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

10. Department of Agriculture · Minor

Remove regulatory barriers to agricultural biotechnology

Attempted

307 10. Department of Agriculture

“Counter scare tactics and remove obstacles. The USDA should strongly counter scare tactics regarding agricultural biotechnology and adopt policies to remove unnecessary barriers to approvals and the adoption of biotechnology.”

What has happened

  1. Attempted

    USDA has begun the deregulation but has not delivered it. On 2026-05-15 it published a request for information on modified organisms subject to the Plant Protection Act, soliciting input on "factors for potential risk-based deregulation" that "could inform future rulemaking", and its 2026 Unified Agenda carries APHIS RIN 0579-AE84, "Regulatory Efficiencies for Products of Biotechnology", at proposed-rule stage with an NPRM scheduled for July 2026 — a deregulatory action that would exempt plants and microbes already regulated by EPA, products previously reviewed and deregulated, and certain laboratory-development organisms from 7 CFR part 340. Neither the RFI nor the agenda entry has changed a rule. Cluster K (agricultural biotechnology and GE labeling) in `docs/research/ch-10.md`, round 3 ticket 09 batch 09c, records the queries.

Research log

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

Research notes

  • Moving the other way in the same period, though not by USDA’s choice: on 2025-06-16 APHIS amended 7 CFR part 340 to conform the CFR to a federal court’s 2024-12-02 vacatur of the May 2020 SECURE rule (FR 2025-10797), which restored the older, more burdensome movement regime. That is the barrier the 2026 rulemaking is meant to undo.
  • Routine nonregulated-status determinations continued throughout (moth orchid 2025-09-04, MON 95379 maize 2025-09-29, MON 87429 maize 2026-08-05); they are the existing system working, not removal of a barrier.
  • The Mandate’s “counter scare tactics” limb has no allowlisted instrument; nothing was found.
Action
other
Object
agricultural biotechnology approval barriers
ID
796