that makes the trip important for Zinke and Perdue.

View the complete article here.