President Donald Trump may be planning to permanently place Andrew Wheeler as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator. Pro Farmer reports that Trump this week said of Wheeler: “He is acting, but he is doing well, right? So maybe he won’t be so acting for so long.” President Trump made the comments during the White House’s State Leadership Day Conference. Acting roles are typically limited to 210 days in a post, with Wheeler having now a little more than 100 days under his belt as acting head of EPA. Wheeler, who has not been nominated for the post, took the acting role in July when then-administrator Scott Pruitt resigned. Wheeler inherited an agency in the midst of a large deregulation effort and a controversial biofuels agenda. However, Wheeler just last week said his agency can expand E15 sales to year-round without Congressional approval, a move ordered by President Trump and applauded by many agriculture groups earlier this month.

The Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration is inching towards a joint regulatory approach for cell-cultured, or so-called lab-grown meats. Agri-Pulse reports Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb “drew no lines in the sand” throughout a two-day meeting on the subject. Gottlieb told reports that FDA and USDA have worked together in the past, adding “I think this is going to be another one of those cases.” Memphis Meats, a company producing lab-grown meats, along with the North American Meat Institute, filed a joint letter as the first to suggest a joint regulation between USDA and FDA. The letter suggested that FDA handle pre-market safety approval, and then oversight can be shifted to USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. There is no timeline reported for the regulation, but Perdue said if it can be done in 2019, “that would be probably pretty fast for federal purposes.”

Much of the U.S. can expect a mild winter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency released its seasonal outlook this week that covers December 2018 through February 2019.

The forecast expects mostly warmer-than-normal weather this winter for the western two-thirds of the country, with no areas of the U.S. expected to see prevalent cooler-than-normal conditions. As for precipitation, much of the lower Southwest, Mid-South, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions have the greatest chance to see wetter-than-normal conditions this winter. Parts of the Great Lakes Region and portions of Montana and the western Dakotas are more likely to see drier-than-normal conditions. Much of the rest of the country has equal chances to see wetter or drier weather this winter, NOAA predicts. The agency’s precipitation map, in particular, looks a lot like how a signature El Niño winter typically plays out in the U.S. That’s no accident – with NOAA currently pegging the chance of those conditions developing this winter between 70 and 75 percent.

Canada and Mexico want the U.S. to remove steel and aluminum tariffs now that a NAFTA 2.0 framework is in place. Canada has asked the U.S. to lift the tariffs “as soon as possible.” Mexico’s top negotiator for the North American Free Trade Agreement, now the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, says Mexico should not sign the agreement until the tariffs have been lifted, according to Politico. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, along with Mexican counterparts, urged the U.S. to lift the tariffs earlier this week. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has previously called on Trump to remove the barriers, as well. Earlier this month, Perdue said that with an agreement now between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, “I think it’s time we go back to our previous relationship which had no tariffs on steel and aluminum.” Perdue says benefits of the agreement would be limited until the tariffs were removed.

President Donald Trump is tentatively scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Group of 20 nations, or G20 summit next month. The two are expected to discuss the ongoing trade dispute between the U.S. and China. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Bloomberg News that U.S. goals are on the table and that the two leaders “will meet for a bit” during the event. He said he anticipated staff-level meetings between Chinese and American officials ahead of the November 30th summit. However, Kudlow warned not to expect any major breakthrough between the two leaders. He did say that a broad agreement “on some basic principles and trading rules” including intellectual-property theft, forced transfer of technology, and tariffs on agricultural products “would be most welcome.” Formal talks have stalled since August as the U.S. accused China of unwilling to engage on trade issues.

Large operating loans made by large agricultural banks led to a significant increase in farm lending in the third quarter of 2018, according to the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. The total volume of non-real estate farm loans was more than 30 percent higher than a year ago. A sharp increase in the volume of loans exceeding $1 million was a primary contributor to the increase in non-real estate farm lending. In the third quarter, the volume of loans larger than $1 million nearly doubled and accounted for almost 40 percent of total non-real estate lending during the reporting period. In particular, a majority of the increase was supported by loans used to fund current operating expenses. The increase in the size of loans also sharply increased the share of agricultural lending at large banks while interest rates on farm loans continued to trend upward.

The Department of Agriculture says more than 130 cities have expressed interest in hosting USDA agencies that would move from Washington as part of a controversial reorganization plan. USDA says 136 entities in 35 states are interested in becoming the new homes of the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. In August, Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that most ERS and NIFA personnel would be moving to outside the Washington area by the end of 2019 and invited interested parties to submit proposals. Perdue called the interest “overwhelming,” adding that it is “gratifying” states are stepping forward to prove “not all wisdom resides in Washington, D.C.” The entities expressing interest include educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, state development agencies, county development agencies, municipalities, and for-profit entities. Find the complete list of interested parties on the USDA website, USDA.gov.