American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman talks to reporters Tuesday. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

The extension of tax breaks important to farmers and ranchers is at the top of the American Farm Bureau Federation’s agenda in the lame-duck session of Congress, Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman said in a wide-ranging session with reporters on Tuesday.

Stallman said the most important of the breaks are the Section 179 small business expenses and bonus depreciation, but Farm Bureau released a long list of other tax breaks that would be contained in a bill that members of Congress refer to as tax extenders, since these measures have been in law before but have expired. (See link)

The tax breaks do mean that farmers and ranchers would not be paying taxes but affect “the tax load” and the timing of paying the taxes, Stallman said.

Stallman said Farm Bureau has “no real hope” that the lame-duck Congress will pass trade promotion authority, but noted there may be more hope in the next Congress because Republicans “have had fewer impediments in moving forward with trade policy.”

On the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Stallman said that Farm Bureau does not favor removing Japan from the 12-member group if it will not remove all tariffs on meat.

TPP benefits to American agriculture without Japan would be “minimal,” Stallman said, and “as a foreign policy matter it would be very difficult to drop [the Japanese] out of the negotiations.” Instead, he said, Japan should offer more market access for foreign agricultural products.

Stallman initially declined to answer a question about whether the U.S.-Mexican settlement on sugar imports might cause difficulties in the TPP negotiations because it might stop the United States from offering sugar access to Australia, but then said he believes the impact would be “minimal, I think.”

On the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations, Stallman said he is “not optimistic” the United States and the European Union are going to resolve issues such as the harmonization of regulations, sanitary and phytosanitary issues or genetic modification.

On the question of whether new leadership in the European Commission may mean a new start for T-TIP, Stallman said “There is an opportunity. Whether that opportunity is realized I can’t predict at this point. I am skeptical in general no matter who the players are. The political dynamics in the EU haven’t changed.”

Country-of-origin labeling

On the World Trade Organization decision that found fault with the U.S. country-of-origin labeling regime for red meat, Stallman said Farm Bureau’s policy on COOL “is clear.”

“We support country-of-origin labeling and we also support WTO-consistent rules,” he said. “So we need to fix it. How do you do that?”

Stallman said he does not know whether it can be fixed through regulations but he believes the solution may lie between regulations and congressional calls for repeal.

COOL “may play out like the Brazil cotton case, “ Stallman said, adding that he thinks the COOL case will not be settled until Canada inflicts “some pain” on the United States.

Stallman said Farm Bureau does not have “a detailed policy” on how to fix COOL but has a policy for supporting country-of-origin labeling “for all commodities.”

The issue may come up, he said, in the development of Farm’s Bureau formal policies for 2015, which will be debated at a national convention in San Diego in January.

Waters of the United States

On the Environmental Protection Agency’s Waters of the United States rule, Stallman said the “ideal situation” would be for President Barack Obama’s administration to withdraw the rule and start over.

EPA is under pressure from the Supreme Court to clarify its jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act, but Stallman said EPA officals need to “pay a whole lot closer attention” to what the Supreme Court meant in reference to “significant nexus” of navigable waters.

EPA should be “more in line with the intent of the Supreme Court,” Stallman said.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., has said that a Republican-majority Senate would order EPA not to proceed with the rule, but it is unclear exactly how Obama would react to such a measure.

Stallman said that Farm Bureau would welcome any effort to stop the WOTUS rule, and that it “will seek every opportunity to prevent implementation.”

Inmmigration

Stallman said immigration reform is “a huge one” for the organization.

“Our tag line is we can either import our labor or import our food,” he said.

Stallman acknowledged that immigration would be a tough issue in a Republican-controlled Congress, but he noted that strict enforcement of immigration laws would reduce total agricultural production by $60 billion, cutting fruit production by 61 percent and vegetable production by 31 percent.

On Obama’s probable executive action on immigration, Stallman said that Ag Workorce Coalition said that the group decided “the best thing we could do would be to play defense” and urge Obama “not to do anything that would hurt us in agriculture.”

School meals and SNAP

Farm Bureau will not get involved in the debates over school meals rules or a reexamination of the supplemental nutrition assistance program known as SNAP or food stamps, he said.

But on the question of whether SNAP would mean an opening of the farm bill, Stallman said that keeping the farm bill intact “has never, ever been the case.”

“It is messed with every year,” he said. “We will deal with that when it comes. If that discussion about SNAP expands into money issues, into farm policy obviously we’ll engage. We will not spend a lot of time other than monitoring the issues surrounding the SNAP program.”

▪ American Farm Bureau Federation — Taxes: Expiring Tax Provisions