NGFA National Grain and Feed Association : Congressional Outlook for 2015

The new Congress was sworn in Jan. 6, and included 13 new senators and 58 new members of the House. The day featured some fireworks when it came time to vote on who would be the speaker of the House for the 114th Congress. A segment of Republicans unhappy with Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, expressed their dissent by casting their votes for other members. In the end, Boehner garnered enough support to lead the House for a third term.

In the Senate, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took the reins as the Senate majority leader from Harry Reid, D-Nev., after Republicans grabbed control of the chamber in November's elections.

With the formalities of swearing in the new Congress completed, members of both chambers are ready to get to work. Here is what will likely be on the docket for Congress this year.

• Keystone Pipeline: Republicans have made it clear the Keystone pipeline is a top agenda item for early 2015. The Republican-controlled House passed Keystone pipeline legislation in the previous Congress, but the bill stalled in the Senate. With Republicans now in control of the Senate, the path is somewhat easier for passage - but not a slam-dunk. Republicans will need to find a handful of Democratic senators to reach the 60 votes needed to pass the legislation. This may prove somewhat difficult, as some of the Democratic senators, who supported the pipeline in the past, lost their reelections. Even if Congress is able to pass the bill, President Obama has already threatened to veto the legislation, which means this Congress may not be any closer to making the pipeline a reality than the last.
• Obamacare: Many Republicans continued to use opposition to Obamacare as a focal point in their 2014 elections - even though the bill was signed into law more than four years ago and President Obama was reelected in 2012. While full repeal of the legislation appears very unlikely given continuing Democratic support, Republicans likely will set their sights on changing pieces of the law they might be able to pick enough Democratic support. For instance, moving the employee hours worked threshold from 30 hours to 40 hours per week before an employer is required to provide healthcare is something moderate Democrats appear to support.
• Immigration: While the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform in the last Congress, similar legislation is unlikely to find success in 2015. However, debate on immigration reform is sure to continue. Rather than taking up a comprehensive bill, Republican leaders in both the Senate and House have expressed interest in addressing immigration reform with targeted pieces of legislation, which would deal with separate issues in the immigration reform debate.
• Tax Reform: Members of both political parties lament the complexity of the U.S. tax code, but the parties have not been able to agree on how to fix it. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has said reforming the tax code is a top priority for his committee in the new Congress. The challenge will be which tax breaks to keep and which to eliminate. In addition, hanging over the debate is the question of what does a tax reform bill need to look like for President Obama to sign it.
• Transportation Funding: An area of interest and concern for both political parties is the aging highway and bridge infrastructure in the United States. The main dilemma is how to provide more funds for the Highway Trust Fund, which is the funding mechanism used to make improvements to roads and bridges. The most commonly debated solution is to raise the gas tax. However, with a Republican-controlled Congress, any suggestion to raise any tax will face tremendous scrutiny and opposition.

The following items are issues NGFA will work on closely and which Congress is likely to take up in 2015:

• Rail Legislation: In 2014, Sens. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and John Thune, R-S.D., introduced legislation to reauthorize the Surface Transportation Board and provided key reforms to how the board operates. Of particular interest to shippers were provisions dealing with the board's investigative authority, arbitration system, and easing the restrictions on how commissioners are able to communicate with one another. While the legislation cleared the Senate Commerce Committee last fall, it was not brought to the floor for a vote by the full Senate. Most observers expect Thune to continue his push for the legislation in 2015 as he takes over as chairman of the Commerce Committee.
• Reauthorization of the U.S. Grain Standards Act: The U.S. Grain Standards Act governs the official grain inspection system, and is reauthorized every 10 years; the current law expires Sept. 30. NGFA will be working closely with other stakeholders to push for passage of reauthorizing legislation that upholds and improves the grain inspection system.
• Regulatory Reform: Congressional Republicans continue to talk about trying to reign in what they view as over-the-top government regulations. The agriculture and business communities have been very vocal over the last six years in expressing concerns over the administration's regulatory approach on a wide variety of matters. It is likely there will be numerous pieces of legislation introduced and debated in 2015 dealing with various regulations and attempting to put a check on the reach of administrative agencies.
• International Trade: There is potential for a whole host of trade issues to come before Congress in 2015. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are ongoing trade discussions which the United States is engaged in, and which will garner a lot of congressional attention even if they are not completed in 2015. The fact the United States continues to negotiate in the TPP and TTIP means Congress also likely will debate and possibly consider a vote on trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation. TPA legislation is needed for the president to complete international trade agreements, such as TPP and TTIP. Beyond trade agreements and TPA, Congress could address issues such as fixing the country-of-origin labeling provisions that have caused an ongoing trade dispute with Canada and Mexico. Further, with the Obama administration recently reestablishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, there will certainly be members of Congress who also push for restoring trade ties between the nations.
• Reauthorization of the Commodity Exchange Act: The Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) legislation authorizes activities of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; it expired in 2014 and needs to be reauthorized. The House passed a bill in 2014, but the Senate did not even introduce comprehensive reauthorizing language. With Republican control in the Senate in 2015, it appears likely they will attempt to address CEA reauthorization. However, it is unclear whether Republicans can garner enough Democratic support in the Senate to pass the bill. Republicans almost surely will use the reauthorization process to address certain provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act that the business community still finds objectionable, but that scenario means it could be very difficult to find Democratic support for the bill.

Director of Legislative Affairs Jared Hill leads the NGFA's legislative efforts on a wide range of issues important to the grain and feed industry. He also serves as NGFA's principal staff liaison to the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service. In addition, he manages the grain and feed political action committee.