Democratic delegates approved a wide-ranging platform Monday night that largely embraces environmental and other policies of the current administration — not surprising, given that the platform was written before President Joe Biden stepped aside in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris.
The 91-page platform details the Biden administration’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, including a program to compensate farmers and forest landowners who have faced discrimination by USDA.
“Over $2 billion has already been distributed to more than 40,000 people,” the platform says. “The Agriculture Department estimates that Black and underserved farmers have benefited most.”
The platform also continues to stand by Biden’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and net-zero methane emissions by 2030.
Biden “has taken more environmental actions than any president before him,” the platform says, specifically citing a ban on the insecticide chlorpyrifos. EPA banned use of the chemical in 2022, but a federal appeals court overturned the decision. The agency is expected to allow continued use on 11 crops.
In the platform, which is nonbinding, Democrats say, “We’ll reward Americans across the country who engage in voluntary conservation on private lands, and we’ll work with landowners to protect endangered species and our economy by restoring habitats and enhancing biodiversity, and continuing to protect lands and waters as National Monuments.”
The platform continues to commit to preservation of 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030.
The Democratic platform contains four paragraphs specifically on agriculture, saying that “American farmers are the backbone of our country” but that — in an echo of Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack’s “whiteboard” speech — “over the years … Big Agriculture moved in, telling too many small farms that the surest path to success was to get big or get out. As a result, we lost over 400,000 farms in America in the last 40 years, and rural communities have paid a steep price.”
In addition, “The Inflation Reduction Act is helping farmers and ranchers adopt climate-smart practices, boosting farm incomes and connecting them to new markets. The [Biden] administration has also supported independent meat and poultry processing, reducing producers’ reliance on big companies to buy their product; and it’s working to make livestock and poultry markets fairer and more transparent.”
The document also says Democrats “are working to improve workers’ safety at meat processing facilities, and we will continue to enforce and advance labor and environmental rules [by], for example, promoting organizing rights and requiring overtime pay, and boosting protections against harmful pesticides and extreme heat.”
The Democratic platform also includes a proposal on tax policy that would risk a fight with many ag groups.
“We’ll eliminate the ‘stepped-up basis’ loophole for the wealthiest Americans, so they can’t avoid paying taxes on their wealth by passing it down to heirs,” the platform says. The only time it mentions the estate tax is to criticize Republican plans to eliminate it entirely.
Stepped-up basis means that the capital gain on an inherited asset is calculated from the date that the original owner died, rather than when he or she acquired the property. Under current law, heirs don’t owe taxes until the assets are sold.
Biden proposed in 2021 to tax capital gains at death but the idea never got anywhere in a Democratic-controlled Congress.
The estate tax exemption was doubled by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 and is now $13.6 million per person; the doubling of the exemption is scheduled to expire at the end of next year along with a number of other TCJA provisions important to agriculture.
The only specific reference in the much shorter GOP platform to agriculture comes in a section on protecting “American Workers, Farmers, and Industries from unfair Foreign Competition.”
“We commit to rebalancing Trade, securing Strategic Independence, and revitalizing Manufacturing,” the platform says. “We will prioritize Domestic Production, and ensure National Independence in essential goods and services. Together, we will build a Strong, Self-reliant, and Prosperous America,” the GOP document says.
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