[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3471 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

<DOC>






118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 3471

  To require the Secretary of Agriculture to publish a report on the 
              fertilizer industry, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           December 12, 2023

 Mr. Grassley (for himself, Ms. Baldwin, and Ms. Ernst) introduced the 
 following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on 
                  Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To require the Secretary of Agriculture to publish a report on the 
              fertilizer industry, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Fertilizer Research Act of 2023''.

SEC. 2. FERTILIZER INDUSTRY REPORT.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment 
of this Act, the Secretary of Agriculture, in consultation with the 
Administrator of the Economic Research Service, shall publish on the 
website of the Department of Agriculture a report on the United States 
fertilizer industry, including--
            (1) a description of the impacts on the fertilizer industry 
        that influence the prices that agricultural producers receive 
        for their agricultural products at the location of the farm;
            (2) a description of the current size and value, and the 
        size and value over the previous 25 years, of the United States 
        fertilizer market, including--
                    (A) any trends over the previous 25 years; and
                    (B) such sizes and values by each type of 
                fertilizer;
            (3) a description of any patterns in pricing of fertilizer 
        over the previous 25 years;
            (4) a description of the importation of fertilizer into the 
        United States, including--
                    (A) a list of types of fertilizer that are imported 
                into the United States, including the quantity of each 
                type of fertilizer imported;
                    (B) a list of foreign companies and domestic 
                companies that import into the United States 
                fertilizer, including the quantity of fertilizer 
                imported by each company;
                    (C) a list of the countries from which fertilizer 
                is imported into the United States; and
                    (D) a description of the impacts that antidumping 
                duties and countervailing duties have on prices of 
                fertilizer paid at the retail level;
            (5) an overview of the manufacturing level, distribution 
        channels, and retail level of the fertilizer supply chain, 
        including transportation, logistics, and supply chain 
        disruptions from natural disasters;
            (6) a study of the concentration of the United States 
        fertilizer industry in United States fertilizer companies, 
        including an evaluation of the extent to which concentration 
        has had any anticompetitive impacts;
            (7) a description of the prices, crop-use efficiencies, and 
        crop yields of emerging fertilizers and fertilizer 
        technologies, including biological fertilizers and other 
        recently developed tools, compared to conventional fertilizers 
        and fertilizer technologies;
            (8) an assessment of the regulatory environment governing 
        fertilizer production, distribution, and usage, including a 
        description of areas in which regulatory burden is hampering 
        domestic production, distribution, and usage of fertilizer;
            (9) a description of the extent to which current public 
        price reporting of fertilizer is transparent for market 
        participants and the extent to which further public price 
        reporting is needed to achieve transparency for market 
        participants, including--
                    (A) an evaluation of the potential for the 
                Secretary of Agriculture to establish a fertilizer 
                reporting mechanism in which the fertilizer industry is 
                required to report fertilizer prices at multiple levels 
                of the supply chain on a daily, weekly, or monthly 
                basis; and
                    (B) a recommendation to Congress on whether a 
                reporting mechanism described in subparagraph (A) 
                should be established; and
            (10) a description of the projected growth of the United 
        States fertilizer market and the anticipated economic and 
        political risks to fertilizer production as a result of that 
        growth.
    (b) Confidential Information.--The report published under 
subsection (a) shall not include any confidential business information.
                                 <all>