USDA on Jan. 16 announced that about 800 Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices will reopen temporarily to perform certain limited services for farmers and ranchers. USDA said it had recalled about 2,500 FSA employees to open offices in all 50 states on Jan. 17, Jan. 18, and Jan. 22 during normal business hours. The offices will be closed on Jan. 21 for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
USDA said FSA staff will be available to assist agricultural producers with existing farm loans and to ensure that the agency provides 1099 tax documents to borrowers by the IRS deadline. USDA also said farmers who have loan deadlines during the lapse in federal funding are not required to make payments until the government shutdown ends.
“Until Congress sends President Trump an appropriations bill in the form that he will sign, we are doing our best to minimize the impact of the partial federal funding lapse on America’s agricultural producers,” said USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue. “We are bringing back part of our FSA team to help producers with existing farm loans. Meanwhile, we continue to examine our legal authorities to ensure we are providing services to our customers to the greatest extent possible during the shutdown.”
Other agencies were also taking steps to address the lengthy shutdown. The U.S. State Department on Jan. 17 instructed all U.S. diplomats in Washington and elsewhere to return to work after the MLK holiday, saying it had found money for salaries from “existing funds as well as other available fiscal authorities,” enabling the department “to shift existing balances” to restart payroll funding.
“While the department has done its best to address matters essential to achieving U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives during the ongoing lapse, it has become clear as the lapse has continued to historic lengths that we need our full team to address the myriad critical issues requiring U.S. leadership around the globe and to fulfill our commitments to the American people,” the department said.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 10 passed an Ag Appropriations Bill with a bipartisan 243-183 vote, which would have provided $23.2 billion in discretionary funding for Fiscal Year 2019, allowing FSA, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), and nutrition assistance programs to reopen. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), however, has refused to bring up any individual House-passed government funding bills for a vote.
While the three-day reopening of FSA offices certainly helps, USDA provided a list of services that would not be available during the agency’s limited operations, including new direct or facility loans; new farm loan guarantees; new marketing assistance loans; dairy margin protection program services; and disaster assistance programs.
Included on the denied services list are new applications for Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments and certification of 2018 production for MFP payments, a program that includes tariff aid to soybean farmers hurt by the trade war with China. While Jan. 15 had been the original deadline for producers to apply for MFP, USDA has extended the application deadline for a period of time equal to the number of business days FSA offices end up being closed, once the government shutdown ends.
USDA said producers who applied for MFP and certified their 2018 production by Dec. 28, 2018, should have already received their payments.
Recent customs data shows that China’s December soybean imports dropped 40.1 percent from last year, due largely to reduced purchases from the U.S., its second-largest supplier. China’s soybean imports for all of 2018 fell for the first time since 2011, and imports for December were at their lowest since December 2011.
Corn growers and ethanol producers were also bracing for a delay in EPA’s final rule to allow summertime sales of gasoline blended with as much as 15 percent ethanol. President Trump announced his plan to allow year-round sales of E15 last October, but the shutdown has reportedly furloughed 90 percent of EPA’s staff – some 13,000 employees – and the originally planned May deadline for the rule now seems unlikely.
The shutdown has also delayed the rollout of a new Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule. The “Revised Definition of the Waters of the United States,” which was announced by EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers on Dec. 11 (GM Dec. 14, 2018), would significantly narrow the types of water bodies that fall under Clean Water Act (CWA), replacing the contentious 2015 WOTUS rule developed by the Obama-era EPA.
The agencies published a notice on the revised WOTUS rule in the Federal Register on Dec. 28, but a public hearing scheduled for Jan. 23 in Kansas City, Kan., has already been cancelled due to the shutdown, and the rule’s official publication will likely be delayed as a result.
The Fertilizer Institute (TFI), the Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA), the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG), and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) all voiced support for the revised WOTUS rule, while The National Resources Defense Council, the National Audubon Society, and the Center for Biological Diversity have expressed strong opposition.
Regardless of the delay, legal experts have warned that the revised WOTUS rule is certain to be challenged in court (GM Dec. 21, 2018). Another headwind for the proposal, according to Bloomberg Law, is a number of incoming Attorneys General voted in as Democrats in November who are replacing Republicans in states where water quality is a key issue, including Michigan and Wisconsin.
AFBF President Zippy Duvall hailed the revised WOTUS rule at the organization’s annual convention in New Orleans this week, an event that also hosted President Trump on Jan. 14. Bloomberg reported that Trump enjoyed enthusiastic support from the Farm Bureau audience, assuring the 7,000 in attendance that his trade and immigration policies will benefit U.S. agriculture in the end, as will his administration’s regulatory and tax reforms.