It has been a wild few weeks for agricultural law news! Let’s get caught up on some of the biggest stories.
Photo by Karli Kaase
* Live animal imports suspended along Southern border. On May 11, 2025, United States Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, suspended live animal imports of cattle, horses, and bison through US ports of entry along the southern border due to concerns about the spread of New World Screwworm (NWS) in Mexico. At that time, the NWS had been detected 700 miles from the U.S./Mexico border. [Read press release here.] To learn more about the border closure and the impact it could have on cattle prices in the United States, click here for an article by Dr. David Anderson.
*US, Mexico enter into agreement for water deliveries under 1944 treaty. In an ongoing dispute over a 1944 treaty, Mexico has agreed to send up to 420,000 acre feet of water to the Rio Grande Valley by October. Pursuant to the treaty, Mexico must deliver 1,750,000 acre feet of water to the US every five years. If Mexico complies with this agreement, that will bring their total deliveries for the current five-year cycle, which ends in October, to 950,000 acre feet. To deal with the remaining shortage, Mexico will deliver additional water at the Amistad Reservoir and Falcon reserves. [Read article here.]
* US Fish & Wildlife Service proposes rule to rescind definition of “harm” under Endangered Species Act. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has published a proposed rule to eliminate “harm” from the definition of “take” under the Endangered Species Act. Currently, the Act prohibits the “take” of a listed species, and the definition of “take” is “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect.” The proposed rule would delete “harm” from this definition. The comment period is open through May 19, 2025. [Read proposed rule here.]
* USDA drops criminal charges against Maude family in South Dakota. On April 28, 2025, the Trump administration announced that all criminal charges against the Maude family, farmers and ranchers in South Dakota, had been dropped. The criminal charges arose out of a fencing dispute between the Maudes and the federal government during the Biden administration. [Read press release here and article here.]
* Portion of lawsuit challenging Florida’s lab grown meat ban goes forward. In a lawsuit challenging the legality of a Florida law banning lab grown meat in the state, a federal judge dismissed several claims, but allowed one to go forward. The remaining claim alleges that the law gives an unconstitutional advantage to Florida producers over out-of-state competitors. The court dismissed the remaining claims, including one alleging that such state laws were pre-empted by federal approval of lab grown meat, holding that state bans are permissible despite the federal approval. [Read article here.]
* Article on using gifting to manage estate taxes. Robert Moore at Ohio State University wrote a great article discussing the use of gifting as a tool to manage estate tax liability. This is a topic that is complex and can be confusing, but Robert does a great job of explaining the ins and outs of this strategy. [Read article here.]
*Awards at District 1 ceremony. Our team was honored to receive a couple of awards at the District 1 Awards Luncheon this week. Lacrecia Garza, my saint of an administrative assistant, won the Service Ethic award and our Where’s the Beef Team (Dr. David Anderson, Dr. Davey Griffin, Pancho Abello, Lacrecia Garza, Casey Matzke, Karli Kaase, Scott Strawn, & Tiffany Lashmet) won the Team Teaching award. I am incredibly fortunate to work with so many great people.
Photo by Kay Ledbetter
Upcoming Presentations
I’m catching my breath a bit next week and will be out at a sheep show with my kids the following week. After that, I’ll be hitting the road hard with lots of programs scheduled over the summer months. You can find my full schedule here.
