ARA’s policy team of Hunter Carpenter and Richard Gupton discuss the impact of the recent reconciliation package on agriculture, a “skinny Farm Bill,” dead in the water California regulations, and what to expect before the August recess.
Highlighting extended tax cuts, enhanced crop insurance, and conservation program modifications, Carpenter says the One Big Beautiful Bill was a win for agriculture.
“ARA has been working on this since Trump was inaugurated back in January and the new Congress was sworn in, and we’re very pleased with the final product,” he says. “When we look back at some of the policy papers we took to Capitol Hill when we had our fly-in in March, I’m pleased to say that a lot of our top policy priorities were included in this piece of legislation.”
As highlights he mentions tax cuts including:
- permanently extending the 20% section 199 A pass through deduction
- enhancing section 179 expenses
- restoring bonus depreciation to 100% making that permnanent.
- Elevated estate tax exemptions
- Extension of the 45Z fuel production tax credit
Regarding the Farm Bill, we’re already two years late on a five year Farm Bill. The last one passed in 2018.
“A lot of the Farm Bill provisions were included [in the OBBB], especially on the crop insurance and reference price side,” he says. “tTere are other things that are that remain on our farm bill policy priority list that were not addressed. Many of those don’t have anything to do with congressional appropriations or funding that hopefully will be addressed in some sort of skinny farm bill that, maybe, Congress will work to pass late this year maybe into next year.”
Carpenter highlights four pillars of the recently announced Farm Security Action Plan.
- Cybersecurity
- Biosecurity and ermgecny preparedness
- Supply chain hardening
- Partnership and information sharing
“You always pray for the best, prepare for the worst,” he says. “The administration is treating ag retail and our ag industry not just a peripheral player, but as a critical front line partner in National Farm Security. That’s good news. It also means we’ll have to step up on our side.”
Gupton then gave updates on several transportation and labor related regulations.
Of the California EV mandate, he says it “should be dead. California has sued over this issue, and Governor Newsom has also tripled down and asked for the California Air Resources Board to come back again and issue some additional regulations. We think, knock on wood, it is dead in its tracks.”
Addressing the DOT’s withdrawal of Speed Limiter Proposal, Gupton says this is a policy victory for ag retailers.
“We think our speed limits should be left up to the states and localities because they best know the conditions of the roads of their local communities and what’s the safe speed to for those commercial vehicles to operate at,” he says.
And lastly, Gupton says they are continuing to work with FMCSA on the seasonal ag CDL program to allow for trailering of implements and trailers as well as online renewals for driver’s in good standing with clean records.
Other fronts the ARA team is engaging in include:
MAHA
Gupton says ARA has been to ag stakeholder meetings with the administration about the MAHA movement and its report and forthcoming policy recommendations. He has two takeaways.
First, he thinks the stakeholder meetings are genuine engagement with the industry.
Second, he has heard officials reiterate they do not want to move away from the U.S. standards used by the EPA which are risk-based to something more similar to Europe which are hazard-based.
Further Administration Priorities
Carpenter says in addition to MAHA, he’s watching three two: the Farm Security Action Plan and trade policy and the delayed ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs.
Government Funding
Gupton highlights the upcoming deadline of expiring appropriation bills in September. As such, he says lawmakers will be busy over the August recess figuring out how to pass or extend funding bills.
