Farm bill, crypto priorities for next term | News, sports, jobs

The status of a downtown riverfront proposal was part of what brought Congressman Glenn Thompson to Warren on Monday.

“I thought it was a great project” he said about the development that has taken place in the former Loranger building.

Thompson said he earmarked $1.5 million in dedicated funding for the downtown riverfront, citing significant local investment in that area.

He said he earmarked $1.5 million in dedicated funding for the downtown riverfront, citing significant local investment in that area.

“I try to be very selective about the projects I support,” he said. “(I was) disappointed when it didn’t make the final cut in this year’s appropriation.”

Thompson said he is still looking for funding for the project and said that was part of the reason he was in Warren Monday.

“In any case, I want to be an optimist” he said. “Good projects take forever.”

As we look ahead to the 118th Congress, the farm bill and cryptocurrency regulations are becoming priorities for the next two years.

Thompson has a Democratic challenger in next month’s election, but the seat is safely red. Thompson’s closest election was his first election in 2008 which he completed by 16 points.

In 2020, he carried the district by nearly 50 points.

As the current ranking Republican member of the House Agriculture Committee, he has his eyes set on a potential chairmanship should Republicans retake the House majority.

That makes his priorities pretty simple.

“For me, obviously Farm Bill,” he said.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the bill spans several years and “governs a number of agricultural and food programs. It provides an opportunity for policymakers to comprehensively and periodically address agricultural and food issues.”

The bill, according to CRS, typically focuses on “Farm Commodity Program support for a handful of staples – corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts, dairy and sugar.”

Thompson said the current iteration is set to expire in September 2023 and called it “single most important piece of legislation affecting rural America.”

He said there are three options – let it expire as he called “not an option” as it would take farm regulations back to the time of the Dust Bowl; expand the current bill that is fair “kicks the can” or introduce a new bill that is “only option.”

“We are far behind” he emphasized. “Under Democratic leadership, we haven’t done our due diligence. If we get the opportunity to lead, we’ll change that in January. It’s going to be pretty intense.”

The other major legislative priority may not sound like an agricultural issue at all – regulations regarding cryptocurrency.

He explained why this issue is being addressed by the Ag Committee – once a cryptocurrency is created, it is traded and monitored by the Securities and Exchange Commission; but once it has been traded, it is considered a commodity, which brings it under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture.

“It’s urgent” he said, “with setting some guidelines, legislative railings around cryptocurrency.”

He has introduced legislation – the Digital Commodity Exchange Act which, he said, would “Do no harm, protect people in the market” while promoting innovation with the underlying technology.

“Blockchain…it will be transformative for our economy,” he said, explaining that countries ranging in size from China to Malta are developing these rules.

“The US is far behind” he said, “but the US is where people want to do business.”

The legislation, he said, would still allow for state regulation, as many states already have, but would implement a national standard. Failure to tackle this problem, he said, could lead to the loss of the nation “competitive place in the world economy …. Let’s keep it simple and do what we need to do.”

His proposal, he said, “is close” and he hopes it will be moved out of the committee in the autumn.

“(It) hasn’t happened yet,” he said, but the effort is “longer than it has been in the past.”