Government watchdog group Public Citizen has asked Congress to investigate whether investor Carl Icahn should have been subject to lobbying disclosure laws when he advised the president on the U.S. biofuels program. Icahn is an unpaid adviser to President Donald Trump and submitted a proposal to change the point of blending under the Renewable Fuel Standard away from refiners and further down the supply chain. Because Icahn owns a controlling stake in a refinery that stands to benefit from the proposal, he may be required to disclose his discussion on the subject as lobbying under a 1995 lobbying disclosure law, according to Reuters. The group made the investigation request in a letter sent to Congress Wednesday morning. The White House has said it is reviewing Icahn’s proposal and has not yet taken a position.

The farm bill contains 37 programs that currently do not have a budget baseline after the 2018 fiscal year. The programs account for $2.6 billion in spending. The Congressional Research Service says some programs may not be assumed to continue in the budget baseline, because the program had estimated mandatory spending less than a minimum $50 million scoring threshold in the last year of the farm bill, or the Budget Committees and/or Agriculture Committees determined that mandatory spending shall not extend beyond expiration. With the budget for the upcoming farm bill reauthorization expected to be tight, the fate of these programs could be in question, according to Cansler Consulting. However, Congress did secure funding to keep the programs during the last farm bill. Programs needing baseline budget funding in the next farm bill include those under commodity, conservation, nutrition, rural development, research and energy, among others.

As wildfires devastate rural areas of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, Kansas officials say livestock and wildlife losses are increasing. More than one million acres have burned over the last few days in the four states, while also burning up livestock and wildlife in the path of the flames. Kansas veterinarian Randall Spare of Ashland, Kansas speculated to the Kansas City Star, “if someone had 500 cattle on their ranch, I’d guess at least 80 to 90 percent were killed.” Many ranchers have searched their pastures with rifles to end the misery of cattle that would otherwise suffer to their death from burns and injuries related to the fires. Spare said conditions could not have been worse for endangering livestock. He says the cows were just starting to calve, and there was plenty of grass available for them. But he called the amount of grass a “double-edged sword,” saying “that’s a lot of fuel that can burn in a hurry.” Farmers and ranchers also projected worry over wildlife loses, noting seeing dead deer and quail and other animals along their farms in the aftermath of the fires.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the strain of high pathogenic avian influenza found in Tennessee last week is not connected to any strains of bird flu in China. USDA says the strain found in Southern Tennessee originated from North American wild birds. More than 73,000 birds at the infected farm have been depopulated and nearby farms are also being tested. The strain is also different from the strain that was responsible for the 2015 U.S. HPAI outbreak. Tennessee State Veterinarian Charles Hatcher told Politico this week “epidemiology studies are ongoing” to determine how the virus entered the farm. He suggested the infection could be the result of a mild security breach, or wild bird feces entering the chicken house through a ventilation fan. 27 nations, along with the European Union, have temporarily blocked poultry imports from Lincoln County, Tennessee, and the site of a low pathogenic avian influenza outbreak, Barron County, Wisconsin.

Nearly all farms in the U.S. are designated as family farms, according to new data by the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. USDA found that in 2015, farms designated as family farms accounted for 99 percent of U.S. farms and 89 percent of production. On family farms, the principal operators and their relatives, by blood or marriage, own more than half of the business’s assets. In 2015, 90 percent of U.S. farms were small family operations with under $350,000 in annual gross cash farm income, a measure of revenue that includes sales of crops and livestock, government payments and other farm-related income. These small farms, however, only accounted for 24 percent of the value of production. By comparison, large-scale family farms with at least $1 million in gross annual cash income made up only 2.9 percent of U.S. farms but contributed 42 percent of total production. Nonfamily farms accounted for only 11 percent of agricultural production.

The National Farmers Union is urging caution against potential impacts federal health care reforms may have in rural America. The Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was unveiled Monday night. NFU President Roger Johnson spoke on health care during the NFU annual convention in San Diego, California, this week. Johnson says that during his time as North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner between 1996 and 2009, the biggest problems facing farmers was health care. Johnson says that’s not been the case over the last few years, adding that “if we repeal the Affordable Care Act, those voices are going to be front and center again,” according to DTN. The Republican plan would replace federal insurance subsidies with a new form of individual tax credits and grants to help states shape their own policies. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a markup of the bill Wednesday.

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad says there is no backroom deal to make changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard. Branstad, the U.S. Ambassador to China nominee, said he is aware of reports of a deal, but has been assured by the White House the rumors “are not true,” according to the Des Moines Register. A report of a deal to change the burden of blending ethanol last week sent the renewable fuels industry off balance. Trump Advisor Carl Icahn has requested the change, but apparently, no deal is the works at this time. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley echoed Branstad’s comments on Tuesday, saying the White House has also assured him there is no agreement to change the RFS. However, earlier in the week, the White House did confirm it was reviewing the proposal, but has no position on the issue.

The Purdue University Ag Economy Barometer for February dipped compared to the January reading. Organizers of the index say the overall producer sentiment reading dipped to 134, compared to 153 a month earlier, 19 points below the record high recorded in January. Despite the drop, the February reading is the second-highest for the index. A reading greater than 100 indicates positive sentiment by producers regarding the ag economy, a reading under 100 suggests the opposite. The two component indices of the Ag Economy Barometer, the Index of Current Conditions and the Index of Future Expectations, also backed off from their January levels. The Index of Current Conditions was 105 in February, down from 118 in January, and the Index of Future Expectations dropped 21 points from its record level of 169, set just a month earlier. The Index of Current Conditions suggests producers feel conditions this winter are only slightly better than during the barometer’s base period of October 2015 to March 2016, when the Index averaged 100. In contrast, producers are substantially more optimistic about future economic conditions than during the fall and winter of 2015-2016, as evidenced by the Index of Future Expectations remaining 48 points higher than during the base period.