Podcast - 2024 Election Impacts on Food and Agriculture Policy

Peter Tabor: Hi and welcome everyone to a podcast in our series Eyes on Washington, where we're looking at election impacts. This is Pete Tabor from Holland & Knight, and we're here today to talk about the election impacts on food and agriculture. And I'm joined by my colleagues here at Holland & Knight, and I'll introduce them briefly and then we'll dive into the issues. I'm a senior policy advisor here with HK in our Washington, D.C., office and our Public Policy & Regulation Group, and I'm the co-lead of our Food and Agriculture Team or our Agriculture and Food Team, along with Liz Craddock. I've spent about 23 years in food and agriculture policy and regulation, including 14 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and several years with, with the Trade Association here in Washington, D.C., that represents U.S. pet food makers, and among my, I guess you could call them achievements, is working to secure Chinese market access for U.S. pet food makers that I think increased exports about twentyfold there. And then working through the rulemaking process with the Food Safety Modernization Act. And so I'm pleased to be with you, but I'm even more pleased to be joined by my colleagues.

Liz Craddock, she's a government relations attorney and partner here with Holland & Knight, and again in our PP&R Group and co-lead of the Agriculture and Food Policy Team. She spent a decade on Capitol Hill, most notably for Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a state that's no stranger to agriculture. She works mainly on ag, energy and environmental issues for the senator, or she did. And she navigated the senator through two Farm Bills in 2008 and 2014. And she also worked, after devastating storms in 2008, she worked closely with Louisiana Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strange — who I know well, he's a great guy — in securing $752 million in relief money for farmers in the state as part of the Agriculture Disaster Supplemental included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. She also managed the senator's agriculture appropriations matters and helped deliver earmarks and other agriculture priorities for the state.

Isabel Lane is a Washington, D.C., senior public affairs advisor who works with our Public Policy & Regulation Group on policy issues related to climate change, renewable energy, natural resources, environment and related tax matters. She's got nearly a decade of collective experience on energy and environment topics, and she develops and uses that talent to develop and execute comprehensive federal relations strategies and issue-focused campaigns to drive legislation, regulation and executive action related to greenhouse gas emissions reductions in a wide range of corporate sectors. She's worked on policies surrounding several Clean Air Act programs, including the Renewable Fuel Standard and the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards. And she draws on experience working for a House Republican and a House Democrat, as well as work with the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Kayla Gebeck Carroll, she's joining us as well. She's an attorney in our Washington, D.C., office and a member of our PP&R Group and Native American Law group. For the last two Farm Bill cycles, Kayla has worked closely with clients on advancing their priorities in Congress and providing oversight on USDA implementation of the Farm Bill.

And finally, Chris DeLacy joins us. He's the co-lead of our Political Law Team here in Holland & Knight's PP&R Group. And for over 20 years, he has been representing corporations, trade associations, local governments, coalitions and nonprofits before Congress and the executive branch. Chris served as counsel to Senator John Warner of Virginia and also counsel on the Technology Subcommittee of the House Science Committee, where he oversaw technical standards issues in the National, in the National Institute of Standards and Technology. So with that, we've done the intros and we're ready to dive into some of the issues, and I'm going to hand it over to my colleague, Liz, to start us on looking at the White House and congressional overview.

Liz Craddock: Thanks, Pete. We'll start at the top here with the White House. As everybody likely knows, there are seven swing states that will decide the U.S. presidential election. Polling is very tight in each of these races. Many of the polls had hairs up by 1 or 2 points, all within the margin of error, but polling continues to tighten and some polls now show former President Trump leading. While Harris is expected to win the popular vote, the Electoral College will come down to voter turnout in these seven swing states. So far in states that have already begun early voting, we have seen record numbers in states like Georgia and North Carolina, but the question is, will these numbers continue to grow and reflect the record number turnout that we had in the 2020 election? Obviously, we won't know for a few weeks until all votes are cast by November 5 or on November 5.

For the two congressional chambers, let me start with the U.S. Senate. The current Senate makeup is 51 to 49, but Dems are losing the West Virginia seat to Senator Manchin's retirement. One-third of the Senate elected or reelected every two years with senators serving six year terms. The math this year clearly favors the Republicans. Democrats are trying to hold on to seats in Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and in Montana and Ohio, those two Democratic candidates are trying to win in states that Trump carried in the last election. If every Democrat can hang on, which I do not think is likely, then we will have a 50/50 Senate and the tie-breaking vote goes to the vice president. So again, why I think it's unlikely that all Dems hold on to their seats, we are hearing that the polling is tightening in the Senate races in Texas, Florida or Nebraska, and if a Dem were to pick up one of those seats, we could end up again with a 50/50 tied Senate. And given that the vice president is a tie breaker in such situations, who wins the White House could also matter for control of the Senate. I just want to have one sort of side note here on the Nebraska Senate candidate, Dan Osborne. If he were to pick up that seat, he says he will not caucus with either party, and if that remains the case, and he's elected to an evenly divided Senate, his decision not to caucus could have an impact on which party controls the chamber. Regardless, the Senate is likely to remain very evenly divided, making it difficult to get legislation passed that doesn't have strong bipartisan support.

Moving over to the House side. Current make up is 220 Republicans, 212 Democrats and three vacancies. You need 218 for a majority in the House. Every seat is up for election, reelection every two years. Most districts have been created to give one party a clear advantage. We have hardly any purple districts anymore. There are 18 Republicans serving in districts carried by Biden, including several seats in California and New York, and those are the seats Democrats are focused on regaining. On the flip side, there are just five Democrats in districts that Trump carried. Dems need to pick up just four seats to have a majority in the U.S. House. And again, like the Senate, neither party is expected to have a huge majority in the House. With that, Pete, I think that gives the good overview of the races and will turn it back to you.

Peter Tabor: Thanks, Liz. Yeah, it's interesting to see that we're looking at a potential flip in both the House and the Senate, which could get us kind of right back where we are right now, which may not be a recipe for getting a lot of legislation passed. But I'm going to shift gears a little bit and talk briefly, along with my colleague Kayla, about what we could see at USDA, because this conversation really is about the, the impact of the election on agriculture policy. We're going to get more detail now.

If Kamala Harris wins, there are — at least currently, and this can change — four main contenders for USDA's top spot, and they include current Secretary Tom Vilsack — surprisingly, you know, we'll get to that in a sec — the current Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small, California agriculture secretary Karen Ross, and a kind of a late entrance, perhaps, to the conversation, and that's Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern from Massachusetts. Secretary Vilsack would be a steady hand, but he has detractors, as anyone would expect after 12 years serving as agriculture secretary, including all eight under, under President Obama. Xochitl Torres Small is a former member of Congress from New Mexico, and I guess you could consider her a moderate Democrat, which would help with getting Republican support for her nomination. She also occupied the deputy secretary position for about a year when her predecessor as deputy secretary stepped down. Then we have Karen Ross, who has served as the California Secretary of Agriculture since 2011, and she was current Secretary Vilsack's chief of staff in 2009 during the transition. Obviously, she hails from the largest agriculture state in the nation, so her credentials are considered pretty solid. I mentioned Representative McGovern, who's a Democrat from the second district in Massachusetts. He's being pushed by progressive Democrats for his longtime advocacy on hunger and nutrition issues, as well as his friendship with and support for Tim Walz, the vice presidential nominee for the Democrats. But Massachusetts is not a prominent agriculture state, and McGovern is perhaps by some considered too progressive for many farm state legislators and their stakeholders. So my bet is perhaps on Torres Small. She's a moderate Dem, as I mentioned, from a state with a fairly significant agriculture stakeholder base, and note that there's only been one woman USDA secretary, and that was Ann Venemen from California under George W. Bush. Karen Moss, I think, would be a close second due in part to being from Kamala Harris' home state and the largest agriculture state in the nation as I mentioned before.

If Trump wins, the short list right now includes Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller —  and he's a staunch Trump supporter — current NASDA president — and NASDA stands for the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture — NASDA President and former USDA Undersecretary for Trade during the Trump Administration. Ted McKinney, and Kip Tom, who's the former U.S. Envoy to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency in Rome under President Trump. Trump's choice, I think, depends on his priorities. But Sid Miller is a pro-Trump loyalist, and he's a good bet. He, I think, stated his interest in serving in this capacity in the Trump Administration. He's focused on reining in spending on nutrition assistance and directing more government funding to farmers and ranchers. Now, he's been investigated, not charged, for misuse of campaign funds in Texas, so that might be something to consider in terms of his nomination. Both Kip Tom and Ted McKinney would be safer choices, in my view. Kip Tom currently runs a pro-Trump agriculture group called Farmers and Ranchers for Trump. But Ted McKinney, who I know personally, is not, as media reports, not actively lobbying for the job. Ted would be a good choice if Trump decides that USDA's focus should be on trade and market access. At this point, I'll kick it over to Kayla up for a discussion of the White House Conference on Hunger and Nutrition, which got a lot of high profile under the Biden Administration.

Kayla Gebeck Carroll: Thanks, Pete. As Pete mentioned, Representative McGovern, who is a potential candidate for USDA secretary, is actually responsible or giving credit working along with Senators Cory Booker, Mike Braun and former congresswoman Jackie Walorski, to actually secure funding for the White House Conference on Nutrition, which was the second conference that the White House has held. The first one was looking back about 50 years during the Nixon Administration, which actually resulted in the creation of nutrition programs that we're commonly familiar with and often come to fruition in part of the Farm BSNAill and other agriculture packages, including SNACK, WIC and the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs. So as a part of this current conference, the Biden-Harris Administration set a goal of ending hunger and increasing healthy eating and physical activity in the U.S. by 2030. It's a lofty goal, but recognizing the high rates of diabetes, obesity and hypertension that are plaguing Americans, they feel obligated to start making changes by looking internally at some of the federal feeding programs, seeing what administrative changes that they can make to improve health and well-being, but then also implementing a voluntary incentive program for large companies who are part of the agricultural system. Some of those voluntary incentives include reducing sodium in foods, for example, especially those targeting children and families. Looking to the upcoming elections, if we find ourselves in a Harris Administration, many of these initiatives are expected to continue, if not be built upon further, especially as we finally get a Farm Bill. However, under a Trump Administration, many of these efforts are probably going to dissolve and slowly fall to the wayside. So the election will definitely impact the long-term overarching goals of that. Pete, anything to add there? I'll turn it back to you.

Peter Tabor: Thanks, Kayla. No, I think that was a really good summary of where things stand with respect to that conference and its future. We'll  return to Liz and, and Chris DeLacy this time to take a look at the Senate with respect to agriculture. So, Liz and Chris?

Liz Craddock: Thanks, Pete. Just focus real quick, if we do see Democrats keep control of the Senate, then we expect to see the leadership change on the Senate Agriculture Committee. That's because Senator Stabenow of Michigan is retiring this year. So we will definitely see new leadership whether or not Democrats stay in charge of the chamber or not. It's expected that Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota will take the helm for the Senate Democrats, whether she's chair or ranking member. Minnesota is the U.S.'s fifth largest agriculture producing state, and Senator Klobuchar has a strong agriculture record in Congress, focusing on many things, but on the safety net for farmers and ranchers, investing in conservation efforts to protect farmland and supporting agriculture to energy policies like the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, and biofuels production. So I would expect those items to remain top focus for Senator Klobuchar as she takes the helm of the committee for Democrats in the Senate. But, Chris, why don't I turn it to you to talk about the Republicans and what their leadership and their priorities will look like if the Republicans take control?

Chris DeLacy: Thank you, Liz. So the top Republican on the committee currently is John Boozman, and he will remain in that slot whether he's chairman or ranking member. There will be some other changes on the committee. For example, Senator Braun from Indiana is running for governor, so he's very likely leaving the Senate and leaving the committee. And you referenced earlier, Liz, the Nebraska Senate race, and Senator Fisher is on the committee. If she does end up not being reelected, that would prompt another change on the Republican side of the committee. And I guess one other footnote is that Senator Thune serves on the committee. He is expected by many to end up being the majority leader, and if Republicans take the Senate, my expectation is that he would stay on the committee. For example, Senator Mitch McConnell is currently on the committee and serving as the Republican leader at the same time, but perhaps Senator Thune would play a slightly more diminished role on the committee if he were to undertake those leadership responsibilities. One other note on the Appropriations Committee, the Ag FDA Appropriations Committee, Senator Fisher also serves on that subcommittee, so something to keep an eye on, but not a lot of shakeup is expected on the Republican side with Senator Boozman continuing in his leadership position. I know that getting a Farm Bill is a top priority for him. I know he has been working towards trying to do that this year. Obviously, the calendar, every day that goes by makes it harder and harder to accomplish that. But I know he has been working both with the chairwoman of the committee and with folks on the House side to get that done, and I would expect that would continue in the next Congress, as Arkansas is a major agricultural, agricultural producer and the Farm Bill is very important for his constituents. So with that, I will turn things back over.

Peter Tabor: Thanks, Chris and Liz. Yeah, I think the Senate leadership, you sketched that out very well. I'll briefly cover the House. It's a big deal,  but things similarly, if we're looking at a flip in the Senate, we're looking at perhaps quite likely a flip in the House, current chair of the House Agriculture Committee is Glenn "GT" Thompson from Pennsylvania's 15th District, and he will likely remain as chair or ranking member in the next Congress. It's more interesting, I think, on the Democratic side, because Representative David Scott, a Democrat from Georgia's 13th District, he is running for reelection and has stated his interest in remaining as a ranking member and likely chair of the, of the agriculture and the Agriculture Committee in the, in the next Congress, 119th. Note that four Democrats voted for the Republican version of the Farm Bill and that is, you know, by some — I mean, we're providing you with some analysis here. But it's indicated by some a sign that the Representative Scott had some challenges keeping Democrats unified in opposition to the Farm Bill, the Farm Bill that passed out of the Agriculture Committee on May 23 or early in the morning of May 24. If Democrats retake control of the House, he's expressed interest in chairing the committee, but there has been concern expressed by Republicans and some Democrats in terms of his performance over the past couple of years in the run-up to this Farm Bill. And recall that Representative Bennie Thompson from the 2nd District in Mississippi is the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee and a potential chair there if the Democrats retake the House. He was named by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to lead a House task force on agriculture and nutrition last year, which essentially cut Representative Scott out of the picture, and so that's something to keep an eye on. That task force was assembled to counter Republican efforts to cut nutrition assistance spending. So these are factors just to consider as we go forward. We fully expect, you know, the Democrats to coalesce around a leader for the committee. But, but there are some moving parts and some stuff we'll be watching closely. With that, we're going to shift gears and talk a little bit about energy and sustainability with Isabel. Isabel?

Isabel Lane: Sure. Thanks, Peter. We saw sustainability become a signature focus for the USDA under the Biden Administration. USDA received significant IRA funding, and Secretary Vilsack also independently leveraged Commodity Credit Corporation, or CCC, authority to create new voluntary and incentive-based programs that would encourage farmers to adopt climate smart agricultural practices. This was seen as a way to both begin reducing agricultural emissions, which comprise around 10 percent of the U.S. carbon footprint overall, as well as a way to help farmers create more value and revenue streams in their agricultural products. At a time when small farms are disappearing, Secretary Vilsack saw real opportunity to use systems like voluntary carbon markets that recognize life cycle emissions reductions and soil carbon improvements to help farmers pull economic value through and into new and burgeoning markets, like for sustainable aviation Fuel, or SAF. We could by and large anticipate a continuation of this incentive-based approach regardless of who was elected. The American Farm Bureau Federation did a candidate survey with both Vice President Harris and President Trump on sustainability issues, and both cited this philosophy as integral to their approach on agriculture and sustainability. We're likely to see more ambition and direct funding on this front from Democrats. It's also possible under a Trump Two Administration, we might once again see a shift in branding to scrub references to climate change, but overall, voluntary and incentive-based sustainability programs have received broad support from rural America, Republicans and Democrats alike. And we're seeing the USDA sustainability initiative supported in both Republican and Democratic Farm Bill drafts.

I did want to mention one area where we may see some difference in policy approach from these two candidates as they've discussed their visions for American energy production. The candidates have been relatively silent on biofuels issues. They've instead focused on oil and gas development versus renewables, including in rural America. Vice President Harris' selection of Governor Walz as her running mate was seen as a significant nod to the biofuels industry given his familiarity and support for this industry in Minnesota. However, ethanol continues to be a challenging subject for progressives, and both the vice president and the governor has had some trouble from making specific promises related to ethanol or other renewable fuels. Meanwhile, President Trump has been more explicitly pro-ethanol. He's made specific pledges to continue support for higher ethanol blends and gasoline, as well as increasing ethanol exports. There's much more to say on each of these visions as sustainability is becoming increasingly tied to the future economic viability of American agriculture, but with our limited time today I will turn it back to you, Peter.

Peter Tabor: Thanks, Isabel. Yeah, here's a lot, both under current administration's policies and just the challenges on energy and sustainability, so thanks for covering that. I'm going to quickly try and sprint through technology, trade and labor. They will feature prominently in the coming years under either a Trump or Harris Administration, and I'll tackle them in the order I mentioned them. They kind of roll off the tongue. But it's clear that trade and labor are the most consequential of the three. So first, technology. It has always played a prominent role in U.S. food and agriculture production, from the replacement of draft animals with tractors in the middle of the 20th century to the introduction of genetically engineered, or GMO, crops in the late 1990s. Now the technology challenges are plentiful, but the issue receiving a lot of recent attention has been around cultivated meat, which was touted as a game changer in terms of resource utilization and animal welfare, but has not to date delivered on those promises. Now, several state legislatures have proposed bans on the production and sale of cultivated meat. And two, Alabama and Florida, have instituted such bans. So we're keeping an eye on these bans, which are being challenged in court, and since they will limit access to this technology, admittedly cultivated meat is not available in quantities or at prices where it's really going to move the needle,  but that day will come sooner than most expect. I did an Eyes on Washington podcast with a friend and former colleague from the State Department, Jack Bobo, in which we covered this topic and encourage you to check that out.

We can't have a discussion of agriculture policy under either a Harris or a Trump Administration without discussing trade. Under the Obama Administration, you'll recall that agriculture benefited from the signing of trade agreements that opened foreign markets for U.S. food and agriculture. Then President Trump changed all of that with his brand of trade policy, scuttling the Trans-Pacific Partnership, threatening to withdraw the United States from NAFTA, which led to the renegotiation and result in USMCA, and his use of tariffs to, in his view, promote U.S. manufacturing. Our trading partners retaliated with tariffs of their own, principally targeting agriculture. Trump's agriculture secretary used the Commodity Credit Corporation, and that was Sonny Perdue under President Trump, to compensate farmers and ranchers hurt by those terms. In Trump's last year in office, USDA doled out more than $50 billion in trade aid to farmers hurt by retaliatory tariffs. So we can probably expect more of the same in a second Trump Administration, especially when you consider that Trump's campaign promises include imposing universal tariffs on all imports and higher tariffs on Chinese imports. Our food and agriculture sector can expect swift retaliation, as we did in Trump's first term, although we'll keep our eye on China, which has been moving to reduce its reliance on U.S. food and agriculture exports, including soybeans, which they're now buying more of from Brazil. That, I think, is the real risk for U.S. farmers and ranchers, and that the uncertainty of Trump trade policy and its effect on our access to foreign food and agriculture markets will have long-term impacts on those markets will see us as a less reliable supplier of these commodities.

Under a Harris Administration, I think we're likely to see some continuity with the Biden Administration's approach to food and agriculture trade. This will mean reduced focus on foreign market access, especially if that involves negotiating access to the U.S. market for manufactured goods. USTR Ambassador Tai has made clear that such trade agreements are not a priority, and we can expect that to continue under a Harris Administration. Recall that she voted against the USMCA as a senator from California, citing environmental concerns, and she said in a 2019 interview that she would not have voted for NAFTA, citing labor concerns. Under a Harris Administration, I think we'd have to prepare for more of the same conversations with trading partners about framework agreements like IPEF and APEF, these are regional trade agreements and focused on the Asia and the Americas that have ambitious goals, many of them centered on labor and environment, with no market access provisions. The United States, recall now we're a net importer of food and agriculture products, and I think that trend will continue.

Finally, the topic of labor in the context of food and agriculture is going to figure prominently one way or the other. For context, the USDA's Economic Research Service estimates that 73 percent of farm workers are foreign born. The workforce in our horticulture sector out West and our poultry production in the Southeast rely on immigrant labor, and this topic is inextricably tied to the immigration issue. And many in the agriculture sector are concerned with candidate Trump's campaign promise to conduct mass deportations. The concern is that any such effort, even the hint of such an effort, would adversely impact food and agriculture producers, including meatpackers as well as the horticulture sector, whose workforce consists of both documented and undocumented workers. Recall that earlier this year, the Senate failed to advance significant immigration reform, which paired a path to citizenship for some undocumented people with restrictions on who could apply for asylum. That legislation had bipartisan support in the Senate, but House and Senate leadership could not advance, apparently under pressure from candidate Trump. There's a chance that legislation could be revived under either a Trump or Harris Administration, although under Trump, there would likely be some tweaks. Regardless the thorny issue of labor and immigration will continue to pose challenges for the food and agriculture sector and also for the workers caught in the middle. With that, we're going to shift gears again to another topic. There's substantial legislation that's being implemented now under the Biden Administration, I'm referring to the Infrastructure and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. And I will segue to Liz for a discussion of those topics.

Liz Craddock: Thanks, Pete. Yeah, I'll quickly move through these two massive pieces of legislation so we can get to the main attraction for many, I'm sure, listening to this podcast, which is the Farm Bill. But when it comes to the Inflation Reduction Act, otherwise known as the IRA, there was nearly $50 billion passed in that bill to support USDA programs. Significant amount of funding, nearly $20 billion for five conservation programs, as well as $10+ billion for rural energy programs, as well as $2 billion for the Forest Service, for hazardous fuels reduction projects and vegetation management. So a significant amount of investments made for USDA programs as part of the IRA. When it comes to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or IIJA, it also contained billions of dollars to USDA, mainly with the Forest Service, to reduce wildfire risk and also for the Department of Rural Development to support rural initiatives across the country, especially with broadband needs. Democrats are very proud of these two massive funding bills and are unlikely to make any adjustments on them, assuming that they either have control of both or one of the congressional chambers next Congress, but many Republicans have signaled they'd like to repeal the IRA in full and some have also signaled that they'd like to repeal some provisions under the IIJA. While most of the USDA provisions enacted in both these bills are popular and I think are unlikely to get repealed due to their popularity, the one area of concern is with the conservation funding and that money getting out the door as quickly as possible. And the reason for that is, is if Trump wins, is the potential to have those funds that have not already been obligated to be rescinded under the next administration. In addition, there are some Republicans in Congress who would like the $20 billion in conservation funding that passed as part of the IRA to count toward the baseline of the Farm Bill that is trying to make its way through Congress this year, but Democrats have remained firm in opposing that.

So I know Kayla and Chris are going to speak more to the Farm Bill in a moment, but before we move to that topic, I did want to highlight one more additional matter that will be important for the ag sector this year, and that's ag disaster assistance. I know the ag sectors in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida in particular have been hit hard this year from the devastating storms that have hit their states, and I'm sure Congress will be looking to add ag disaster assistance to whatever disaster supplemental package, that's likely being put together as we speak, for passage after the elections to help producers in those states. So that's another big piece, I think, for the ag sector that could potentially happen this Congress. And with that, why don't I pass it over to Kayla and Chris for the Farm Bill?

Kayla Gebeck Carroll: Great. Thanks, Liz. For everyone's general awareness to make sure we're on the same page, the 2018 Farm Bill first expired on September 30, 2023. Recognizing that Congress was not going to be able to enact a Farm Bill package, a five-year authorizing package, by the end of the year, they enacted a one-year extension as part of the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process. That extension has now expired on September 30. Technically, we have until the end of the calendar year before programs run out of funding and we hit what's known as the "dairy cliff" before we actually have to enact another measure, whether that's a five-year reauthorization or another continuing extension. However, we're running out of time. So this means Congress has to take some sort of action one way or another during lame duck. And whether we get that bill done during the lame duck is honestly the trillion-dollar question that all of us are asking. Not only is the current Farm Bill expected to be the most expensive Farm Bill ever enacted, priority wise, as many of my other colleagues have mentioned, it falls behind keeping the government funded, other competing bills like the NDAA, which has been reauthorized for over 50 years consecutively, and any disaster relief that's needed to respond to the current hurricanes. Another factor determining its outcome or when it will get done is the results of the upcoming election. If there is a Republican sweep of the House and Senate, there's less of a desire to get a Farm Bill done in lame duck because they can pass something along party lines in the new Congress. Likewise, if Democrats win, they may want to gavel in and write their own version of the bill. Now, we've been hearing that, although we have not seen texts from the Senate Agriculture Committee, that the four corners of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees are talking, they are working toward some sort of resolution. House leadership has also called on Congress to get it done during lame duck, but Senator Schumer has admittedly been quite quiet on its prospects in the Senate. All this to say, we'll know soon the true prospects of the farm bill getting done, and while it's not likely, should it move during lame duck, it's going to move very quickly. So we'll have hundreds and hundreds of pages to read through fast. But with that, Chris, maybe I can turn to you, fill in any gaps that I might have missed and maybe talk about one of the topics that's been taking center stage in the upcoming Farm Bill related to foreign ownership of agricultural lands.

Chris DeLacy: Thank you, Kayla. Appreciate it. Yeah, agree with everything you've said. I think it's, it's just a simple matter of probably running out of time, but all the relevant parties are saying they want to get a Farm Bill done this year, and I think that is their intent, but the lame duck session is going to be very crowded with must-pass legislation, including the appropriations package or continuing resolution, the National Defense Authorization Act and other pieces of must-pass legislation, and there's simply only so many days that Congress has to work with between November 12 and the end of the year. So we'll see what happens, but I think it's, every day that passes, it's probably less and less likely that we're going to see a Farm Bill this year, but we'll know more starting on November 12 and, and probably right before then whether it's a realistic possibility for this year or not.

As Kayla mentioned, the Farm Bill is likely to deal with issues related to foreign ownership. There will almost certainly be language enhancing the capabilities and the support for the AFIDA office, which handles the disclosure of foreign purchases of agricultural land. This has been a hot topic over the last two or three years, and almost certainly regardless of who is in charge, there will be additional authority and resources for the AFIDA office. In addition, there may be issues related to animal welfare and ballot question committees, but that is probably at least partly a function of who is in control of what, and so everyone is waiting for the election, and once we have those results, I think the path forward will become much clearer, both on the Farm Bill itself and on some of these underlying issues within the Farm Bill. But stay tuned and we'll all learn what's going to happen together. But it should be interesting and it should be a busy lame duck session and certainly a busy first six months of the next Congress.

Peter Tabor: Thanks, Chris. And thank you all. Thanks to my colleagues for helping us unpack a lot of weighty issues, whether it's immigration or the Farm Bill, which everyone is really focused on, or labor, energy, etc. There's a lot to consider. A lot to plan for, both the lame duck, as Chris said, and the next Congress. So we invite you to reach out to us and work with us. We're constantly engaging with members and staff, trying to ensure that we have complete information and advance our clients' objectives. So we'd like to do that for you as well. Thank you again for joining us, and we will be back in touch with more discussions on these topics.