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LegisLetter – January 24th

Welcome to RMFU’s second LegisLetter of the 2025 legislative session! With the inauguration of the new presidential administration and the beginning of New Mexico’s state legislative session this week, the year is officially in full swing. At the federal level, our president, Chad Franke, recently visited Washington DC to meet with legislators and agency officials. He, alongside our team, is working to ensure that the new agency officials and DC legislators know our priorities. We have been closely watching the confirmation process for the expected new head of USDA, Brooke Rollins, among other efforts. One highlight of her testimony during the confirmation process was her support for Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling, one of RMFU’s policies. Assuming she is confirmed, we look forward to working with Secretary Rollins, as well as everyone else, both new and not, in Washington DC. 

In Colorado, regular committee meetings will begin next week. This week, most of the activity happened in SMART Act hearings. The SMART Act requires state agencies to brief legislators on agency performance overall, their plan for the year, and any supplemental money that the agency might need to fix budget shortfalls from the previous year. During the SMART Act hearings for both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Natural Resources, there were many questions about wolf reintroduction, among other issues. It seems likely that the Department of Natural Resources is on track to complete the release of about 50 wolves, including those already released, by the end of 2026. Nonetheless, RMFU and other agricultural advocacy organizations are doing everything we can to make the impact of wolf reintroduction as painless as possible. 

As the Wyoming Legislature wraps up its second week, they are elbow deep in bills, with both bodies scrambling to get introduced bills through committee hearings and floor action ahead of the beginning of the supplemental budget process.

Bills dealing with agriculture of interest to RMFU members include: 

HB 150 Meat Processors-Composted Materials: allows the composting of non-edible portions of processed animals from their processing plants, excluding specified risk materials. It also allows the distribution of the composted material as fertilizer, soil amendment, or soil conditioner. 

HB 168 Cultivated Meat Prohibition: prohibits a person from selling, offering for sale, manufacturing, or distributing cultivated meat in this state. 

SF 120 Wyoming PRIME Act: introduced and debated last year. This bill allows the sale of meat from custom-exempt plants to knowledgeable consumers when the Governor certifies to the secretary of state these sales are legal under federal law. 

SF 84 Country of Origin Label: USA beef requires labeling as “Product of the USA” for beef that is derived from cattle born, raised, slaughtered, and processed in the USA. 

Finally, in New Mexico, it was a very busy first week of session. Though we are tracking many bills in New Mexico, here are two of the most important:

SB 22 Water Quality and Pollution Act: updates permitting processes for surface water discharges and dredge/fill activities in response to reduced federal oversight following the Sackett v. EPA decision. The bill’s advocates have worked hard to protect the agricultural community to ensure that exemptions for normal agricultural activities, which have long been protected at the federal level, continue to exist. While the exemptions we have historically had at the federal level are imperfect, RMFU has long held that they strike a reasonable balance between natural resource protection and the needs of producers.  The bill also appropriates $50 million to create the Neglected and Contaminated Sites Fund for state-led investigation and cleanup of water and soil contamination, helping New Mexico maintain environmental protections where federal authority has been limited. RMFU, in partnership with New Mexico Acequia Association, is currently requesting small changes to the language around agricultural exemption to ensure the language matches federal language and to ensure that acequias are sufficiently protected.

HB 90, The Veterinary Medical Loan Repayment Act: creates a program offering up to $80,000 in student loan repayment assistance to food-animal veterinarians who commit to working full-time in underserved areas of New Mexico for at least four years. The bill establishes a $5 million fund, creates a selection committee, and sets criteria for both the designation of underserved areas and the selection of up to ten qualified veterinarians per year for the program.

For a complete list of bills that RMFU has an official position on, please visit https://rmfu.org/legislation/



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