Ready for Action: NMPF’s Bleiberg Anticipates Busy 2025

Transcript

Alan Bjerga: Hello and welcome to the Dairy Defined Podcast, new Year, new Congress, new administration. But what does it mean for dairy policy explaining this is Paul Bleiberg, NMPF's executive vice president for government relations. Welcome Paul and happy new Congress.

Paul Bleiberg: Happy New Year, Alan, it's great to be on with you.

Alan Bjerga: Let's start with an overview. First, tell us the meaning of a trifecta.

Paul Bleiberg: Sure. In Washington DC speak, a trifecta really means when one party or the other controls a majority in the US House of Representatives, a majority in the US Senate and holds the White House. And the significance of that is that whichever party that might be, in this case the Republicans, has the ability to enact more of their agenda without the minority party being involved. They can't do all of it, but they can certainly get personnel through the US Senate on a simple majority vote to fill the different cabinet and sub-cabinet positions in the incoming Trump administration. And the Congress has the budget reconciliation tool available to them, which is essentially a tool that lets Congress pass tax and mandatory spending legislation without needing to worry about the 60 vote filibuster rule in the senate.

Which means Republicans have a simple majority in the house and a simple majority in the senate, they can get legislation through. So whether it's tax or spending or both, there's a lot they can do there on their own without involving the other party. So that's essentially when you think about what does a trifecta really mean, it means a certain ability to move your agenda through unilaterally or without the other party involved. But it also in broader terms refers to setting the agenda, obviously controlling the different committees and setting topics and moving legislation through broad decisions about governing really do fall to the party that has a trifecta.

Alan Bjerga: What does that mean in terms of getting things done? There's a lot of unfinished business in Washington from the last Congress and the last administration. How does the new alignment affect that?

Paul Bleiberg: Sure. So maybe the most obvious example for us is the Farm Bill, right? That's been extended now into this new Congress. And so Chairman Thompson and the house and Chairman Boozman and the senate will be working with their two ranking members, Angie Craig in the house and ranking member Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota to get a Farm Bill going this year. Now the significance is you have Republicans controlling both chambers and the White House. They're going to be in a strong position, not infinite, right? You do need democratic votes to pass a bill, certainly in the senate and usually in the house as well. But having Republicans in the committee chairs and in the USDA really gives them the ability to be in the driver's seat, setting the broad tone as far as priorities. But also gives them the responsibility in another sense of, okay, we need to get the votes to get this bill out of the Congress into the President's desk.

They've got to figure out what they can do working with Democrats to get the needed votes from Democrats as well. So there's power, but there's also the obligation of governance that comes with it, and this comes with every trifecta. So the Farm Bill obviously is a good example of where you still need both parties. The other example is legislation on tax. And as I mentioned a minute ago, tax issues can be dealt within the budget reconciliation process because they impact the debt and deficit. So Republicans are likely to move tax policy through a budget reconciliation package. They're focused on renewing some of the 2017 tax cuts and Jobs Act provisions that are going to expire, and they'll use that reconciliation process. So that right there is really an example of them being able to legislate something with only Republicans involved. And of course, president-elect Trump will be in office to sign it. So a little bit of a contrast. In one case you involve both parties. In the other case you don't. The common thread is the sort of governing obligation that the majority party has.

Alan Bjerga: A lot of Farm Bill politics become regional politics, and you have a very upper Midwest orientation on the Democratic side. In the presence of a Republican trifecta, does that matter? And if so, how?

Paul Bleiberg: It certainly does because ultimately you'll still need to get that Farm Bill across the finish line with broad support. But the last Farm Bill in 2018 was done under a Republican trifecta, but it was still in agreement amongst all four corners of Capitol Hill Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the capitol. So the priorities that Amy Klobuchar and Angie Craig have are both going to be important, and there may be some overlap with them being from Minnesota, both as you said. But those priorities are still going to be very important to what ends up in a final Farm Bill, given that everybody's at the table.

Alan Bjerga: A lot of listeners are going to be following two things very closely, labor and trade. What do you see?

Paul Bleiberg: Yeah, I think when it comes to labor, this is a period of a lot of interest now in what's going to play out in the immigration border labor space in broad strokes. And we go through this cycle every so often, whether appears like there might be a window or some action will occur, and then that may not end up happening. I think from where we sit, we're going to be reminding members of Congress and members of the incoming administration of the important work that dairy farm workers do. Not just from a dairy farming operational perspective of helping work on the farm, but from a food security and national security perspective and helping make sure that our farmers can produce milk and dairy products 24/7, 365 days a year. I mean, as you talk about border security in the new Congress, obviously there's discussion that Republicans may use the budget reconciliation tool to spend some money on securing the border.

And what that looks like is sort of yet to be determined. That doesn't preclude legislative negotiations around ag labor. Obviously in the last Congress, House Ag Chairman Thompson spearheaded the Ag Labor Working Group, which was a bipartisan group of ag committee members that included e-recommendations in their final report that we support, like opening up H2A to dairy. There's obviously the Farm Workforce Modernization Act introduced by a number of members including Mr. Newhouse from Washington. And so there are the building blocks there in a few different ways to continue the conversation on labor in the new Congress. And obviously the discussions around what's going on at the border may kind of marry into that at different times. Obviously, labor is a tough issue to resolve, and so I don't want to predict anything just yet, but I do think we'll see a lot of active conversation.

Shifting over to trade, there's a few different threads of discussion going on. I think certainly one will be what happens with tariffs. And there's been a number of initial statements the president-elect has made, conversations he's subsequently had with different foreign leaders. We will kind of see how that plays out. There's obviously the USMCA, US-Mexico-Canada agreement renewal opportunity that comes up later in this Congress. And so that may provide the potential to address a number of issues, including our own issues with Canada and them really following the commitments that were made under USMCA.

Then there's the question of whether the new administration may pursue new agreements, whatever forms those may take, whether it's sort of individual bilaterals, like some of what they did in their first term, the agreements with Japan and China phase one and things like that. And what would the role of Congress and all of that be? And that can take a lot of different forms. So I think there's a lot of interest right now in what may come of all of these different threads in the trade space, and I think members of Congress and stakeholders and others are all going to be pretty engaged too.

Alan Bjerga: Let's talk MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, associated with RFK Jr., nominee for Health and Human Services, but there's a MAHA Caucus forming in Congress and it's led by Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, a dairy champion. So how do this issue set and this potential direction in policy play out for dairy?

Paul Bleiberg: Well, I think it's a really notable point that you made there, Alan, about Senator Marshall being the chair of the caucus there because he's been a very strong champion for dairy, especially in the nutrition space. He's the senate sponsor of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which G.T. Thompson leads in the house. And I think just last month we saw the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee put out their scientific report. And I think that report really reaffirmed number one, that milk is an essential source of essential nutrients that are under-consumed. We talk about calcium, potassium, vitamin D. And we all agree people should be consuming more milk and dairy products than they currently are consuming.

So when you talk about making America healthy again, dairy is right there at the top of the list as an important nutrient-dense option that people can be consuming more of. And we're always thinking about what can we do to increase consumption? Obviously the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act is top of the line or top of the list, I should say, as far as getting milk varieties back into schools that kids will consume, but I think there's an opportunity to be found. I know MAHA, like you said, has become this buzzword and may have different meanings, but I think when we talk about health and nutrition opportunities, I think we have a great story to tell when it comes to dairy.

Alan Bjerga: What do we still need to know about the shape of the new administration in Congress to really get a handle on where things may be going? What would be some key early tests?

Paul Bleiberg: Sure. Well, I think one thing will be what happens once the new administration takes office, because right now there's a lot of sort of speculation and discussion around what may be the priorities in different issue spaces. Once the new administration is in, we're going to have the opportunity to see what do they prioritize on day one, what are they prioritizing week one, month one, etc in all these different areas, and how does that build out from there. The other thing that's yet to fully play out, obviously we've seen nominees announced for cabinet secretary level positions and some of the deputy secretaries, but when you think about USDA and all of the different programs that the department oversees, there are undersecretaries for different mission areas. And then within those, there are different agency heads. So lots of personnel still yet to be named. And obviously in some cases, legislation from Congress is very prescriptive and the agencies follow that to the letter.

In other cases, it leaves more questions open to the regulatory process and the administrative process. So as they often say, personnel is policy, there's a lot of personnel, maybe we're still learning about understanding who they are and what their priorities are going to be, but a lot of personnel yet to be named at all. So I think as the new administration comes in and takes shape, we're going to see a lot more as far as who are going to be key decision makers in different areas. And so that's probably the biggest thing that's yet to fully grow and take shape.

Alan Bjerga: You're listening to Paul Bleiberg, the executive vice president for government relations at the National Milk Producers Federation. And Paul's scope is not just being the lead lobbyist for NMPF. Glamorous though the work may be, Paul's also supervising a lot of our regulatory functions, doing a lot of stuff across the whole range of government, and it's a pretty daunting task at the beginning of a new administration, Paul. What is going to be taking up most of your time in the next few months? And what sort of strategies do you end upsetting, leading the government affairs and regulation teams at NMPF?

Paul Bleiberg: Well, I think from a big picture strategy, it's figuring out how to make the legislative work and the regulatory work that we're doing intertwine and in a way that there's a synergy to them, right? A great example of this is the work that we do as a team on trying to get the Food and Drug Administration to finally enforce its own rules and label and required products to be labeled correctly, right? You have these imitation products out there that are not nutritionally equivalent to dairy that should not be allowed to use the dairy terms on the package. And the Food and Drug Administration's own standards of identity acknowledge that, and it's a matter of enforcement. So there's the engagement directly with FDA that our regulatory team really spearheads as far as trying to make the right arguments.

And there's also the political pressure that members of Congress, whether it's through legislation or the nomination confirmation process or just general course of oversight role that Congress can play, trying to remind FDA, you have to follow the law here. This is what was intended. So that's maybe one example of trying to make the left hand and the right hand talk to each other and the work that we're doing with Congress and the work that we're doing with USDA and FDA, whatever agency it might be really intertwining and working out for the best.

Alan Bjerga: Before we let you go, Paul, is there anything we should add?

Paul Bleiberg: No, I think we've hit the big topics now and I think everybody should just buckle up. It's going to be a busy 2025.

Alan Bjerga: If you want to become a dairy advocate, you should sign up to receive our NMPF advocacy alerts. There're at nmpf.org/take-action. For more of the Dairy Defined Podcast, you can find and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music under the podcast name Dairy Defined. Thank you for joining us.