Media Releases, Legislative News, Agricultural Updates
Happy Valentine’s Day! Welcome to our fourth Legisletter of the 2025 legislative sessions!
At the federal level, we are still navigating the uncertainty created by the President’s executive orders and memoranda. We have seen some tariffs delayed, while a 10% tariff against China has been implemented and the President has said that the administration will implement taxes and tariffs across the board to match any taxes and tariffs other countries have on the US. Some presidential actions have seen challenges by federal courts, such as the memo attempting to freeze all federal grants and loans that has since been rescinded. In news more specific to agriculture, the Senate has confirmed Brooke Rollins Secretary of Agriculture; she will lead USDA.
In Colorado, we are happy to see many of the bills RMFU supports passing out of their committees. For example, the following Colorado Senate bills have all passed out of their committee of origin:
In the Colorado House of Representatives, Monday’s meeting of the House Agriculture, Water, & Natural Resources committee saw the following bills that RMFU was tracking pass out of committee, some with amendments that we proposed:
Finally for Colorado, we also supported a bill, HB25-1131, that passed out of the House Education Committee that removes the enrollment cap for veterinary students at CSU so that more people will be able to enter the veterinary profession.
Follow Colorado’s bill tracker for RMFU here.
In Wyoming, this year, the new members of both the House and Senate Appropriations took the opportunity to take back monies that were vented and approved in last year’s budget bill. None of these directly affect budget areas important to RMFU members. One area where Gov. Gordon asked for significant dollar increases was wildfire mitigation. 2024 will go down in history as a hot and dry summer season and exceptional fire season. Recent years have seen some large wildfires focused on federal lands, this year the amount of private lands ravaged by wildfires is hard to comprehend. The main focus is on protecting this impacted land from invasive weeds and grasses and providing the tools to do so. Fencing and infrastructure damage is also a major expense for those affected. Governor Gordon and the legislature are working on bolstering existing programs and developing new ones to assist affected parties while adhering to the constitutional restrictions of not rendering aid to private individuals.
Once the Joint Appropriations Committee drafted the budget bill, it passed to each chamber for amendments. The chambers will pass different versions of the bill and those differences will have to be reconciled in conference committee in the coming weeks. The current budget debate is not only over the dollar amount for emergency wildfire relief but how much of that should be grants vs 2% interest loans. The governor recommended $130 million in grants which was changed to $100 million in loans by the Joint Appropriations Committee. Then each chamber passed different amendments changing these amounts. There are also several bills addressing funds for people impacted by these fires and for future emergencies. Among these bills are HB0297/SF0148 Fire suppression and restoration funding, and SF0195 Small business emergency bridge loan program. Last but not least, there is SF0084 – Country of Origin Label-USA Beef. This bill, which has passed out of its first committee, will facilitate labeling Wyoming beef products as “Product of the USA”.
Follow the Wyoming bill tracker here.
Finally, in New Mexico, we had a successful Legislative Drive-In this week! Here are two bills we are supporting in New Mexico. First, HB 150 Meat Processing Support Act, Sponsored by Rep Chattfield – just passed its first committee! This bill:
Second, SB56 Livestock Info During Epidemic Act Carried by Sen Woods adds Section 77-3-13.1 to the Livestock Code, allowing the state livestock board to protect sensitive operational and health data during disease outbreaks while maintaining necessary transparency for public safety. The bill ensures producers can share critical disease tracking information without compromising their operations’ security.
Follow our New Mexico bill tracker here.
See all previous LegisLetters on our website and check out our weekly video updates on our YouTube channel.
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