Peterson Wants Additional Spending Power For USDA Head

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson wants new spending authority for the Secretary of Agriculture in the next virus relief bill. The Minnesota Democrat says his proposal allows the USDA to help livestock producers…and to speed funding for off-the-shelf disease response plans.

“In the Heroes Act, I’m giving the Secretary that authority, and I’m going to make it retroactive to help those producers that had to go in there and depopulate. They had to go do it on their own. Those are the kinds of things that we’re going to try to nail down to have in place. I don’t want to get into another situation, where we’re flying by the seat of our pants.”

The GOP-controlled Senate never took up the Democrats’ HEROES Act and now faces the challenge of cutting a new deal just months before the election. In a recent interview with the National Milk Producers Federation, Peterson said the first COVID-19 relief bill came up short on the commodities helped, not aid.

“There are certain commodities that were left out, certain commodities that did not get the right treatment, so, I wouldn’t criticize the amount, but I would criticize the way it was put together. We didn’t have much input into it and I think that was a mistake. I think they could have engaged us more.”   

But Peterson was frank in placing blame on both political parties for paying less attention to agriculture’s needs, with fewer and fewer Democrats elected from conservative rural districts like his.

 “It’s a big weight, dragging all of us down, because we’ve become such an urban party, and frankly, a liberal party, which does not go over in a lot of these farm districts.”

And Peterson argues, undermines the bipartisanship needed to pass important agriculture and other legislation. But the conservative Democrat says he has no plans to switch parties, even though it would make winning reelection much easier.

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