Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

10. Department of Agriculture · Notable

Reject new marketing orders and checkoff programs and end existing ones

Partially done

306 10. Department of Agriculture

“Reduce the number and scope of marketing orders and checkoff programs. The USDA should reject any new requests for marketing orders and checkoff programs to the extent authorized by law and eliminate existing programs when possible.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The other half of the ask — rejecting new requests and reducing scope — has not been kept, and is left as a second event so the record shows both. AMS is proposing a wholly new checkoff, the Olive Oil Promotion, Research, and Information Order (2026 Unified Agenda RIN 0581-AE33, NPRM scheduled July 2026, an estimated $8 million a year in assessments at $0.08 per gallon); on 2026-03-09 it amended and continued the Christmas Tree Order, raising its administrative expense cap from 10 to 15 percent; on 2026-03-10 it raised the popcorn checkoff assessment from 5 to 6 cents per hundredweight; and it continued to amend marketing orders for tart cherries, raisins, almonds and South Texas onions, the last of which would expand the order's promotion and paid-advertising authority.

  2. Partially done

    One checkoff program has actually been ended, by a route USDA itself opened. On 2025-06-03 AMS directed a continuance referendum among paper and paper-based packaging manufacturers and importers and imposed an immediate moratorium on assessment collection; the referendum went against the program, and on 2026-03-09 AMS terminated the Paper and Paper-Based Packaging Promotion, Research and Information Order outright. AMS also rescinded the referendum procedures for the proposed Natural Grass Sod order on 2025-05-29 after its establishment referendum failed, and its 2026 agenda carries a rescission of the Federal Milk Marketing Order provisions for the Western Marketing Area (RIN 0581-AE46, final rule stage). This is elimination of an existing program where possible — a piece of the ask delivered.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • A judgment call: partial on the delivery test for asks with two objects, where delivering one is partial — one existing program terminated is a piece delivered, while a new order in preparation is the other half unkept. Done would need a general policy of refusing new orders plus a broader termination program.
  • Reviewed 2026-10-12: the raisin amendments the 2026-03-10 note anticipated were finalized. Order Amending Marketing Order No. 989 (FR 2026-20792, 2026-10-09) follows a producer referendum. It cuts the Raisin Administrative Committee from 47 members to 21, lowers the quorum, drops two marketing-policy factors, and adds authority to accept voluntary contributions. A proposed amendment to the almond order (FR 2026-20622, 2026-10-08) would let its board borrow from commercial lenders. Both keep existing orders running and slightly widen their powers. Neither is a new order or a termination, so the Status does not change. They belong with the second event’s “continued to amend” list, not in a new event.
  • The whole AMS marketing-order and checkoff docket for the window was listed from the federal records we keep and search; the terminations and the new-order proposal above are the only structural changes. #792 (volume controls), #793 (abolish by statute) and #794 (regular votes) are the neighboring asks.
Action
eliminate
Object
marketing orders and checkoff programs
ID
791