Category: Legislative Updates

Just this year, at least 10 states have introduced new soil management policies that call for further research or data collection, or offer tax exemptions, technical assistance or even grant money to, among other actions, plant cover crops, diversify crop rotations and reduce tillage that can tear apart beneficial fungi.

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ASCE’s Government Relations team and our partners in the U.S. Levee Safety Coalition met with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials to discuss collaborative opportunities on the National Levee Safety Program (NLSP). ASCE has been a long advocate for full funding of the NLSP to raise the nation’s levees’ grade up from a “D.” As a result, the Fiscal Year 2020 House appropriations bill included triple the amount of funding for the NSLP as compared to prior years. John Peterson - LICA Director of Government Relations.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reminds communities, farmers and ranchers, families and small businesses in the path of Hurricane Dorian that USDA has programs that provide assistance in the wake of disasters. USDA staff in regional, state and county offices stand ready and are eager to help.

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Federal, state and local lawmakers recently had the opportunity to see the extent of erosion in Mentor, Ohio, which has lost more than 6 acres in the last decade. Mentor leaders emphasized the need for outside financial aid, which has proven elusive.  

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Our trading relationships need to ensure America’s farmers, manufacturers, and small business owners can succeed and compete on the world stage, and USMCA does just that.

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Ahead of the Aug. 12 USDA reports, traders and farmers expected this round of information to provide clarity to the unprecedented 2019 corn and soybean crops. Yet, this year’s August reports, which included more information than ever before, mostly created more questions.

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Attorney General Dana NESSEL joined AGs from all 50 states in urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week to encourage telecom providers to implement default call blocking technology and call authentication to block illegal and unwanted robocalls.

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A federal judge ruled this week an 1855 treaty "cannot plausibly be read" to create a 337-square-mile Indian reservation on lands in a northern Michigan vacation-destination area. The Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians sued the state in 2015, claiming the 1855 Treaty of Detroit established its reservation on lands that now include Petoskey, Charlevoix and Harbor Springs, and it wanted the court to pave the way to create a reservation there.

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Department of Health and Human Services officials are urging state residents to take greater care to protect themselves from mosquito bites after an outbreak of Eastern Equine Encephalitis has been detected in Kalamazoo and St. Joseph counties. While the two cases found both involve horses, neither of which was vaccinated and both have died, the disease can spread to humans. And while there is a vaccine for horses, there is none for humans. Earlier this month a woman infected with the disease died in Massachusetts.

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4 states seek to identify flooding choke points on Missouri River. Officials in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska are calling on the Army Corps of Engineers to study bottlenecks that contribute to Missouri River flooding so alternatives can be suggested. "We're not going to go back to the years in the past, where all of the sudden once the flood's over we go back to the same practices, the same ways that we have always done things," Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said.

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