Alan Bjerga: Hello, and welcome to the Dairy Defined podcast. One of the most challenging parts of policy is regulation, where progress can be slow and issues complex. Helping us update and demystify today are three key members of NMPF’s regulatory team. Clay Detlefsen is our senior vice president for Regulatory and Environmental Affairs, Dr. Jamie Jonker is our chief science officer, and Miquela Hanselman is NMPF’s director of Regulatory Affairs. Let’s start with an overview. Clay, if you could describe the current regulatory landscape in Washington, or should we say the deregulatory landscape?
Clay Detlefsen: Intense. Insane. It changes daily. It’s full of unknowns, and it’s moving forward in an absolutely crazy pace. We don’t know what to expect tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, but things are indeed happening.
Alan Bjerga: So when we’re talking about regulation in dairy, we’re really talking about three areas, regulation as it affects farmers, food processors, and consumers. Clay and Jamie, tell us a little bit about areas of potential progress for farmers and processors. Miquela, if you could address the consumer side.
Clay Detlefsen: Well, obviously we’ve had issues with the FDA’s action, or should I say inaction, on the labeling of plant-based and synthetic food products using dairy terminology. I think we have a new opportunity with this administration to address some of the concerns that National Milk has expressed for literally decades, but there’s lots of other areas too. We have a lot of things going on with EPA. I think we’ll probably talk about it later, but we have a couple of air emission issues, and we have Waters of the United States. We also have a number of issues related to PFAS, our all time favorite topic that everyone is constantly afraid of. But yeah, there’s an absolute lot of things going on. I think there’s a lot of opportunities. I guess the one negative I would say is trying to get new regulations out that we have wanted for a long period of time has probably stalled for the foreseeable future.
Alan Bjerga: The challenge would be on some of the stuff you’d actually want to do, like regulation that goes in a positive direction.
Clay Detlefsen: Absolutely. For example, and this is really a relatively minor and uncontroversial issue, for years and years, dairy processors have wanted to be able to use ultra-filtered milk in their standardized cheeses. FDA has given a nod that that is an acceptable practice, but it has not finalized any regulations that state so. There’s no opposition, everybody seems to be in agreement, but I don’t think we’re going to see that move forward, because this administration is definitely not keen on regulating anything, even if it’s beneficial to its stakeholders.
Alan Bjerga: Isn’t it something where for every new regulation, a certain number has to be undone?
Clay Detlefsen: Absolutely, and the number is actually 10.
Alan Bjerga: Oh, come on, Clay. You could do that. You can get to 10 off the top of your head.
Clay Detlefsen: I could, but I don’t think people would like me for doing that.
Alan Bjerga: Jamie, what are you seeing?
Jamie Jonker: I’m going to take a little bit of a positive thought on this process of, I’ll call it, regulatory reform, and perhaps some streamlining in processes. I look at how we’ve had a kind of a stalemate, for example, on the opportunities for approving feed additives that have functional attributes for them, like reducing methane emissions, or having additional opportunities to improve animal health. And while we do have a bill in Congress that would help that move forward, I think there’s an opportunity here, as we’re working through streamlining processes for regulatory approvals, that perhaps that could be a benefit.
I also look at some opportunities and challenges in the animal health arena. We are now in our second year of H5N1 affecting dairy cattle, and we now have New World screwworm at our southern border. I’ve seen, I think, an excellent transition between the two administrations to make sure that they’re not dropping the ball, but at the same time as there has been some changes in personnel in USDA and some downsizing, the ultimate plans about reorganization so that they can continue to deliver on those animal health priorities remains somewhat of a mixed bag.
Alan Bjerga: You bring up an interesting strategic question, Jamie, when you talk about the legislative path. Often public policy, there’s the regulatory path and there’s the legislative path. Because of some of the challenges of the regulatory front in the current environment, are there instances where that legislative approach becomes more attractive?
Jamie Jonker: Well, I don’t want to tread too much on Miquela’s topics, but the whole milk in schools, I think, is a really great opportunity, and we’ve seen movement happening on that. And I think there’s opportunities for the Feed Act, which is the one that could help further streamline the processes for approving feed additives. Much more interest in having that move forward in both the House and Senate this year, and the opportunities to using those types of vehicles as places to also make changes in regulatory processes do loom on the horizon.
Alan Bjerga: Jamie, I really don’t worry about you encroaching on Miquela’s turf, because as far as I can tell, Miquela has about two continents worth of it. Everybody’s talking about MAHA, MAHA, Miquela, and are you seeing changes in that front as some of the attitudes at FDA shift?
Miquela Hanselman: Well, I would say first off, it’s nice for there to be such a focus on food and nutrition, and more of a push for how healthy eating can impact all of the health conditions that we’re facing as a country. But obviously, MAHA also leaves questions as well about the approach and how things are going to happen. MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, is very focused on whole foods, limiting food additives, dyes, added sugar, all of those things, which when you think about, all sound like great things to be supportive of. But it’s how you get that done and what that looks like which can lead to hiccups, or no one really knows what the outcome will be at this point.
One of the big things that this administration has the chance to do is that they’re in the process of writing the final 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They’ve made comments about that it’ll be a lot shorter, that it’ll be easier for consumers to read, and so there’s opportunity there, but there’s also a hesitation as well, right, because you’re unsure of what kind of recommendations will be made. We do know that this administration seems favorable to whole milk, so to Jamie’s point, not only is that moving forward, hopefully through the legislative side, but also in the Dietary Guidelines. Hopefully we’ll see it there as well, but it’s kind of a big unknown at the moment what MAHA will lead to. I think they’re just getting started.
Alan Bjerga: Talk a little bit about some of the educational role that you play here as regulatory staff. You have a new administration, you get new people at agencies, they’re getting up to speed on most issues. They may have their own expertise in their own areas, but they haven’t necessarily been in the trenches the same way that you folks have been. Miquela, I’d be interested in your thoughts, and Clay and Jamie, if you had anything to add.
Miquela Hanselman: I think flavored milk is a really great example of this, because flavored milk has gotten a bad rap in the past about, oh, it’s added sugars for kids. They don’t need that when there’s the unflavored version. But we know that flavored milk with a low level of added sugars gets more kids to take it, and that means more kids are getting those 13 essential nutrients, so it’s actually a positive to have that in school meals. But when you look at how things can be defined as ultra-processed, flavored milk can get caught up in that flavored yogurt. So, it’s us having those conversations with, as Jamie mentioned, all of these new people in these different roles, and making sure that they understand kind of where we are on the nutrition science and how dairy can play into a healthy diet.
Jamie Jonker: And I would add that National Milk follows/issues long-term regulatory tends to have very long arcs in processes. And with each administration change, there are new people that come in with new ideas, which is not a bad thing. We do have to bring them up to speed as to where our position may be on a particular matter and help them understand the historical context as to why it developed in that manner. And so, it’s not necessarily saying that they are unaware of our position. It’s just that they are in a new role, and so we’re bringing to them not simply our position today, but we’re bringing to them our position today that has been influenced by five years or 10 years or 20 years of policy and positions at NMPF.
Alan Bjerga: There are a bunch of those long-term issues. Waters of the US comes to mind, the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study in addition to plant-based and a whole host of other things. Where do we go on some of those issues, and will the paint that we’re watching dry ever actually dry?
Clay Detlefsen: It’s interesting you bring up Waters of the US. I’ve been frustrated about that for many years. The Clean Water Act is over 50 years old now, I think 52, 53 years old, and we still don’t know what a federal water is under the Clean Water Act. 50-plus years, and we don’t have an answer to that simple question. I could go out to my mailbox. There’s a ditch by the side of the road. I can’t definitively tell you 100% that that is not a Waters of the United States. That’s crazy. I mean, we really need to get simple definitions out there that the layman can understand without the aid of countless lawyers and consultants and the expenditure of enormous amounts of money for simple things. Is that mud puddle on my property federally regulated under the Clean Water Act? I mean, this is absolutely ridiculous that it’s taken so long and we don’t have those answers.
That said, I think we’re getting closer and closer. I mean, each administration that has come in has taken a whack at this, and the Supreme Court has weighed in so many times, it’s getting mind-numbing there too. But we are getting closer and closer, and I met with EPA officials very early on in this administration, and they, at that time, said that they probably weren’t going to touch the Lotus rule that was on the books under the previous administration, but clearly they’ve changed their mind and we are working forward on that. I would say that it’s more tweaking than basically rewriting, so we’re close, and hopefully when this administration’s done, we will have a definition of what is a water of the United States and what isn’t, and hopefully that will be durable. They like to banter that word about under all of the administrations, and yet it changes from time to time, but hopefully we’ll come out of this one with a final determination and it will stick.
Another one that you’ve mentioned earlier was the name study. That’s been an effort for 20 years, so it’s not as old as the Waters of the United States at 50, but it’s still a long period of time, and I believe four or five administrations have weighed in on air emissions from manure and air emissions from farms and what that means. But right now, 20 years later, we still do not have anything definitive, and I can tell you what’s out there right now, as far as emissions-estimating methodologies, is highly, highly complex and confusing.
National Milk has had to hire a consultant to pore through that just to get a understanding of whether those methodologies are in fact accurate or not. We’ll have the answer in the months ahead, and we’ll have to deal with that issue as well. And we’ll find out, what does it mean at the end of the day? Do we have dairy farms reporting to the federal government under various regulatory schemes for air emissions that are coming off of their manure or elsewhere on a farm? So lots of stuff, lots of time to work through it. I’m hoping under this administration that we’ll have some success here.
Jamie Jonker: And Clay, you’ve mentioned 20 years on air emissions. Actually, this month is my 20th anniversary at National Milk, and I’ve been working on air emissions in agriculture for over 25 years, even starting in earlier roles when I was on the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture, working on the legislative side, and then when I was at the National Academy of Sciences working the scientific side, and now for the last 20 years at National Milk working the regulatory side. At some point in time, there are eventually ends to these long regulatory arcs, and I’m very much looking forward to successful completion of looking at air emissions from livestock operations and dairy farms and coming to the right conclusion.
Alan Bjerga: Is this change of pace actually changing how you do your job?
Clay Detlefsen: I think it is in some respects. For example, on the plant-based labeling issue, I think we have an opportunity for some changes with the Food and Drug Administration in this administration, and they are providing ample opportunities. I was getting ready to file comments in a docket, a deregulatory docket, if you will, last month, and I stopped because another deregulatory docket opened up, and I think it’s more appropriate to utilize that one, and that’s how it’s going these days. I think there’s probably … If I wanted to, I could have done it four or five times already, but I’m holding off for the docket that is currently open and I think is probably the best fit for what I would like to accomplish. So yeah, you got to keep your ear to the ground and you got to keep your eyes open, because what happened yesterday is yesterday and something new might be happening today,
Jamie Jonker: And we all don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring.
Clay Detlefsen: We don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring.
Alan Bjerga: But we do know that we’ll be on the case. I’m wondering if before we go, you can talk a little bit about exactly how you go about working with members. This is such an overwhelming area, and it’s so critically important for dairy farmers and cooperatives, yet it might be a little challenging for someone to know how we work with them, and if there’s a regulatory concern on an issue, what they should do.
Clay Detlefsen: Well, I think really, the primary means of the communication is something simple like a cell phone call or an email or even a text. Actually, you get fewer phone calls these days and more texts than anything else. But yeah, I mean, if members have a concern about an issue, they could pretty much get National Milk staff 24/7, because we’re always working the issues. And if they have a concern, we certainly want to address their concern and not keep them in limbo while they’re trying to figure things out.
Jamie Jonker: And we also have a number of committees to which our members point representatives to, both from the cooperative staff and as dairy farmers, like our Animal Health and Wellbeing Committee, our Environment Committee, our Regulatory Committee that provide some of that longer-term input into shaping our policy positions, but also can bring to us some issues that need immediate attention. Just last week, for example, as part of our meetings affiliated with our board meeting, we had our Animal Health and Wellbeing Committee meet, and part of that was a dialogue with USDA and FDA officials about the important needs of our membership. And so, there are a variety of ways, like Clay indicated, and all of these kind of work together to help us continue to move the process forward for dairy farmers and cooperatives. Some of it happens quickly and some of it happens slowly.
Alan Bjerga: Miquela, I’m thinking of this question and I’m thinking about the amount of time you spend on your family’s dairy farm in Upstate New York, and I just have to ask, as someone who works in government regulation for a dairy organization, and then a person who then works as a dairy farmer, when you’re on the farm, does it make you look at things a little differently?
Miquela Hanselman: Oh, yes. I think understanding the regulatory side has really given me the full picture. There’s things you would read or you would see and you’d be like, “Why? Why does it say that?” or, “Why is this a certain way?” And I’ll be like, “Actually, I understand. This makes sense now.” I know one example was I sent Clay a picture of our milking equipment tubing, and it says “non-failing” on it, and that was something Clay’s worked on in the past, and I was like, “I now know why this is boldly laid out on the side of the package.” But yeah, and it’s cool to have that perspective to be able to also tie things together for the dairy farmers I see day-to-day.
Alan Bjerga: We have been speaking today with Clay Detlefsen, our senior vice president for Regulatory and Environmental Affairs, Dr. Jamie Jonker, our chief science officer, and Miquela Hanselman, NMPF’s director of Regulatory Affairs and an active dairy farmer in Upstate New York. Thank you for joining us today.
Jamie Jonker: Thank you, Alan.
Clay Detlefsen: Thank you.
Miquela Hanselman: Thanks, Alan.
Alan Bjerga: Now, if you just have not had enough of this, if you want to hear and read more about NMPF’s work on regulation, as well as look at our efforts that affect dairy in any way, shape, or form, you can subscribe to our Regulatory Register. The most recent one just came out in the last couple of weeks. You can go to nmpf.org/subscribe and select Regulatory Register and get a regular update on all things regulatory that we are doing. We also have several regulatory-themed pages on our website, which is the aforementioned nmpf.org. For more of the Dairy Defined podcast, all you have to do is go to our website or go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Search under the podcast name, Dairy Defined, and we’ll talk again soon.
