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John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and adviser to Obama, said the Biden White House’s ability to stay focused on its COVID-19 relief package through a chaotic transition and the second Senate impeachment trial of Trump gives him optimism about its staying on course.

“They isolated all of those distractions, which is a testament to their discipline,” Podesta said. “I think they’ll stay on the main highway with the (infrastructure legislation). But they’ve got to get on top of the reality of the surge at the border and manage it appropriately.”

As for Sotomayor, from here the path toward almost certain confirmation goes as follows: the Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to hold hearings sometime this summer (this involves both written depositions and of course open hearings), which should lead to formal Senate approval before Congress adjourns for its summer recess in early August. So Sotomayor will likely take her seat in time for the start of the new Court session on October 5. (I talk briefly about the likely politics of the nomination process below).

What is of more interest to me, however, is what her selection reveals about the basis of presidential power. Political scientists, like baseball writers evaluating hitters, have devised numerous means of measuring a president’s influence in Congress. I will devote a separate post to discussing these, but in brief, they often center on the creation of legislative “box scores” designed to measure how many times a president’s preferred piece of legislation, or nominee to the executive branch or the courts, is approved by Congress. That is, how many pieces of legislation that the president supports actually pass Congress? How often do members of Congress vote with the president’s preferences? How often is a president’s policy position supported by roll call outcomes? These measures, however, are a misleading gauge of presidential power – they are a better indicator of congressional power. This is because how members of Congress vote on a nominee or legislative item is rarely influenced by anything a president does. Although journalists (and political scientists) often focus on the legislative “endgame” to gauge presidential influence – will the President swing enough votes to get his preferred legislation enacted? – this mistakes an outcome with actual evidence of presidential influence. Once we control for other factors – a member of Congress’ ideological and partisan leanings, the political leanings of her constituency, whether she’s up for reelection or not – we can usually predict how she will vote without needing to know much of anything about what the president wants. (I am ignoring the importance of a president’s veto power for the moment.)

Given that innovation is the new frontline in geopolitical competition, it is important that the United States update the legal framework of its IP system to advance its technological leadership. While previous iterations of PERA and the PREVAIL Act have made appearances on the legislative docket with limited success, Congress’ current preoccupation with cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence might provide the momentum needed to advance one or both bills. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the bills’ potential impact on innovation.

Last week, Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) launched the long-awaited legislative campaign to revive the faltering U.S. innovation system, jointly introducing one bill to restore patent eligibility and another to boost patent reliability at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). As the chair and ranking member of the Senate subcommittee on Intellectual Property, they are well-positioned to move these bipartisan bills forward. They got assists from Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI), who joined as original co-sponsors on the PREVAIL Act.

While Coons and Tillis are well-placed, Durbin is even more so as he chairs the Judiciary Committee and serves as the number two leader of the majority party.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters Wednesday that the House GOP bill is a path to "an impasse," and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the "purely partisan" House bill "has no future in the Senate."

Enter Stabenow. The chairwoman, who will retire at the end of this Congress, has released her own proposal but not draft text. She has said she wants negotiations before scheduling a markup. Stabenow would retain the potential for SNAP-benefit increases, move the IRA conservation money into the farm bill, and slightly increase the reference prices that trigger farm subsidies. She would spend only $5 billion more than current farm-bill spending.

Of course, there’s not a lot on the legislative plate right now. The most contentious bills—on Ukraine funding, on 2024 spending, and on reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration—have just been dealt with. And the bigger hurdles, such as the farm bill, are months away from serious negotiation.

Stabenow released a farm bill outline a month ago, and Senate Republicans are expected to respond with a farm bill framework soon. Stabenow’s outline rejects cuts in SNAP, keeps the guardrails on a windfall $15 billion earmarked for climate mitigation, and offers an increase in reference prices of at least 5 percent for row crops.

Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, also presses for farm bill passage this year and believes the GOP has leverage with approval of a Republican-written farm bill by the House Agriculture Committee on May 24. That bill would increase crop subsidy and crop insurance outlays by $53 billion, cut SNAP by $10 billion, and allow climate funding to be spent on any conservation practice whether or not it captures carbon or reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Here is a deeper dive on the major policy issues that will require careful navigating for the bill to progress its way through Congress and to the President for his signature:

Nutrition Assistance

House Ag Committee Ranking Member David Scott says the partisan farm bill makes the largest cut to SNAP in nearly 30 years and undermines historic climate investments secured by House Democrats in the Inflation Reduction Act. Scott says that while the bill has advanced out of Committee, it has no future and doesn’t have the Democratic support needed to be brought to the House floor.

Following the mark-up Thompson told Agri-Pulse he doesn’t expect the bill to get floor time before September, and added it could help some lawmakers in their re-election races.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. House Agriculture Committee on Friday released a long-awaited farm bill draft that includes provisions to reduce spending on food aid for the poor and efforts to help farmers fight climate change, drawing opposition from Democrats.

Congress faces steep odds to pass a farm bill this session as the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-majority Senate remain far apart. The bill is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

Four Democratic Party members voted late last month with Republicans for their 2024 version of the U.S. Farm Bill.

When they did that, House of Representatives Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson declared the yea-voting Dems had "seen through the hyperbolic, partisan rhetoric" of current U.S. politics.

A battle that ties food aid for needy families with crop subsidies for American farmers may stall efforts to renew a sweeping agricultural policy law, forcing Congress to consider delaying action on the $1.5 trillion proposal until after this fall's elections.

The law, known as the farm bill, is set to expire Sept. 30. It typically draws bipartisan support because it combines resources for such programs as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for low-income families with updates to farm supports, including commodity price guarantees and crop insurance.

The House was expected to devote its attention in the near term to work on the annual appropriations bills that fund the government. That could reduce the chances for a prompt House vote on the farm bill, let alone House and Senate agreement on a final version of the bill before the end of summer. Lawmakers agreed last fall to a one-year extension of the 2018 farm law, through this Sept. 30. Without an extension, USDA would lose authority to operate the farm program.

Congressional leaders have the options of a short-term extension, with the possibility of agreement on the farm bill during the post-election session, or a longer-running extension because of intractable disagreements over the bill. The 2018 farm law was enacted after a round of deal-making following the mid-term elections.

It’s time to think of the farm-bill drafts released by the four top leaders of the Senate and House agriculture committees not as legislative proposals, but as campaign documents.

In past years, battles over the farm bill have been conducted across regional lines and between the House and the Senate. But this year, it looks to be a purely partisan exercise. Now that Sen. John Boozman, the ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, has unveiled his framework for a farm bill, it’s clear that the Republican and Democratic proposals in each chamber have nearly identical political objectives—each aims to appeal to groups that committee members believe will vote their way in the November elections.

Illinois Farm Bureau President Brian Duncan said moving forward with a modern farm bill is critical to improving America’s farm policy and keeping the food supply strong.

“Our farmers need a multi-year farm bill so they can plan for the future growth and success of the family farm,” said Duncan, who applauded the committee’s work. “With the cost of producing and growing food increasing, and with commodity prices at break-even or, in some cases, below cost, passing a modern farm bill is crucial.”

A tractor in a soybean field. Cultivation of soybean rows in the field.

At the end of September, Congress must reauthorize or extend the farm bill . This bipartisan bill is critical to promoting prosperity in American agriculture and feeding the world. Our farmers and ranchers not only feed Americans, but they also feed people around the globe. Much of our international influence comes from this seemingly simple but essential daily necessity: food.

The authors compare their estimates on food supply shocks to the impact of similar economic shocks, such as to the global crude oil supply. They find that the impact of a rise in real food commodity prices on economic activity is roughly twice as large as the impact of a rise in crude oil prices of equal size, and that while the dynamic effects of both shocks on real personal consumption are more or less the same, the average food supply shock has a slightly stronger and more persistent impact on consumer prices than the average oil supply shock.

They highlight, that both types of shocks cause monetary policymakers to respond in different ways. A food price shock of 5 percent increases the Federal Funds rate by 24 basis points (a rise in 10 basis points leads to a fall in real GDP between 0.05 percent and 0.1 percent), whereas the rate decreases by 20 basis points, on impact, in response to a 10 percent oil shock. In other words, monetary policy seems to amplify the consequences of food market disruptions on economic activity. The authors estimate that monetary policy response to food market disruptions can potentially explain almost one-third of the effects of the shock.

In his book, The Coming Famine, Julian Cribb writes that the wars of the 21st century will involve failed states, rebellions, civil conflict, insurgencies and terrorism. All of these elements will be triggered by competition over dwindling resources, rather than global conflicts with clearly defined sides. More than 40 countries experienced civil unrest following the food price crisis in 2008. The rapid increase in grain prices and prevailing food insecurity in many states is linked to the outbreak of protests, food riots and the breakdown of governance. Widespread food insecurity is a driving factor in creating a disaffected population ripe for rebellion. Given the interconnectivity of food security and political stability, it is likely food will continue to act as a political stressor on regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere. Addressing Insecurity Improving food and water security and encouraging resource sharing is critical to creating a stable and secure global environment. While food and water shortages contribute to a rising cycle of violence, improving food and water security outcomes can trigger the opposite and reduce the potential for conflict. With the global population expected to reach 9 billion by 2040, the likelihood of conflict exacerbated by scarcity over the next century is growing. Conflict is likely to be driven by a number of factors and difficult to address through diplomacy or military force. Population pressures, changing weather, urbanization, migration, a loss of arable land and freshwater resources are just some of the multi-layered stressors present in many states. Future inter-state conflict will move further away from the traditional, clear lines of military conflict and more towards economic control and influence.

A growing number of studies of environmental stressors and social conflict posit that future wars will be fought over diminishing resources (Miguel et al. 2004; Burke et al. 2009;O ’ Loughlin et al. 2012; Scheffran et al. 2012 ). Building on insights from these studies, as well as other suggestive accounts (e.g. Brinkman and Hendrix 2011 ;Hendrix and Brinkman 2013 ; Messer and Cohen 2006 ;Prunier 2008 ), the present study demonstrates empirically, for the first time, the existence of a systemic relationship between conflict on the one hand, and food (in) security on the other, both globally and locally. Specifically, highly disaggregated cropland-based measures of food insecurity are shown to produce a significant effect on the incidence of inter and intra-state armed conflict worldwide. Unlike the majority of previous studies, which rely primarily on country-level indicators (Miguel et al. 2004 ; Burke et al. 2009 ; Scheffran et al. 2012 ;Buhaug 2010 ) or focus specifically on sub-Saharan Africa (Miguel et al. 2004 ; Burke et al. 2009;O ’ Loughlin et al. 2012;Buhaug 2010; Fjelde and Hultman 2014 ), the present approach uses geographic factors to estimate the regional sub-state distribution of conflict globally. Two agricultural output measures, the percent of cropland in a given region and the amount of cropland per capita within agricultural regions, are used to proxy for the demand and supply aspects of food security, respectively (Barrett 2010 ). Using logistic regression (i.e., logit) models, these measures are then paired with a large number of political, economic, and climatic indicators in order to estimate the direct effects of food security on violent conflict. Evidence suggests that conflict occurs in areas with higher access to, but lower availability of, food resources. Together these findings imply that food insecurity produces an independent effect on contemporary social and political conflict. While relatively little research directly addresses the relationship between food insecurity and conflict specifically, numerous studies have implied that such a relationship exists. For instance, in their analysis of the relationship between climate variability and conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa, Burke et al. found that B [t]emperature variables are strongly related to conflict incidence over our historical panel ^ (2009 , 20,670. See also Miguel et al. 2004 ; Koubi et al. 2012 ). They further hypothesize that, B [t]emperature can affect agricultural yields both through increases in crop evapotranspiration (and hence heightened water stress in the absence of irrigation) and through accelerated crop development...reducing African sta- ple crop yields by 10 % – 30 % per °C of warming ^ (ibid. 20,672). Somewhat more cautiously, O ’ Loughlin et al. conclude that, B [o]ur study and other studies question the evidence that climatic variability is uniformly driving up the risk of conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, ^ while also noting that B the positive association between instability and temperature may result from the harmful effects of high temperatures on food products such as maize ^ (2012, 18,347). While these conclusions were supported by subsequent studies (Raleigh and Kniveton 2012; Hendrix and Salehyan 2012 ;Hsiangand Meng 2014 ), other scholars question the validity of these findings and show that the incidence of conflict is primarily related to political and economic conditions (e.g. Buhaug 2010 ). In common with all these studies, however, is the insight that a major mechanism by which climate change increases the likelihood of conflict is through its effects on food supplies.

The United States faces many threats to our National Security. These threats include continuing wars with extremist elements such as ISIS and potential wars with rogue state North Korea or regional nuclear power Iran. The heated economic and diplomatic competition with Russia and a surging China could spiral out of control. Concurrently, we face threats to our future security posed by growing civil strife, famine, and refugee and migration challenges which create incubators for extremist and anti-American government factions. Our response cannot be one dimensional but instead must be a nuanced and comprehensive National Security Strategy combining all elements of National Power including a Food Security Strategy.

An American Food Security Strategy is an imperative factor in reducing the multiple threats impacting our National wellbeing. Recent history has shown that reliable food supplies and stable prices produce more stable and secure countries. Conversely, food insecurity, particularly in poorer countries, can lead to instability, unrest, and violence.