Biden Administration Pledges Fight To Keep Climate-Friendly Farming Funds

May 05, 2023

By Leah Douglas

The Biden administration will defend funding for climate-smart farming in the $430 billion U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) if Republican lawmakers seek to cut it during negotiations for the next farm bill, an official said Tuesday.

The IRA, which aims to cut emissions across the U.S. economy, includes $20 billion to support farmers in implementing carbon-sequestering conservation practices on their land.

As negotiations begin over the next farm bill, which funds farm commodity, conservation, and nutrition programs, some Republicans have raised concerns about how the IRA funds would be spent and floated reallocating some of the money.

The Biden administration would resist any effort to reallocate the funds, said White House deputy chief of staff John Podesta in a conversation with Reuters reporters on Tuesday.

“The program is popular,” Podesta said. “We’ll fight for it and I think we’ll be successful in the upcoming farm bill negotiations.”

Podesta said President Joe Biden’s administration has heard supp

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.