How Obama would spend your money in 2016, agency by agency [Associated Press]
Sure,
$4 trillion sounds like a lot. But it goes fast when your budget stretches from
aging highways to medical care to space travel and more. Here's an
agency-by-agency look at how President Barack Obama would spend Americans'
money in the 2016 budget year beginning Oct. 1: AGRICULTURE Up or down? Up 3
percent. What's new? A new food safety agency. The budget proposes
consolidating the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service
with the Food and Drug Administration's food safety oversight in a new agency
under the Health and Human Services Department….As in years past, the
administration is proposing to cut money for farmers' crop insurance to pay for
other agriculture programs….The bulk of the USDA budget is nutrition programs.
Plan
to create food safety agency worries consumer advocates [Sacramento Bee]
President
Barack Obama’s proposal to create a new food safety agency within the
Department of Health and Human Services is unpopular with consumer advocates,
who warn it would undermine efforts to protect Americans from unsafe or tainted
food. Detailed in the president’s fiscal 2016 budget, which was released
Monday, the plan would merge the inspection service of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture with the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety programs into a
single new agency under HHS. The Obama administration argues that the change is
necessary because the current food safety system is too fragmented.
Small
exporters wary of Obama tax plan [Wall Street Journal]
The
Obama Administration’s plan to tax the foreign earnings of American companies
might hinder the ability of small exporters to compete abroad, several small
firms said.
On
Monday, President Obama proposed to impose a 19% tax on foreign earnings by
U.S. firms, along with a one-time 14% tax on previous earnings held
overseas….Lee Cohen, general manager of Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, Inc.,
a Central California pistachio grower with fewer than 500 employees, said the
new tax would put his company at a disadvantage against other global growers,
such as those in Iran. The company grows about 100 million pounds of pistachios
a year, and exports at least half, he said, much of that to markets in Europe,
he said.
High-speed
rail project runs afoul of kit fox conservation requirements [Fresno Bee]
The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has declared the California High-Speed Rail
Authority and Federal Railroad Administration to be out of compliance with
their environmental commitments for construction of the bullet-train line in
the Fresno-Madera area after a contractor’s preliminary work infringed on
habitat for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox. In a Jan. 26 letter to the rail
authority and the Federal Railroad Administration, Fish and Wildlife deputy
assistant field administrator Dan Russell chastised the rail agencies for work
done by prime contractor Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons on two pieces of property
that were considered kit fox habitat before getting proper authorization from
wildlife officials. The San Joaquin kit fox is the smallest species of fox in
North America. It’s about the size of a cat, is largely nocturnal in nature,
and uses underground burrows as dens across its large foraging range. The fox
has been on the federal endangered species list since 1967.
Cuckoo
causes a stir: Sutter County seeks exclusion from habitat rule for bird
[Marysville Appeal-Democrat]
Sutter
County is going cuckoo. About a bird, that is. The county is seeking an
exclusion from the proposed creation of critical habitat for the Western
Yellow-billed Cuckoo in the Sutter Bypass, arguing that designating habitat in
the floodway would negatively impact agriculture and flood protection….During
the public comment period of the proposed designation, Sutter County was joined
by the Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency and the Yuba-Sutter Farm Bureau in
requesting an exclusion from the proposed habitat in the bypass.
Coke
bets on 'premium milk' to boost declining category [Associated Press]
Coke
is coming out with premium milk that has more protein and less sugar than
regular. And it's betting people will pay twice as much for it. The national
rollout of Fairlife over the next several weeks marks Coca-Cola's entry into
the milk case in the U.S. and is one way the world's biggest beverage maker is
diversifying its offerings as Americans continue turning away from soft drinks.
It also comes as people increasingly seek out some type of functional boost
from their foods and drinks, whether it's more fiber, antioxidants or protein.
That has left the door open for Coke step into the milk category, where the
differences between options remain relatively minimal and consumption has been
declining for decades.
Ag
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