Newhouse, bipartisan contingent demand USDA details on failed oversight duties

U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) joined a bipartisan group of 27 lawmakers requesting information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) about how it failed to conduct proper oversight of the foreign acquisition of U.S. agricultural land.

“USDA’s failure to conduct oversight to protect local farmers, rural communities, and our national security is inexplicable,” Rep. Newhouse said. “The American people deserve answers now.”

Rep. Newhouse and his colleagues in a Feb. 27 letter sent to USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack expressed “deep concerns” about an internal USDA memo that revealed the department did not assess nor penalize failures to report foreign acquisition of U.S. agricultural land between 2015 and 2018, which is required under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA). 

“Foreign ownership of agricultural land threatens small family farm operations and the overall health of the agricultural supply chain,” the members wrote. “As the foreign acquisition of farmland increases, it is evident that more oversight is needed to protect local farmers, rural communities, and our national security.”

The USDA memo, which was recently made public by an industry news outlet, states that the number of foreign acquisition disclosures increased significantly between 2015 and 2018, according to their letter.

“However, USDA did not assess a single penalty for failure to report foreign acquisition of U.S. agricultural land during this period and this lapse of accountability was not included in USDA’s AFIDA annual report to Congress during that time frame,” wrote the lawmakers, who also included U.S. Reps. Frank Lucas (R-OK), Randy Feenstra (R-IA), Don Bacon (R-NE), Ashley Hinson (R-IA), Stephanie Bice (R-OK), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Mike Bost (R-IL), and Mark Pocan (D-WI).

Rep. Newhouse and his colleagues requested that Vilsack expand upon the memo regarding USDA’s executions of its statutory requirements under the AFIDA, including why it failed to assess penalties and what actions have been taken in response. 

They also requested any and all correspondence with USDA’s Office of the General Counsel from 2015 through the present regarding the failure to assess AFIDA penalties. And the lawmakers set an April 1 deadline for Vilsack to get them the requested information.

“We must always protect America’s most vital, yet finite, resource — our farmland,” Rep. Newhouse said in a separate statement released on Monday. “The United States’ most forbidding adversaries, especially the Chinese Communist Party, will continue to undermine our democracy and threaten our heartland if we do not take action.”