American Farm Bureau’s executive vice president refuses to take sides in the newly elected Congress but does say AFBF will continue to fight policies bad for agriculture. Dale Moore feels it’s too early to get dragged into fights over energy, taxes, trade, and regulatory issues, despite a likely divided and maybe more polarized Congress in January.
“We know there will be challenges, but I guarantee you that the quickest way to lose out on making advances on the priorities that farmers and ranchers have set for us to work on is to throw our hands up and say, ‘you know what, this is going to be nearly impossible.’ That is not the way we operate,” Moore explained.
And Moore is still confident about two priorities: keeping the government funded after December 11th, when temporary funding expires, and passing a COVID-19 relief package with possibly billions more for agriculture.
“My confidence is we will get a new COVID bill,” he said. “I don’t know how much is going to be in there for agriculture, but I feel confident there will be some critical benefits in there, some assistance in there, for agriculture.”
Any COVID bill in a lame-duck or new Congress early next year could be bigger than Senate Republicans who hold a narrower majority want and less than Speaker Pelosi and a slimmer House Democratic majority want. But as for other Ag priorities.
“Those things that are helping agriculture, we’re going to be championing, those things that can hurt farmers and ranchers and rural communities, we’re going to be working to stop. And we look forward to working with any member of Congress, any member of the administration that helps us in those battles.”
Moore won’t say it but there could be fights to restore “Waters of the U.S.” clean water rules, higher estate, capital gains and corporate tax levels, or to speed up the phasing out of gas and ethanol-powered vehicles.
Source: NAFB News