VILSACK UNVEILS CLIMATE PILOT FUNDING: The secretary today will make a key announcement about funding for climate pilot projects aimed at helping farmers and forest owners fight climate change through so-called carbon sinks, report Helena Bottemiller Evich and your host this morning. The details: The program, dubbed the Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities, will use $1 billion from USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation to enact climate pilots across the country — a major step in the Biden administration's push to leverage agriculture as part of the solution on climate change. The sector contributes about 10 percent of the country's overall emissions, according to the EPA , but its sprawling geographic footprint makes agriculture and forestry a potentially massive sink for carbon dioxide. The goal is to implement climate-friendly conservation practices on working farms and forests (such as no-till, cover crops, rotational grazing or reforestation) and then actually measure and verify the climate benefits of those practices. Those could include sinking carbon into soils, capturing methane or releasing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. An eye on equity: Vilsack will formally announce the new program this afternoon in an appearance at Lincoln University, a historically Black land-grant university in Jefferson City, Mo. He told MA that the program is designed to fit a wide range and variety of production and ideally will not favor one commodity, region or operation size over another. What's next? The funding will be available in two rounds, and a broad range of entities are eligible to apply, from state, local and tribal governments to commodity groups, businesses and nonprofits. Vilsack said USDA will seek periodic updates from the pilot projects to help inform department policy, as well as programs that could be more permanently established or changed through the 2023 farm bill. HILL STAFF DETAIL DISMAL CONDITIONS: Congressional staffers are taking to Instagram to voice their complaints over a wide variety of workplace misconduct and to share stories of the harsh realities of working in one of the most recognizable buildings in the nation, including their struggles to afford food and rent. On an Instagram page called "@Dear_White_Staffers," current and former aides anonymously share their experiences living on low wages and nutrition assistance programs, report POLITICO's Katherine Tully-McManus, Nancy Vu, Eleanor Mueller and yours truly. "It's wild because we are the government, creating these programs that I need myself!" one former staffer told your host. "It's so surreal." Facing food insecurity: Many staffers detailed their "survival strategies" like grabbing extra food at receptions and events to give to friends. "Over half of my friends lived in subsidized housing and qualified for public assistance at one point," the now-senior aide said. "It's not uncommon for staff to rely on reception food to be their only meals of the day." Lawmakers know this is happening: "When I first went from intern to staffer, I made $25,000 a year," Audrey Henson, a former House Republican staffer who founded College to Congress, told the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress in 2020. "And I was working for a boss that was anti-subsidies, and I was having to live off food stamps and free health care because I could not afford anything else." Policy world is watching: Erica Zurawski, a Ph.D. candidate at UC Santa Cruz focusing on food policy and food deserts, told your host that the Instagram page caught her attention especially because she's been tracking legislation that would provide tax credits and grants for grocery stores and food banks. Now she has her eye on early-stage negotiations over the farm bill, which authorizes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But she noted that because of the way food deserts and insecurity are measured, Capitol Hill wouldn't even show up on a map of areas of need — "invisibilizing" the staffers and interns. "[Dear White Staffers] absolutely shines a mirror on the people who make this legislation and who work for them. What would actually need to be done to enact meaningful food access?" Zurawski said. "It would mean living wages, paid internships, affordable housing and not just geographic access to grocery stores." BOOKER DOUBLES DOWN AGAINST BIG AG EMITTERS: Senate Agriculture Committee member Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is under fire from his House Ag counterparts after his appearance in a New York Times Opinion video that blasted the powerful farm lobby and the ag industry it represents as the largest culprits behind the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling climate change. "The opinion piece made sweeping, inaccurate statements about American agriculture. It was made worse by some members of Congress, including Sen. Cory Booker, who cooperated with the project," said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) during a House Ag hearing on Thursday. Democrats told MA they were concerned that Booker's comments and appearance in the video could set back any progress the Biden administration and ag committees have made by pushing an incentive-based approach to enlisting farmers and ranchers in the fight against climate change, instead of strict regulations to curb emissions. Booker, however, is not backing down: "The vast majority of our family farmers and ranchers are good stewards of their land, and with better federal farm policy they will do even more," Booker told your host in a statement. "Unfortunately, the Big Ag lobby continues to pretend they speak for all of agriculture in an attempt to preserve a status quo that rakes in billions for agribusiness at the expense of our farmers, our communities, and the planet." It's not a new take: Booker has introduced, and reintroduced, legislation aimed at overhauling the meat industry and banning large-scale livestock farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations. In a Q&A with POLITICO last year , the senator cited CAFOs and their impact on health and the environment as one reason he grew interested in agriculture and food policy.
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