Bill Huffman
Director - Government Relations

The Friday Report

September 25, 2009

While health care reform continues to dominate the news out of Congress, we learned this week that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee plans to release its climate change legislation next Wednesday with a planned floor vote sometime before the end of the year. 

Senate Climate Change Bill

Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry plan to unveil their “Climate Change” bill next Wednesday, September 30th. The bill reportedly will propose deeper cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions than the House bill. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will “markup” the bill in mid-to-late October with floor debate, assuming the bill gets out of committee, before the end of the year. We understand the Senate bill proposes to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 from 2005 levels while the House bill set a reduction level of 17%.

Doha Round Issues and Debate

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln said this week that trade negotiators should “write a new agricultural text for the Doha Round because other nations so far have proven unwilling to match previous U.S. offers to cut farm supports”. In a statement to the media, Senator Lincoln said “the Senate is unlikely to approve a World Trade Organization agreement that fails to remove barriers to U.S. agricultural exports that exist around the world”.

We should note that Senator Lincoln’s position is at variance with the Obama Administration; however, she has been very consistent in her view of the trade negotiations and is in step with key Republican members of the Senate who also have indicated they believe the proposed Doha agreement fails to remove trade barriers to American agriculture products.

The pressure to get a Doha agreement, meanwhile, continues. The European Union, Brazil and Australia on Thursday urged the United States in talks at the Group of 20 Summit in Pittsburg to set an early 2010 deadline for a breakthrough agreement on cutting agricultural and manufacturing tariffs and reducing domestic farm subsidies. While there is increased pressure to get a rapid conclusion to the long running Doha round of talks, it appears the Obama Administration is not eager to embrace a quick conclusion, especially in view of their effort to get congressional approval of a health care form package.

On another note, President Obama has nominated Dr. Isi A. Siddiqui to be Chief Agricultural Negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). This position is responsible for agriculture trade negotiations having to do with market access issues and setting overall U.S. agricultural trade policy. The position has been vacant for the past nine months. Siddiqui currently serves as Vice President for regulatory affairs and science at CropLife America. The nominee appears to have good credentials. He previously worked with USTR and represented the U.S. Department of Agriculture in bilateral, regional and multi-lateral agricultural trade negotiations while serving in various capacities in the Clinton Administration. For many years, Dr. Siddiqui worked at the California Department of Food & Agriculture, so he is very familiar with California agriculture.

Finally, several farm and agribusiness groups (including the USA Rice Federation) asked the U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk this week to ask the WTO to establish a new compliance panel to update the recent WTO Brazil cotton case ruling to take into account changes in the 2008 Farm Bill that addressed and corrected the USDA export credit guarantee program to make it in compliance with WTO rules. While the cotton case ruling only affects U.S. cotton, farm and agribusiness groups said “competitor countries could also use the theory behind the Brazilian case to challenge current export credit programs that could be detrimental to other commodities.

Korean Rice Traders Visit California

Farmers’ Rice Cooperative and the California rice industry hosted a six-member Korean trade delegation this week for a two-day tour. The group toured the FRC mill in West Sacramento and took a field tour to view the California rice harvest among other visits. The six visitors were primarily rice wholesalers who resell California rice to small Korean restaurants and stores. This tour and others that the industry hosts are primarily to increase the understanding of the quality and safety of California rice.