April 13, 2023

A five-minute summary of AAI, regulation, and industry activities for members of the largest state agribusiness association in the nation.

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• More port concerns | Latest supply and demand numbers

• Latest crop progress report | State Climatologist talks next two weeks of weather

• Some of the largest ports in the nation effectively closed last week

• USDA head talks to budget committee about trade

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New standards announced by the EPA would require car and truck manufacturers to adhere to much more stringent emission standards starting in 2027. They include new guidelines for small and medium-duty vehicles as well as tougher regulations for heavy-duty vehicles like semi-trucks.

Ethanol advocates say the proposal unfairly incentivizes electric vehicle manufacturing at the expense of alternative fuels. They contend current biofuel technology is more advanced than electric car technology, and more cost-effective for consumers.

“While we certainly share the Biden administration’s goals of increasing vehicle efficiency and reducing carbon emissions from transportation, we strongly disagree with policy approaches that arbitrarily pick technology winners and losers with no clear scientific basis,” Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Geoff Cooper says. “Today’s EPA proposal would effectively force automakers to produce more battery electric vehicles and strongly discourage them from pursuing other vehicle technologies that could achieve the same—or better—environmental performance at a lower cost to the U.S. economy and American families. We urge EPA to reconsider its proposal and instead adopt a technology-neutral approach that treats all low-carbon transportation options fairly and equally.”

Cooper notes that multiple studies have shown modern biofuels in fuel efficient cars offer significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. However, when car manufacturing and fuel production processes are factored in, the benefits become murkier.



[...] Read Full Story

Cargo volumes at the Port of Los Angeles are rebounding just as fears of port labor disruptions are escalating.

On Wednesday, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka announced a rise in imports in March versus February, with even higher volumes expected in the months ahead. At the same time, he said “there has been widespread concern over the ongoing West Coast labor contract negotiations and those concerns intensified last week.”  

The previous labor contract between the ILWU port workers’ union and the Pacific Maritime Association, representing terminals, expired on July 1, 2022. “This contract negotiation has been going on as long as it ever has. Folks want to put this thing to rest,” Seroka said during a news conference attended by a record number of journalists.

Cargo operations at terminals of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach were halted during the Thursday night shift, coinciding with a monthly meeting of ILWU Local 13, as well as during the day shift on Good Friday.

“What we saw last week was a call to action for everyone to hunker down and get this deal done as quickly as possible,” said Seroka.

“Good Friday typically sees a lower volume of activity during the morning shift, so the impact to operations was relatively minor. However, this situation captured the nation’s attention — and rightly so.”

He said “there are no contingency plans” for a more extended shutdown, should it ever happen. He maintained that it wouldn’t.

[...] Read Full Story

One of the most fascinating considerations regarding the 2023 farm bill is that it isn’t just some casual piece of legislation that is voted on at a local cattlemen’s meeting. It is a massive bill that requires all the due diligence to get passed that matches Elle Woods’ tireless efforts in Legally Blonde. It is no small feat to renegotiate on a nationally political level such an important body of work that is worth about $1 trillion.

One of the many moving parts of getting a new farm bill to be passed by Congress and signed by the president is the introduction of marker bills. Four months into the year of the farm bill, and multiple rounds of marker legislation have either happened, or will before month’s end.

The most likely path for an idea to be placed into the final draft of the farm bill is through marker bills. What this is, is essentially a piece of legislation, or rather a lot of smaller pieces, that is passed on the floor but not kept as a standalone bill. It is meant to then garner support over a span of time in order to be included into a larger bill — in this instance, the farm bill.

Advocates for each marker bill work to build awareness in hopes that enough support is given to include it in the final draft of the farm bill. Having ideas broken down in this manner makes it easier for advocates and support groups to draw more attention to legislation they prioritize, thus making it a little easier to get it into the farm bill.

There is a more formal process to getting a marker bill introduced. According to this Marker Bill 101 Handout the process looks like this:

• An interest group has a policy idea, they bring it to the offices of Members of Congress (MoCs) who have shown interest in taking leadership on that issue and work together to develop the bill language.
• A MoC has an idea and asks for a group’s help in crafting the marker bill.
• Another ally organization develops a marker bill with one of their Congressional champions.



[...] Read Full Story

El Nino is knocking on the doorstep, and you have certainly been hearing more about it in recent weeks. Sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean had been lower than the long-term average for two and a half years, but they have been abruptly changing in recent months. That was indicative of La Nina, a global driver of weather conditions that led to major heat and drought implications for many areas of the world. La Nina ended in March and forecasts have been calling for the other side of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) -- El Nino. Instead of sea-surface temperatures being lower than the long-term average, El Nino occurs when sea-surface temperatures are higher than the long-term average.

The development of El Nino will take some time, though recent models and trends have been accelerating the process for summer 2023. This change in sea-surface temperature will have a profound effect on global weather patterns. Here are six main takeaways about the developing El Nino.

1. Temperatures are changing in the Pacific Ocean.

Temperatures are never static anywhere on the globe and that is true about temperatures in the oceans as well. There is a normal ebb and flow of temperatures that lag behind the changing sun angle across the equator. However, thanks to satellites and other data, we can track this change and average out where these temperatures should be at any given time. If we subtract where temperatures are now from where they average over the last 30 years, we can see how anomalously high or low the sea-surface temperatures are.

These anomalies are what meteorologists and climatologists track to indicate whether or not the Pacific is in El Nino (above-average temperatures) or La Nina (below-average temperatures). But where do meteorologists look? There are four regions in the tropical Pacific Ocean we can look at. You can find an image of that here: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/enso/sst.

The ENSO 3.4 region is the one that is used most typically to track these temperature anomalies, and the basis for NOAA's Climate Prediction Center to classify the current phase of ENSO. But other regions could indicate El Nino-type tendencies outside of that 3.4 region. For instance, the Nino 1+2 region has been very warm going back to February and would be classified as an El Nino already. It is also the precursor to the coming El Nino, and gives meteorologists confidence that El Nino will be developing over the next few months.

[...] Read Full Story

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