SRPA Joins Other Ag Groups Regarding Fertilizer Duties

USRPA joined with 62 other agricultural groups sending a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo urging her to recognize the current difficulties faced by farmers as she recalculates duties on phosphate fertilizer imported from Morocco.

In February 2021 Commerce called on the International Trade Commission (ITC) to implement duties of almost 20% on imported fertilizers from Morocco. The Mosaic Company, which manufactures fertilizers used in the U.S. and abroad, had filed a petition with the Commerce Department seeking the duties. The ITC found that Morocco and Russia had unfairly subsidized fertilizer production and voted in March of that year to impose the duties on Morocco in addition to similar duties on Russian imports.

This September, the U.S. Court of International Trade ordered the ITC to reconsider its previous decision on calculating the duties. 

Commerce is expected to finalize its administrative review by November 1 and issue its remand determination by December 13.

Read the letter here.

House Speaker Uncertainty

It’s been nearly two weeks since Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted as Speaker and the House of Representatives has yet to elect his replacement. The last few weeks the House Republican Conference has scrambled to find a nominee with enough support to garner 217 votes to secure the Speakership. Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) was the original nominee to be McCarthy’s replacement, but he withdrew his name from the Speaker’s race before a vote on the floor could even be called. Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) followed as the second Conference nominee and failed to garner enough votes to become Speaker after two-floor votes. Jordan is now pausing, not withdrawing, his current campaign for Speaker. While there is some real and growing momentum at this point behind temporarily expanding Patrick McHenry’s power as Acting Speaker, that path forward has opposition and involves additional steps within the Conference or on the floor and is uncertain. Some of the other potential Speaker candidates being thrown into the conversation include Reps. Mike Johnson (R-LA), Kevin Hern (R-OK), Richard Hudson (R-NC), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Tom Cole (R-OK), Frank Lucas (R-OK). The Conference is fairly unlikely to revisit Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) at this point, but after the past two weeks, uncertainty remains there as well.

From a wider lens, House floor action remains frozen until a new Speaker can be elected, thus further creating backlog and uncertainty for the entire legislative process. Appropriations and Farm Bill reauthorization will be further delayed until this conundrum is solved.