Thanks, Lynsey. Happy to be here!

Lynsey McAnally (01:56):

Ethan Lane (02:00):

Sure. I've been in Washington about 15 years. I grew up in Arizona. My family is in the ranch real estate business, so that's how I grew up working on a lot of these western issues that a lot of our ranchers deal with in those 14 western states that have BLM and forest service grazing programs, obviously drought, things like that are all pressing issues for producers out there. And that's kind of the environment I came up in. I started my career in that ranch real estate business. And then in our early thirties, my wife and I moved to Washington and I spent some time working on Republican congressional campaigns and had a consulting firm that lobbied on oil and gas issues and Endangered Species Act issues and some ranching issues out in California and oyster issues and uranium mining issues and you name it, all kinds of different things.

And finally found my way to NCBA and the Public Lands Council in 2015. Which it's amazing now thinking back, it seems like it was just yesterday, but it's been nine years. And then I took over as the head of the D.C. office for NCBA in 2019 right before COVID. I have been in this role ever since. So a lot of people in Washington, it's kind of a non-traditional path that takes you to a job like this and I've been here ever since. And we just spend our time around here trying to make sure, especially those of us that are from the industry, my family has horses and cattle and all of that, and most of us spend most of our time making sure that we don't do anything here that would cause our own families to be upset with us. Nevertheless, the rest of the producers around the country that are counting on us to make sense out of this crazy town week after week in Washington.

No, that's awesome. And you have quite the story for sure, hearing some of those things that you've been involved in in the past, that's not what one would think when you think about your role in particular. But I'm a firm believer that what you are involved in throughout your career is what shapes you into the professional that you are. So that's quite the story. Do you mind telling us a little bit about how NCBA actually goes about developing those policies and how you go about putting that in action in Washington?

Sure. So our policy process is really the foundation of how my office operates here in Washington. Obviously NCBA's headquarters are in Denver. We have a tremendous staff out there of dedicated folks who love this industry and do all kinds of different important tasks to help the industry, right? Supporting our state affiliates, supporting the beef councils, working on the Checkoff side, various Checkoff contracts on the policy side, working on membership and working on all those important functions. My team here in Washington is purely government affairs. So we're purely funded by member dollars and we are purely focused on implementing that policy book that's at the heart of our policy process. That really is a process that never stops. It's ongoing every year, and it's really that link between not just NCBA and our state affiliates who make up the leadership that advances policy through that process, but their membership in their respective states and their county Cattlemen's Associations.

It really is sort of a comprehensive grassroots approach to ensuring that we have clear instruction here in Washington on what producers across the country think on a variety of issues and what they want us to be focusing on and prioritizing here. We talk about this a lot in agriculture. We're 2% of the public. Two percent of the population that grows the food for the 98% and that translates to representation in Washington. We're typically outmanned, outspent and outgunned by bigger industries, bigger lobbying efforts outside of agriculture, interest groups, NGOs - environmental NGOs and animal rights NGOs. All of whom have a lot of opinions - most of them usually wrong - about how cattle producers operate, what we do every day and how important we are not just to making sure that grocery stores stay full, but making sure that rangelands are healthy, making sure that animals are healthy and happy.

All of the important work that our producers do every day is a big part of that. And all of that is informed by that policy book. We don't make up anything we talk about here. It is typically the result of input from 44 state affiliate organizations across the country and their members. So here we are talking a week before our convention in San Antonio. That is really the starter's pistol on the annual policy cycle. So right now, and I was just in Tennessee over the weekend at their convention and they just like a lot of other states are going through their final policy processes in state right now trying to decide which policies to bring to the NCBA convention. Our seven standing policy committees will meet. Each of them has a chair and vice chair and representatives from all of those affiliates around the country.

Policies will be proposed. They'll be debated, amended, changed, discussed. And the hope is that by the time that's done, everyone will have had their say, everyone will have had their vote and we will create more policy or change policy to make sure that it's still relevant and carry that forward to our summer business meeting, which happens every summer. And that is just like it sounds. That's the real kind of business of implementing policy at NCBA. So at that meeting, not only are we considering new policies and amendments, but a lot of other organizations, we're revisiting expiring policy in our case on a five year cycle. So every policy in that policy book comes up every five years for the membership to look at to see if it's still relevant, to see if it's still where we want it to be. And those states get to weigh in on that and decide whether it's still something we need or if it needs to change.

And so the cumulative impact of that is we have a lot of folks from around the country with very different perspectives based on where they're raising cattle, what part of the supply chain they're in, weighing in constantly on that policy to make sure that it's fresh and correct as far as how it represents cattle producers in Washington. So it's a responsibility we take really seriously. It's something that my team and I really enjoy because it's where the grassroots rubber meets the road. It's where we really get that feedback from the ground. You can't hide in a grassroots policy process. It's public, it's in front of a microphone, everybody shows up and it's a really good opportunity to take the temperature, figure out if we're on target or not, and recalibrate if we need to confront the next set of challenges. That's always waiting around the corner for the cattle industry.

Last year was actually my first time attending CattleCon and I had the pleasure of sitting in on a couple of those committee meetings. It was just really interesting to me how they functioned and how from the floor participants were voicing their opinions throughout those sessions. So, it's definitely something special to see if some of our listeners haven't had the chance to attend CattleCon.

It really is. And it's a good opportunity, too. Those committees all have speakers, whether they're from government agencies or the private sector talking about hot button issues. So it's not just the policy debates. Those are important, but boy, the informational component of those meetings is invaluable. And it's stuff that I worry sometimes people, as much as we want them to enjoy the trade show, take a break, grab a hot dog and a Coke and come upstairs and watch the policy meetings because they are really important to get some of that information that you can't get anywhere else.

I had the chance to sit in on the health committee last year, and it was very interesting to me to see some of the things that have come up, gosh, what the last month? Screw worm has become an issue.

Yeah, there's been a few new developments that we're tracking here at NCBA policy headquarters.

Exactly. So it's definitely interesting to me to sit in on those and just kind of sit back and watch how everything functions and how those folks that are from state associations can have their voices heard at convention and play a pretty pivotal role in developing the policy down the line. So very, very cool to see. And obviously you did the policy update at our winter meeting for Oklahoma Cattlemen's this past week and I had the pleasure of hearing you speak there. And I know it's probably something you enjoy, but definitely something that we enjoyed hearing more.

Well, and it's always the challenge of doing an update that is, my team and I are so deep in the weeds on this stuff every day that you forget that our producers around the country are interested. Obviously, it impacts their business, but they have more important pressing concerns. They're trying to raise a family, they're trying to run an operation, they're trying to watch market conditions, they're trying to make sure they're using the right risk management tools, that they're using the right conservation programs with USDA, that they're keeping track of the regulatory compliance burden of running an operation like that. And so they've got all these different things going on and while they want to know and they want to find out the latest information, you never want to overload them with too much or things that aren't relevant to their particular corner of the universe.

And so it's always that challenge of how do you use 20 minutes or 30 minutes to get people up to speed and give them just what they need and nothing? They don't. And I guess it's more of an art than a science, and I don't know how well we hit the target, but right now, so much of that is focused on the transition because when you move from one administration to another with wildly different views of the role of the federal government and how it should interact with citizens around the country, with industries, with states, it tends to lead you to throw out everything you've been focusing on and recalibrate completely. And that's a lot of what we're doing right now.

Sure. And that's such a great segue because my next question to you is actually going to be what the general feel in Washington has been the last few years when it comes to the beef industry.

Well, the Biden administration was really focused for most of their time in office coming out of Covid in particular on this issue of consumer prices, right, inflation. And they really found a favorite target in the beef industry and it became a really frustrating, I think, sort of a paradigm that they kept coming back to over and over again that somehow the beef industry was this big villain and the root of all consolidation and corporate greed in the universe. And I think they had five different meetings over the course of the Biden administration at the White House dealing with competition, dealing with supply chain. And because this administration, the outgoing administration was so focused on a lot of this, DEI is the wrong word, but I think your listeners will know what I'm talking about, bringing in different voices and voices that haven't been heard as much, all of which is great.

They did it to such an extreme degree that they forgot to include enough input from the actual supply chain, right? Actual producers weren't respected enough in that Biden administration discussion because they were so focused on, gosh, these five people with their group over here haven't been heard enough, so we're going to just listen to them now. And I think what that did was really lead them down some kind of one-way dead ends as far as how to help the industry because we do need to make sure we're keeping an eye on those issues. We do need to make sure that there is a wealth of opportunity for our producers to market their cattle the way they want to market them, that they're not locked into a situation where they don't have choices in where to go with their cattle or what they raise or how to make some premiums on those cattle and be profitable in an environment that's increasingly complicated.

Those are real challenges, and it would've been really nice to have an administration that wanted to talk to the actual industry about that rather than looking for groups that were just going to agree with them. And, unfortunately, that's a lot of what we got over the last couple of years. Tom Vilsack, that was his second time as Secretary of Agriculture. He came into that role with a lot of baggage. He came into that role with probably grudges is a good word, not just with the cattle industry, but just generally. He probably had just done it a little too long, I think. And so it ended up being unfortunately a defining feature of his second term in office was doggedly pursuing some of this stuff beyond what was reasonable or made sense. And at the same time, not doing any of the things the industry or any of agriculture was really asking for in market expansion.

Market access was such a hallmark of the first Trump term for the beef industry in particular. President Trump's tenure last time they secured us access through a bilateral agreement to the Japanese market, a huge export market for U.S. beef. They got us access into China, which we didn't have previously. Redid USMCA in a way that maintained that cross border trade that's so seasonally important to the beef supply chain. All of these different pieces were just sort of put on pause during the Biden administration. And we were told for years, "Gosh, we're doing all this great stuff on trade, can't you see it and feel it?" And we would say, "No, we cannot see or feel anything of substance other than your press releases." And so it all sort of added up to a really frustrating environment, I think for the cattle industry to have this kind of one-sided conversation with the Biden administration.

And in some respects, we're a nonpartisan organization. We don't pick a candidate in the presidential race, but it was gratifying to see that we weren't the only ones feeling that way. It was very clear that a large amount of the American public was tired of hearing one thing and seeing another out of that administration as well. So in that respect, this transition is a welcome one because we get a chance to hit the reset button and go back in with a team we've worked with before. We've never seen this before in modern history with a president that's been president recently. So we can say, "Gosh, we're glad you're back. Here's a list of things that just haven't been touched in four years, and it'd be great if you could spend some time paying attention to them."

That's very interesting to hear. And I'm actually kind of curious, what is the atmosphere like in Washington in the last two weeks?

So transitions are a hectic thing, and they're always that way. It doesn't matter who is coming in. A new president wants to put their stamp on Washington, they're going to put a new team in place. If Kamala Harris had won, we'd be having - in some ways - a very similar conversation. We wouldn't have expected any of the Biden team to remain in their roles, but changing parties, it's even more so. There's a lot of optimism. There's a lot of kind of can-do possible, which is always the case in a new administration. The sky's the limit, and it takes a while for that exuberance to wear off and us to get back to the reality that is the federal government. Federal government is slow. It's big, it's cumbersome. It is designed to be inefficient. And I mean that. People always kind of give me a quizzical look when I say that, but we talk about gridlock and things like that, and I try to remind people that's a feature of a system, not a bug.

You don't necessarily want the federal government to be highly efficient at making new rules, passing new laws, and exerting more control over the American people. You want that to be kind of difficult. But the flip side of that coin is it's difficult to deregulate too, because you have to deregulate through those same processes. So we have an administration who's looking at this and saying, "Across the board, there is just too much federal government involvement in everybody's daily lives. So how do we rightsize that? How do we eliminate some of the unnecessary expenditure? How do we make sure that those federal employees that are in place are doing what the people want them to do rather than making up their own adventures and their own sort of priorities as they go about their business in the various agencies throughout government." And I think right now that's occupying a lot of people's attention is, hey, what can we really get done here with this new administration with Republican control of all three bodies: the House, the Senate and the White House. And to some extent the court system with that 6-3 majority for conservatives on the Supreme Court. And what does that mean for the state of the federal government?

What can we expect to be substantially different? What is probably not going to change because it's just the way the federal government operates? And I think that's occupying a lot of people's time right now. But it's definitely, I think largely in agriculture, a positive feeling with a few caveats. We've heard some things out of the Trump administration so far that we're keeping an eye on, but generally very positive and I think excited about the possibility over the next couple years.

And I think one thing that a lot of people have been keeping an eye on is the number of executive orders that were a potential over the last couple weeks or last week rather. What are your thoughts on that? Can you tell us a little bit more about what some of those executive orders might have been?

Yeah, and I think for whatever reason after Trump's first term, the press really focused on this idea that he was a big proponent of executive action or somehow more so than other administrations. The reality is you have kind of three different main buckets of making the federal government change what it's doing. And each of them is equally as difficult to reverse as it is to impose. And by that I mean any president can sign an executive order. That executive order can be undone by a new executive order. So it's quick to do to undo. The next step would be a regulation that an agency promulgates. That is a process that has to follow the Administrative Procedures Act. There are a lot of requirements there where they have to draft a rule, it has to be reviewed by the White House OMB. It then has to be put out for examination by the public and public comment.

They then have to craft a rule based on that public comment. They have to respond to those comments before finalizing a rule. There's another comment period in our modern age that also means everybody under the sun litigates those rules. Somebody, whoever didn't like the rule and almost undoubtedly litigates every rule, which brings the court system in. And so that process is necessarily a multi-year process. And then obviously you have statutory change. You have Congress passing a new law directing the agencies to do something different than they're doing now. That is in some ways the most difficult hurdle to get over, especially in a Congress with very tight margins like we're seeing now. So it's, it's not surprising that on the first couple days, the first day in particular of a new administration, you're going to see a raft of executive orders. Most of those are undoing executive orders that didn't meet with the policy view of the incoming administration.

So a lot of it's reversing things that were done in the Biden administration. There's been action on some of the stuff that's really kind of red-blooded, conservative stuff we've seen moves making it difficult to have normal washing machines, light bulbs, shower heads, toilets, dishwashers, all that kind of stuff that we all kind of talk about and laugh about and express frustration about. There was an executive order dealing with that, a ton of executive order activity on immigration, obviously on the migrant situation on some of the sanctuary cities and trying to get a handle on that issue. That's one that's been sticky for agriculture because obviously we're an industry like many that is extremely dependent on labor from foreign countries. By and large, that labor is documented and there with the appropriate paperwork. But whenever you see action in that space, it tends to send shockwaves through that community.

And that spurs a lot of concerns about people showing up to work, even if they are documented and what that's going to look like for packing plants, what that's going to look like for feedlots, things like that, as well as other parts of agriculture, a really big emphasis on energy policy. This administration believes that reversing some of the domestic energy policies of the last administration will lead to lower input costs across the board, right? Cheaper fuel. That means getting stuff places is going to be cheaper. That means everything's going to cost less. That's the idea anyway. That's what they're kind of leaning into and ensuring that this sort of era we're coming out of that was so fixated on renewables, right? We've seen the rise of fields of solar panels where there was once cattle grazing taking over these large environments, maybe transitioning a little bit back to block and tackle energy development, oil and gas production, things like that, that we know still power this economy and will for many years into the future.

Withdrawing us from the Paris Climate Accord - again. So that's kind of been a yo-yo issue depending on which administration we go into, as well as some executive orders that I would say are more sort of vision-focused rather than action-focused. There was a lot of talk about tariffs. There was a lot of fear and consternation about, "Gosh, there's going to be all these tariffs put in place on day one." Well, the reality is those executive orders have by and large asked the Secretary of Commerce, U.S. Trade representative and others to conduct a review and come back in 60 days with their thoughts on what should be done in some of these cases. And I think we're already seeing a little bit of that jockeying with Columbia here in the last couple of days. We're going to continue to see an ongoing conversation with China, obviously, but I think you're going to see this administration really look at some of those deals and figure out whether in the president's estimation, we're getting the better end of those arrange arrangements.

And it's going to be on us as an industry to continue to communicate to this administration that, hey, we're supportive of you getting us the best deal possible, but we want to make sure you get us more access because more than $400 of every fed steer harvested in this country is attributable to exports. I mean, that's a big deal for our producers. So it's not something we can afford to take lightly or that we can afford to gamble with. So we're going to make sure we're really sharing our thoughts with the administration as they go through that process and helping them understand what we think is helpful and what may not be helpful to the supply chain as they go down that road. So that's a little bit of a snapshot of some of the executive orders we could occupy an hour going through. I mean, everything from looking at the way that federal employees show up to work every day, whether they can work remotely or not, establishing a male and female biological genders as a reality, you name it, they ran the gamut of those different things. And it'll be a while as we sort through them all, but largely a lot of it is signaling intent rather than a lot of actual movement on the first week or two of this administration.

And I think the thing to keep in mind for our listeners is that, again, that isn't out of the realm of normal when it comes to new administrations. This is something that happens every time we have a new incoming president, and it's more something to keep an eye on and just kind of inform yourself of rather than be overly concerned about at the moment.

That's right. And look, this administration is, if nothing else, very interested in what the American people think about what they're doing. And that's that kind of populist end of the conservative spectrum right now. It's right there in the word, is it popular? So we need to use our voices. We need to make sure that we're not shrinking violets in this environment. We need to make sure that we're educating and talking about what we need. And probably just as importantly, talking about what we don't need.

You mentioned at the policy meeting that there were some freezes going on, both regulatory and then also within some of these different groups within Washington, and that that's not necessarily unusual either. Can you talk a little bit about some of the regulatory freezes that are happening? I know Screwworm was one that was mentioned this past week, maybe some things about the U.S.-Mexico border, and then just information about why those kind of stop work orders happen when a new administration is transitioning into the Oval Office.

Yeah, that's a great question. So one hallmark of any transition is a regulatory freeze, we call it. And what it is is truly sort of day one saying, okay, anything, agencies, that you were working on that maybe was ready to be finalized as a new regulation or a rule that was ready to be implemented or anything that's ongoing, they immediately sign an order and say, all that stops right now pending a review by the incoming team. Because what happens is, remember, you've got the bureaucracy that's there regardless of the administration, and then you have with a new president, the need to appoint something like 4,000 political appointees across all these agencies. And those political appointees come in on day one, quite literally at noon on January 20th while the new president is being sworn in and take their seats and start taking control of the agencies.

And that happens in Republican administrations and democratic administrations. But the way they start that process is by basically saying, okay, everything stops. Everybody stop what you're doing. Pencils down until we can get a handle on things and figure out whether this is something that meets the new administration's goals or if this is something that's a holdover from the old administration that we don't want to do anymore. And the challenge with that is you have to throw a very wide net. And in any administration, even one that we had some frustrations with, there are going to be things that we're moving right along that we do want to have continue. So it's a sort of fairly predictable process of working through those issues with the new teams that are in place at all these agencies while they're waiting for secretaries to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate and help communicate to them, yes, all of these that you froze, those are great. Freeze those. But this one, this one and this one, we want you to go ahead and let go through because we need to be able to continue operating, right? And there are things the federal government does that they need to be able to continue doing to keep the trains running on time. One of those right now is the Mexican border. We've been shut obviously since about Thanksgiving because of that outbreak of New World Screwworm down in southern Mexico. The folks at APHIS, at USDA have been working with the Mexican government for a couple months now to establish some protocols to ensure that cattle that are crossing are doing so without bringing Screwworm across the border. We haven't had screwworm in the U.S. since the 1960s. I can assure you, we do not want it back in the United States.

So it's kind of a multi-tiered approach of making sure we're helping the Mexicans keep it at bay further south in Mexico, while also building our own defenses here in the U.S. and establishing protocols at the border to ensure that we don't see cattle come across the border carrying those flies. And so that was right at the point where it's ready to be implemented and is one of those things that's being discussed by the new administration. We're hopeful they'll be able to get that cleared and get those documents executed so we can put those protocols in place if for no other reason than just to give the market some insight into the timeline and allow that to be priced in and people can go back to business knowing that there's going to be a pathway to move those cattle if needed over the months to come.

It's so interesting to me. I obviously wasn't alive when Screwworm was an issue here in the United States, but hearing my grandparents talk about that particular issue that they struggled with, it is very apparent that we don't want that coming back. I have enough trouble with regular flies. I have no need for a new one.

That's exactly right. It's no joke and it's not something we can play around with. And it's one where, because I've heard people say, wow, if you just stop all traffic at the border, we won't have to worry about it.

No, we can't control how other countries deal with this. We don't have the luxury of hoping things go well on the other side of the border and plugging our ears and then saying la, la, la, la, la, and hoping that it doesn't come our direction. We have to engage. We have to work with our partners across the border. We have to work together to control this and get it put back in its box down there in Panama and get back to kind of a stable environment where we're not worried about this creeping forward. But there are some challenges down there. They have some less than fully documented cattle movements down in the southern part of Mexico, much like they do in the rest of South America. There's some open gates, and that's something that we need to make sure we're paying attention to as we work through this process. But yeah, again, certainty, certainty, certainty. That's typically the most helpful thing for any market. And the cattle industry is no different. It's the uncertainty that causes the biggest amount of problems.

Sure. And these flies as with any insect or organism or animal, they don't necessarily respect the demarcation lines that we've put in place.

Nope. They don't see it. They don't care.

You talked a little bit about tariffs and concern for tariffs and kind of what is going on right now. How will trade imports and exports be affected you think with this administration? And can we expect any supply chain issues if there were imposed tariffs?

Well, look, we don't know yet what we're actually going to be dealing with versus some of the discussions about what's possible.

Sure.

We have really good trade relationships with some of our biggest trading partners. Japan, South Korea. Those are great markets for us. They typically buy things that our consumers here in the U.S. don't want, right? Tongues, offal, things like that that aren't terribly popular here in the U.S. and they can't keep them in stock overseas. That's great business for us. And what we see on the import side, hopefully most producers know, is largely lean trim that we don't make enough of. There's a reason that's what comes in because we're typically short of it in a supply chain where we raise right now extremely high quality, extremely well marbled cattle. We all know the average consumer wants a heavily marbled ribeye and lean ground beef. And those two things don't come off the same animal in equal supplies. So you need that piece coming in to supplement that supply.

And then we need somewhere to go with those pieces of the animal that we're not eating here or doing something else with. And the market tends to be the best way to determine where that's needed. That free market ability to trade freely is a great mechanism to allow that product to go where it's needed and where someone's willing to pay for it. So we're hopeful that as the president and his team work through their foreign policy agenda and they work through some of these initial discussions with our trading partners and others, and remember, it's never just about beef. It's always a suite of issues across a range of different industries that are being discussed. Everything from intellectual property and tech issues to labor issues and pricing. And I mean all different kinds of things go into those conversations. We're just one little piece, but we do tend to be a piece that's focused on pretty heavily. We tend to be a target when there's retaliation efforts and it's something that we pay close attention to. We don't want to be a bargaining chip, but we do want to make sure we're in the conversation and that the administration's going after access for us so we can grow our markets around the world.

And with this new administration, as with any administration, they're putting on a pretty united front at the moment, but are there any ideological differences that we're seeing within the administration that potentially could affect policy moving forward?

There always are. I don't think this administration is going to be any different when it comes to that, but I do think that there seems to be a lot of unanimity of general purpose at the moment, and I think that's a good thing. The devil's always in the details. There will be issues where everyone's in lockstep right up until you look at the detail of something and then you some groups saying, "Whoa, hold it. That doesn't work for us." Right? Maybe it works for you guys in your state or whatever else, but it sure doesn't work over here. And what you hope for in that kind of situation is that the administration is listening and paying attention to that and working to ensure like we do in our policy process, that you're paying attention to all of those different camps and crafting policy that benefits everybody as much as possible.

Sure. And we have cabinet appointments happening currently. I've seen a few of those folks have been confirmed, but how do we feel about the nominees that are still out there, and are there any concerns regarding those nominees and policies which could affect the livestock industry?

So the nominees in our end of the world, governor Doug Burgum from North Dakota, coming into the Department of Interior. Brooke Rollins from the America First Policy Institute and the previous Trump administration at USDA. Lee Zeldin at EPA. Sean Duffy at Transportation. These are solid folks. I don't know anybody who had the chance to watch Brooke Rollin's hearing last week before the Senate Agriculture Committee. She did a fabulous job. She was polished, she knew what she was talking about. Her perspective was, I think, right in line with what most of our cattle producers believe and hope for from the federal government. And so I think anybody who watched that hopefully had a really good feeling coming out of it that we have folks coming in that are looking out for us, and that's going to be a great beginning to a conversation about how that agency can work in the next couple of years to support the industry. Yeah, and I think the under secretaries we've heard about are also really positive thus far. People that we know, people that we've worked with that are good folks that see the world the same way as the average cattle producer. So pretty positive stuff so far. And we're hopeful that that'll continue. I mean, once you get a flavor for how a president wants to populate his or her administration, it's always good when that flavor is something that you feel like you can get behind.

Sure. And you spoke a little bit about the dynamics of the House and Senate last week for OCA. Can you elaborate a little bit on that and maybe if we've learned anything new since that update?

Yeah, no, nothing new. That's the best. Congress is still Congress and it's been a challenging environment. Everybody listening to this podcast knows that we've had extremely narrow margins. We've had in the Republican side of the aisle, a lot of disunity, I guess for lack of a better term. A lot of frustration getting things passed. Even amongst just the House Republican conference, that margin is even more narrow. It's down to one vote right now. It'll balloon back up to a big old three vote majority once some of those seats are filled that are folks that are going into the administration. Elise Stefanik up in New York. People like that. And then obviously everybody's least favorite Congressman in the Panhandle Matt Gates. They've got to fill his seat, too. So you've got a few different seats like that that are going to need to be filled to get that full compliment in the House.

The Senate too has a couple seat majority for Republicans now. John Thune is now the majority leader in the Senate. They're still very tight margins. We saw that on some of these confirmation hearings over the weekend where I think it was Pete Hegseth for Defense. You had three Republicans cross the aisle and vote against him with Democrats that voted in lockstep. So it continues to be an environment where the leaders of either party really don't have the luxury of taking for granted any of their members votes. They've got to work for them. They've got to figure out how to craft legislation and craft deals that pass muster and are agreeable to all of those different elected members from all over the country that maybe don't see these issues the same way all the time. So it is the hard work of crafting real legislation and in a post chevron deference environment, that probably takes on a little more importance because there's less ability for the agencies to read between the lines. You can't pass vague policy out of the House and Senate anymore. You have to have enough detail in there to really give the agencies instruction because otherwise they can't promulgate a rule without having it overturned in court or at least running that risk. So the stakes are higher and that just means more work, and they're going to have to really sharpen their pencils to get some things done.

I thought one of the most interesting questions that came out from an attendee of the winter policy meeting in Oklahoma last week was a question about the Horse Protection Act. That was one that I wasn't super familiar with honestly before that question, but one that I've gone in and looked at a little bit. You gave a pretty good explanation of what that Act actually is, the amendments and then the possible implications to ranchers. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, and I grew up in the Quarter Horse world so that's near and dear to my heart. We've been watching this in the background for a very long time, and I'm taking my NCBA hat off. I'm just generally in the ranching community and certainly in the Quarter Horse community. There has been an effort for years in the Tennessee Walking Horse world to figure out some kind of a solution on soring tactics in that particular breed. And the animal rights community has really been radicalized on this issue for a very long time. They want extremely expansive rules governing this, and it ended with these amendments to the Horse Protection Act that were pushed forward last spring that didn't just deal with soring and the inspection of show horses in the Tennessee Walking world, but created this kind of slippery slope environment where they're asking for a tremendous amount of record retention and reporting from horse shows and equestrian events and rodeos that have nothing to do with Tennessee Walkers.

And if you grew up with Quarter Horses, you grew up with performance horses like I did, you start worrying about sliders, you start worrying about shoes that we put on performance horses that shouldn't be included in that mix at all. You start worrying about a situation being created that could be abused later on by another administration being driven by these radical animal rights activists to really shut down horse shows, shut down rodeos, think circuses, right? I mean, it wasn't that long ago that you could take your family to the circus. They were successful in ending circuses, and we have to always be vigilant about this kind of nose under the tent type regulation that is difficult to get across the finish line. But then once it's there creates a really big opportunity for folks that don't agree with the western way of life, that don't agree with the use of horses in working events or anything else, to continue to further crack down on that and put those people out of business. These rules ran the risk of creating just that kind of environment.

AQHA deserves a lot of credit for their work engaging in this behind the scenes. They've been working tirelessly. We've been trying to help them however we can and working with the new administration. We were really pleased that last week APHIS came out and said that they were in fact pausing implementation of that Horse Protection Act amendment that was supposed to go into effect on February 1. So there's a 60-day reprieve on that while they figure out next steps. And again, that's part of that larger suite of regulatory freezes that we've seen in the first couple of days of this administration. But it allows everybody to get their breath and not worry about this onerous set of rules going into effect on February 1 and gives everybody a little bit of a chance to figure out, all right, what do we do to fix this to make sure that this isn't being loaded in as a weapon pointed horse owners and rodeo enthusiasts and show people all over the country?

It's a slippery slope, just like you said, and I think that's why so many people are keeping an eye on this. When we talk about the livestock industry as a whole, it's not just our horse show brethren that should be concerned about it. It's really anybody that's involved in exhibiting livestock and keeping an eye on what that's going to do. So I really appreciate you giving an update on that and informing those of us that weren't as familiar with that particular Act. I just have a few more questions for you. Really. The next one is where can we get more information on what's going to be happening in Washington over the next few months and then continuing on through this term?

So you could always go to our website, ncba.org/policy, the policy home on the NCBA website. Our policy priorities passed by our leadership are on there. The NCBA policy book is on there, as well as some one-pager and briefs on some of those key issues for producers around the country. It's a great resource. It's constantly updated. There's also contact information on there for me and all of my team. Please take advantage of that. I always worry that somebody looks at that website and says, 'Ah, I see their phone number there, but I don't want to bother them." Bother us. That's what we're here for. We need to be hearing from producers around the country about these issues so that we have the best information and the latest information on how to be helpful here in Washington and how to direct our efforts. So that's really ground zero for that.

It's always updated. Also, we have our own podcast, obviously and newspaper that comes out on a regular basis. The NCBA Comms team does a great job, but also your state cattleman's association. I mean, they are our partners in this foxhole, and they are out there beating the drum every day, holding forums, holding tours around their respective states, educating producers, bringing in speakers, bringing us in. It's a symbiotic relationship. It's critical to getting that information out. I really encourage people if they're not members of those associations, if they're not members of American Angus, if they're not members of their state association and NCBA ... I know we're asking you to join multiple organizations. I get it. But this is your business we're talking about. And then the best way to make sure what's going on is to be involved not just in getting that information as members, but showing up and offering your opinion and your thoughts on those issues as part of those policy processes as well.

Which is a great way to slide right into a conversation about CattleCon. What kind of focus will there be on not only this election cycle, but the new administration and policy at NCBA? And I know that we discussed that a little bit earlier in the podcast, but I thought now might be a good time to reiterate that.

Yeah, it is going to be a heavy focus. There's going to be a lot of conversation both in the D.C. policy update and in our policy committee meetings, I think on what we think is going to be happening, where we think we're headed, what we need to do as an industry to make sure that our voice is being heard in that conversation. If there's nuance, we need to inject into that to make sure that policymakers understand the real needs of the industry. We want to make sure we're doing that. We want to make sure we're doing it with all of those producers from around the country, having their input into it as well, so that we're giving them the best possible information to represent their constituents. There's no better venue in the world to do that than CattleCon because you just have 9,000 of your closest friends there all focused on the same goal, trading information, sharing stories, building their network, talking about key issues, learning from each other. That's the coolest thing about the week that we have coming up. Is the ability to really get into those issues with your peers, your colleagues, and make some progress.

Yeah, like I said, last year was my first opportunity to attend CattleCon, and you are so right. It felt like you were in the largest family gathering I had ever attended in my life. And so cool to see people that I had not connected with in almost a decade, and it was like you hadn't missed a beat with them. And to get to reconnect with those folks and learn further our knowledge of what's going on within the industry and how we can all be a part of really moving that mark forward. There's something to be said for being actively involved in our industry, but being involved in the policy side of it, I think goes even further than that. And it can be intimidating, but having the chance to sit in on those committee meetings and other informational sessions at NCBA I think is a great starting point.

I agree. We're excited. It's always fun. The week before is almost my favorite because my phone's blowing up with old friends saying, "Oh, let's get coffee!" Or "Let's get a beer while we're in San Antonio!" ou get excited because all that energy is there and it's going to be a fun week.

Thank you so much. I've so enjoyed this conversation, and I know that our listeners are going to really enjoy kind of diving deep on what's going on and how they can be involved in policy in the future. But thank you for everything you do and for taking the time.

Oh, you bet. Happy to be on. Thanks for having me. We'll look forward to seeing you next week.

Listeners, for more information on making Angus work for you, check out the Angus Beef Bulletin and the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA. You can subscribe to both publications in the show notes. If you have questions or comments, let us know at abbeditorial@angus.org. And we would appreciate it if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode with any other profit-minded cattlemen. Thanks for listening, this has been Angus At Work!