10. Department of Agriculture

Project 2025 link: DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

WHO WROTE THIS CHAPTER? Daren Bakst – Director of Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) Center for Energy and Environment and former Senior Research Fellow, Environmental Policy and Regulation, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and the Heritage Foundation. Like his former employer, CEI camouflages corporate interests under concern for the little guy -“challenging government policies that encroach on property rights and individual freedom”…and “actively opposing policies such as carbon tariffs and carbon taxes, while advocating for consumer freedom in vehicle and appliance selection.” “The Washington Post has called CEI “a factory for global warming skepticism.” They launched two television duplicitous commercials that promoted carbon dioxide as a positive influence on the environment that were protested by the researchers they quoted. One advertisement claimed that carbon dioxide is, “essential to life. We breathe it out. Plants breathe it in… They call it pollution. We call it life.” The other stated that glaciers are, “growing, not melting… getting thicker, not thinner.”  CEI’s Myron Ebell was appointed to head the transition (and dismantling) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after former President Donald Trump’s election in 2016. 

In addition to climate-change denialism – CEI advocates for deregulation across a range of industries, including energy, finance, labor, technology, transportation, and pharmaceuticals and opposed calls to raise the federal minimum wage. They regularly file lawsuits against environmentalist regulations, such as fuel economy standards. They instituted a lawsuit in 2012 against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, supported a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) In 2011, CEI sued the United States Department of Transportation, arguing that e-cigarettes should not be covered by bans on smoking in airplanes (they failed). They also advocate for removing requirements or caps on insurance companies rates.

(desmog) “Oil giant ExxonMobil has been one of CEI‘s top funders, contributing at least $2.1 million since 1997 before reportedly cutting off funding in 2006. Donors Trust (DT) has donated over $4 million to CEI as of 2013. DT has been described as the “dark money ATM of the conservative movement”for its ability to take in funds from anonymous donors and distribute them to recipient organizations.” Its corporate donors have included Facebook, Google, Ford, Altria, and Comcast. In 2018, CEI disclosed $71,789 in revenue received from the Koch Associate Program, an initiative of the Charles Koch Institute that invests in “rising leaders.” 

CEI, along with the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation were called out by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse for the economic harm they have caused to the American public, who face the fruits of their dark-money funded labors.

Synopsis by stopthecoup2025.org

  • The U.S. Department of Agriculture should be scaled back, because “the USDA’s `client’ is the American people in general, not a subset of interests, such as farmers, meatpackers, environmental groups, etc.” (pg. 290).
  • It would reverse climate change policies – worsening the forecast for farmers.
  • It wants to cut back farm subsidies: “The overall goal should be to eliminate subsidy dependence” because subsidies create “market distortions.” (pg. 294-5).
  • “Stop paying farmers twice for price and revenue losses during the same year. Farmers can receive support from the ARC (Agriculture Risk Coverage) or PLC (Price Loss Coverage) programs and the federal crop insurance program to cover price declines and revenue shortfalls during the same year. Congress should prohibit this duplication.” (pg 297).
  • Eliminate the Conservation Reserve Program: “Farmers should not be paid in such a sweeping way not to farm their land” (pg. 304).
  • Shrink the Farm Services Agency that administers farm subsidy programs (pg. 310).
  • US farm bankruptcies keep climbing; small farmers are not surviving. But Project 2025 seeks cuts to federal aid programs like Social Security that also impact farmers.
  • Get rid of H-2A visas. “Congress should immediately cap this program at its current levels and establish a schedule for its gradual and predictable phase-down over the subsequent 10 to 20 years.” That will hurt farmers struggling to hire seasonal workers.
  • The plan calls for deregulation of food safety rules, and water, air, soil, animal husbandry regulations. That stands to harm nature, animals, and humans.

Our own page-by-page deep dive

  • (Pg. 290) Daren Bakst is an “elite” office dweller who takes issue with the Biden administration’s vision statement for the USDA: “An equitable and climate smart food and agriculture economy that protects and improves the health, nutrition and quality of life of all Americans, yields healthy land, forests and clean water, helps rural America thrive, and feeds the world.” He feels that the USDA:
    • should NOT try to control or shape the economy.
    • should not serve as a “major welfare agency” with programs like food stamps
    • has no business worrying itself about the environment or agricultural production itself, despite the fact the farmers are on the front line of extreme weather events, crop-damaging floods, and livestock-killing heat waves that will likely only increase in the future. 

(kios.org) “The fertilizer spill in Red Oak, Iowa caused a massive fish kill. Officials in Iowa and Missouri say the liquid nitrogen fertilizer leaking into the nearby East Nishnabotna River resulted in the deaths of nearly all fish in a 60-mile stretch of the river. That’s estimated at more than 3 quarters of a million fish. Many frogs, snakes, mussels, and earthworms were also killed. The leak of over 250-thousand gallons of fertilizer happened in an area not required to have a system in place to keep leaks from reaching the river. Restitution has not yet been determined.“

  • (pg. 290-1) (If you skipped the “WHO WROTE THIS CHAPTER” – Here we go!) Classic Bakst/CEI mission statement: ‘To develop and disseminate agricultural information and research, identify and address concrete public health and safety threats directly connected to food and agriculture, and remove both unjustified foreign trade barriers for U.S. goods and domestic government barriers that undermine access to safe and affordable food absent a compelling need—all based on the importance of sound science, personal freedom, private property, the rule of law, and service to all Americans” with no interest in climate change issues.
    • NOTE: Despite his “To develop and disseminate agricultural information and research“, the Trump administration refused to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carried warnings about the effects of climate change.
    • From 2017-19, the Agricultural Research Service released just two climate-related studies, both of which had findings that were favorable to the politically powerful meat industry.
    • Under Trump, the agency issued a press release about soy processing that briefly mentioned greenhouse gas emissions, noting that reducing fossil fuel use or emissions was “a personal consideration” for farmers.
    • A groundbreaking USDA study that proved that rice lost vitamins in a carbon-rich environment was not only withheld from release, but the department actively sought to prevent dissemination of the findings by the agency’s research partners.
    • Trump’s USDA moved the Economic Research Service out of Washington – many saw this as retribution for reports contrary to the his agenda.
  • (Pg. 292) For reference – Biden supports the UN Food Systems Summit goals:
    • “The stated goal of the Food Systems Summit was to transform the way the world produces, consumes and thinks about foods within the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to meet the challenges of poverty, food security, malnutrition, population growth, climate change, and natural resource degradation.”
  • (Pg. 292) “Defend American Agriculture”:
    • Bakst will remove the U.S. from any association with U.N. and other efforts to push sustainable-development schemes connected to food production.”
    • Remove the current strategic goals of the USDA – “the first three of which focus on issues such as climate change, renewable energy, and systemic racism.”
      • Biden’s IRA gave farmers an additional $19.5 billion in much-needed assistance for “climate-smart agriculture,” and these conservation funds are already working to build climate resilience and empower farmers to manage their land in a way that adapts to our new climate reality.
    • Remove obstacles imposed on American farmers and individuals across the food supply chain (smack CA for requiring humane living conditions for food animals)
    • Advance efficient and innovative food production, especially to advance safe and affordable food. (but says nothing of the environment)
  • (Pg. 294) Tighten up the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). Trump using it to fund $28 billion in “trade aid” to farmers was OK. Biden using it to help farmers transition climate-smart agricultural practices is not.
  • (Pg. 295) “Reduce subsidy dependence.” (The House Agriculture Committee new 2024 Farm Bill draft: Doubles down on support for large scale, industrial commodity operations – a group who already disproportionately benefits from agricultural subsidies. 
    • Repeal the federal sugar program
    • Repeal the ARC and PLC programs – protects farmers from “shallow losses.” This may mean more to farmers than it does to Mr. Bakst.
    • Stop paying farmers twice for price and revenue losses during the same year.
    • Reduce the premium subsidy rate for crop insurance. This makes crop insurance more expensive for farmers.
      • We like Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s (D-OR-3) bill H.R.5698 – Assisting Family Farmers through Insurance Reform Measures Act (AFFIRM)
        • Restrict crop insurance subsidies to farmers who are actually farming by applying basic work requirements to subsidy recipients.  
        • Cap annual premium subsidies at $125,000 per farmer. While many farmers don’t receive more than $10,000 per year to help them pay for their crop insurance, a few large agribusinesses receive as much as $1 million per year in federal subsidy.  
        • Eliminate premium subsidies for farmers earning more than $250,000 in adjusted gross income. Premium subsidies should be going to small and mid-size farms that need the support and not to large companies that can afford coverage on their own.  This would make the many billionaires and millionaires who receive crop insurance ineligible for tax-supported subsidies.
        • Increase transparency in the crop insurance program by requiring USDA to disclose the names of subsidy recipients and how much they receive.  
  • (Pg. 298) Move the USDA food and nutrition programs to the Dept. of Health and Human Services.
  • (Pg. 299) Re-implement work requirements to SNAP 
  • (Pg. 300) Reduce ability to access TANF benefits
  • (Pg. 300) Re-evaluate the Thrifty Food Plan and Biden’s unilateral increase of food stamp benefits by at least 21% in October 2021.
  • (Pg. 301) Eliminate the “heat-and-eat loophole (we check the author’s name to see if it’s Scrooge). “The amount of food stamps a household receives is based on its “countable” income (income minus certain deductions). Households that receive benefits from the Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) are eligible for a larger utility deduction. In order to make households eligible for the higher deduction, and thus for greater food stamp benefits, states have distributed LIHEAP checks for amounts as small as $1 to food stamp recipients.” Project 2025 wants a standardized utility allowance.
  • (Pg. 302) Reform WIC – remove labeling regulations and other rules that that unnecessarily delay the manufacture and sale of baby formula.
    • “During the Biden Administration, there have been devastating baby formula shortages.” (The beginning of the baby food crisis was unsanitary and contaminated supplies coinciding with the pandemic.
      • Reform should acknowledge that (Americanprogress.org) “key parts of the U.S. food system have been underfunded, monopolized by a small number of key players, and dependent on systems that can easily be disrupted and/or are underregulated, resulting in food and nutritional inequities with dangerous implications.”
  • (Pg. 303) Remove universal lunch programs, because apparently we are serving kids from upper income homes. Transferring money to the children of middle and upper class families doesn’t appear to worry them for the distribution of universal education vouchers, however…just for food for kids. (States that have universal school lunches: CA, CO, ME, MA, MI, MN, NM, VT)
  • School lunches con’t.
    • Eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP): “USDA should not provide meals to students during the summer unless students are taking summer-school classes. Currently, students can get meals from schools even if they are not in summer school, which has, in effect, turned school meals into a federal catering program.“
    • Promulgate a rule properly interpreting CEP: clarify that only an individual school or a school district as a whole, not a subset of schools within a district, must meet the 40-percent criteria to be eligible for CEP.
    • Restore programs to their original intent and reject efforts to create universal free school meals.
  • (Pg. 304) “Reform” conservation programs.
    • Eliminate the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to allow land to be fallow.
    • Eliminate NRCS wetlands and erodible land compliance and appeals. This will be easy now that more than half of wetlands no longer have EPA protections, thanks to SCOTUS.
    • Reform easements: limit the use of permanent easements and collaborate with lawmakers to prohibit the USDA from creating new permanent easements.
  • (Pg. 305) Remove federal inspection requirements for meat traveling across state lines and allow state inspections instead. The Trump administration authorized faster “line speeds” (the number of animals killed per minute) for poultry and pork plants, and loosened regulations on regulating pork. (USDA Issues Dirty Pork Rule, Allows Pork Producers to Inspect Own Meat)
    • “With less government oversight over hog slaughter inspection, big meat companies will have the freedom to inspect themselves and push towards their goal of increasing line speeds,” the nonprofit Food & Water Watch told Newsweek. “There’s no doubt about it: faster line speeds + less inspection = more food contamination.”

For those who’ve forgotten why federal inspection started…

Note re: Trump’s promise to deport all undocumented workers: In 2019, an ICE raid of a Koch Foods chicken plant (which last year had settled a $3.5 million lawsuit over widespread sexual harassment and abuse) and six other Mississippi facilities resulted in the arrest of over 680 undocumented workers – workers doing “difficult, dangerous work” in “work environment temperatures range[ing] from 50 to 90 degrees. “US meatpacking workers are already three times more likely to suffer serious injury than the average American worker,” with pork and beef workers almost seven times more likely to sustain repetitive strain injuries from slicing and hauling. Bureau of Labor Statistics show the injury rate for meatpacking workers is 2.4 times higher than the national average for all industries….[these include] fractured fingers, second-degree burns, head trauma, amputations, lost eyes, and torn-off limbs, not to mention repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel and chronic back pain.”  

According to Human Rights Watch: “Immigrant workers make up the majority of the labor force in the U.S. meat and poultry industry. Along with immigrant counterparts in the agricultural sector, they literally feed the people of the United States. Despite this central role in U.S. economic life, immigrant workers are not accorded the rights, recognition and respect they deserve for their contributions. Instead of integration into the host society with full application of labor rights and labor standards, they are marginalized in a huge underclass laboring in substandard employment conditions.”

  • Updates on line speed issues:
  • (Pg. 306) Reduce the number and scope of marketing orders and checkoff programs.
  • (Pg. 307) Push legislation to repeal export promotion programs.
  • (Pg. 307) Remove Obstacles for Agricultural Biotechnology.
    • Counter scare tactics and remove obstacles.
    • Repeal the federal labeling mandate.
    • Use all tools available to remove improper trade barriers against agricultural biotechnology.
  • (Pg. 308) Disinformation on logging for “fire control,” including promoting “thinning” and the lumber industry. (Remember Trump remarking on “raking” forest floors?)
    • (indivisibleventura) The Trump administration is handing over our national forests to industry & “right-sizing” our ability to comment.
  • (Pg. 309) Repeal the Dietary Guidelines and let people wade through the internet’s best advice.
    • The dietary guidelines started some 40 years ago. Apparently, later versions have incorporated climate change consciousness into the guidelines, and as you know by now, the GOP, Darin Bakst and CEI do not believe in that stuff.
    • Minimally, the next Administration should reform the Dietary Guidelines to only talk about food, nothing else.