At the National Association of Farm Broadcasters Washington Watch Event, Farm Director KC Sheperd had the chance to visit with the Senior Director of Governmental Affairs at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Tanner Beymer. In this episode of Beef Buzz, Senior Farm, and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is featuring comments from the conversation regarding the appropriations process and priorities for the cattle business.
“This is going to be a very interesting year in Washington,” Beymer said. “It is an election year, and that typically means that once we get past May, not a whole lot of legislating gets done because everybody goes back to their camps, they draw battle lines, and they start lobbying insults at each other trying to convince the American elector that their party should be in control.”
Looking into the full fiscal year of 2025, Beymer said it will be critical to build upon existing priorities for 2024, including successes such as funding animal disease traceability electronic identification tags so that producers do not have to pay to comply with the newly released final rule from USDA.
“We also want to build upon some of those opportunities where we didn’t quite get what we wanted in the last bill by defunding USDA’s harmful packers and stockyards rules,” Beymer said. “We got really close to the finish line on that during this last fiscal ’24 appropriations cycle. At the last second, some other groups weighed in very unhelpfully, and now all of a sudden, we are in a position where those rules are going to be allowed to take effect.”
Regarding the 2024 Farm Bill, Beymer said Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson is looking to have that moved across the finish line soon.
“In this divisive political environment, Chairman Thompson is moving forward with the Chairman’s mark expected sometime before Memorial Day,” Beymer said. “All of that I would say is a win in terms of where we have been and what the outlook for this Congress was at the very onset when we took 15 ballots to elect a speaker.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
