Miller-Meeks pays visit to Brenneman Pork

KALONA — U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks took a trip to Brenneman Pork in rural Washington County May 29, where she toured a pair of sow farms and a grain mill at the county’s top pork-producing company.

Owner Rob Brenneman, who is president-elect of the National Pork Producers Council board of directors, said he’d been urging the congresswoman to visit for a few years, and was excited to get her on the farm last week, where the group was joined by a handful of guests, including much of the Brenneman family.

“We’re the No. 1 (pork producing) county in Iowa and No. 3 in the nation,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Come out and see what we’re doing.’ And the last time I cornered her, I didn’t give her much choice!”

Tariffs top-of-mind for hog farmers

Miller-Meeks’ visit came the day after a federal trade court ruled President Donald Trump’s tariffs on most of the globe exceeded his executive authority, although an appeals court has since stayed the ruling, allowing the import taxes to continue for the moment.

Asked whether Congress should step in and enact the tariffs through legislation, Miller-Meeks said her office was working to codify “a number of” the president’s executive orders. She later added that trade deals the administration hopes to negotiate using the tariffs would help farmers in the long run, citing currency manipulation efforts and other unfair trade practices from the nation across the Pacific.

  Buy Photo

“It does no good to (farmers) to have free trade if no one is going to enforce the World Trade Organization rules,” she said. “We should be taking away ‘most favored nation’ from China … I think some action needed to be done, and the American people are happy to have somebody that is standing up for them.”

It’s something of a sticking point for area hog farmers, who say one in three Iowa pigs are sold to buyers outside the United States, where markets are currently depressed thanks to reciprocal tariffs that many countries have imposed on American-made and grown commodities like pork.

In a meeting with the lawmaker after tours wrapped up, Rob Brenneman put that concern plainly.

“The pork industry’s been hurt about as bad as anybody out there,” he said. “We just came off of two horrible, horrible years. Last summer hurt big-time, and we cannot lose exports. That cannot happen.”

Producers seek prop 12 fix

Brenneman Pork brought Miller-Meeks to see a facility designed to comply with Proposition 12, a California law that banned the sale of pork in the state unless it was grown from the offspring of sows housed with certain square footage requirements.

While the Washington County company has adapted to the need after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state ballot measure constitutional in 2023, Brenneman and other producers have continued to lobby Congress for a ban on such measures, saying they make compliance increasingly complicated and costly.

“The last thing we want is 48 of these regulations to have to answer to,” Brenneman said. “We already do six … you can’t empty a barn, because they don’t want all the Prop 12 today, and it gets annoying.”

  Buy Photo

Asked about whether a federal fix was in the works, Miller-Meeks said she supported legislation introduced by fellow Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson, which aims to prevent states from regulating pork production outside their own borders.

“It is an issue that we think affects interstate commerce, because it’s not only unique or solo to California, it affects how hogs are raised throughout the country,” Miller-Meeks said. “We have been trying to address that issue, and whether it’s put in reconciliation, whether it’s put in the Farm Bill, whether it’s put in another vehicle, we’ve been trying to get that through and across.”

Lawmaker fields questions on food stamps, farm bill

Also making headlines during the trip to Washington County were two long-anticipated pieces of legislation: a federal budget proposal dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill” by the Trump administration, and the Farm Bill, which producers have lobbied to update for the last several years.

In an effort to slash spending, the reconciliation package supported by Miller-Meeks would cut $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, sometimes called food stamps, by 2034. Watchdog groups say the cuts would largely come from increased work requirements for recipients, and reduced payments to state SNAP programs.

Asked whether Iowa could afford the proposed reduction in state reimbursements, Miller-Meeks said she’d met with Gov. Kim Reynolds before voting on the legislation, and didn’t believe the cuts would harm the Hawkeye State.

She also said the funding package’s reductions to another program — Medicaid — were necessary.

“If you look at the trajectory of spending over the next 10 years, it’s unsustainable,” she said. “If you recall, SNAP was expanded under President (Joe) Biden, and then it was expanded again under President Biden. People who should have come off benefits did not go off benefits. I don’t think it’s unwarranted to say … there should be work requirements, I think that’s perfectly reasonable.”

Some political pundits have worried the budget bill’s changes to SNAP could steal political momentum away from the Farm Bill, however, which often includes food stamp reforms in its proposals since they’re administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Miller-Meeks said Thursday that she disagreed with those concerns, blaming last year’s failure to pass an update to the massive agricultural legislation item on Senate Democrats.

“We are all dedicated to get the Farm Bill passed, it’s one of the main things we’ll be working on,” she said.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com