There is no possible way they can finish all the work they have started during the past two years of this Congress. This means, in all likelihood, there will be no energy bill or a highway transportation reauthorization bill. Both of these bills could have been vehicles for ethanol and biodiesel tax incentives.
The primary responsibility that Congress must address is the 13 appropriation bills necessary to fund government for the next fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2004. As of early September, the Senate has voted on one appropriations bill. Odds are good that they won’t get all 13 done. If they don’t, they will simply pass a continuing resolution, which will allow funding to continue at the current levels.
Partisan gridlock will prevent anything significant from being accomplished for the remainder of this year. The talk is that there will be a lame duck session of Congress after the elections in November. This has been done before, but not often. They have never been very productive. Bets are that they will put off the unfinished work until the new Congress convenes in 2005, unless something needs to be done related to national security.
The 109th Congress will start fresh in January 2005. Anything that was not accomplished in the 108th Congress will have to be reintroduced. With the new Congress, there will be considerable turnover both with new members and staff.
Time will tell who the key players will be in the next Congress. Conventional wisdom is that the House of Representatives will remain Republican. However, the outcome in the Senate is more speculative. There are several very competitive races that could give the Democrats a chance of gaining the majority. Republicans currently have 51 seats to the Democrat’s 48, with one Independent. Open seats in states where the incumbent is retiring are the ones to watch, which include Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. Democratic incumbents in South Dakota and Washington are facing serious challenges from Republicans.
Renderers have become more active in dealing with Congress in recent years. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and biodiesel have made that a necessity. Many renderers have spent a good deal of time with key members and their staffs informing them about the rendering industry. National Renderers Association (NRA) members and staff have made many contacts on the hill, especially during the NRA Congressional Fly-Ins in early June for the past four years.
Because of these efforts, the NRA office frequently gets calls from congressional offices seeking information or industry positions on issues of importance to us.
Decision Now in Their Hands
The National Renderers Association and 1,300 other individuals or organizations submitted comments to the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) published July 14, 2004, by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the mitigation of the introduction and possible spreading of BSE. The ANPR was a compilation of 36 questions, with most addressing the FDA feed rule.
The NRA stated its opposition to the suggestion of removing specified risk materials (SRMs) as a source of animal protein. NRA asked the FDA to delay any proposed rulemaking until the USDA BSE surveillance program is completed.
Subsequent to the submission of the NRA comments to the FDA and USDA, several industry leaders met with officials from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the White House to express industry concerns regarding various proposals being considered to amend the feed rule. All proposed regulations from the agencies must be reviewed and approved by the OMB. Industry representatives presented the recently completed study by Informa Economics, “An Economic and Environmental Assessment of Eliminating Specified Risk Materials and Cattle Mortalities from Existing Markets.” The study is available on the NRA Web site at www.renderers.org.
The FDA had earlier stated its intentions to proceed with proposed rulemaking to make changes to the feed rule by removing certain exemp-tions and removing SRMs from the feed supply. At this time, we do not know if and when such a proposed rule will be published. It will have to go through several bureaucratic hurdles before publication.
Hopefully, the many comments submitted by the NRA, its members, and other likeminded interests that presented sound arguments will have been carefully read and considered before any changes to the feed rule are made.
From the Association - October 2004 Render