Tammy Baldwin

Farmland Security Act of 2025

This bill authorizes increased civil penalties for violations of the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA) and increases Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversight of and research into foreign investment in agricultural land. As background, AFIDA and the regulations that implemented the act require foreign investors who acquire, transfer, or hold an interest in U.S. agricultural land to report such holdings and transactions to USDA.

In general, the bill allows USDA to determine an appropriate civil penalty amount for an AFIDA violation by removing the cap that currently prohibits the civil penalty from exceeding 25% of the fair market value of the interest in the agricultural land associated with the violation.

Under an exception in the bill, the civil penalty for a foreign-owned shell corporation is 100% of the fair market value of the interest in the agricultural land. The bill defines a shell corporation to include a company, association, firm, partnership, society, joint stock company, trust, or estate that has no or nominal operations. The penalty does not apply if the shell corporation remedies a defective filing or failure to file within 60 days of USDA providing notice.

USDA must conduct annual compliance audits of at least 10% of the reports. Further, USDA must provide state and county-level personnel certain annual training.

USDA must also annually conduct research and submit a report to Congress on foreign investment in agricultural land, including trends in the purchase of U.S. agricultural land by foreign-owned shell corporations.

Carried Interest Fairness Act of 2025

This bill taxes income from carried interest at ordinary income tax rates and makes other changes related to carried interest. (Some exceptions apply.)

As background, a general partner in a private equity firm or hedge fund (typically structured as a partnership) generally receives a share of the profits from the assets managed by the general partner (known as carried interest). Under current law, carried interest is characterized (for federal tax purposes) as an interest in a partnership’s capital and, thus, taxed at capital gains tax rates (which may be lower than the applicable ordinary income tax rates).

Under the bill, net capital gain and loss attributable to carried interest is recharacterized as ordinary income and loss and, thus, taxed at ordinary income tax rates. (Some exceptions apply.)

The bill also treats as ordinary the money (or fair market value of property) received by a partner in a sale or exchange of carried interest. (Thus, the bill extends what is known as the hot asset rule to include carried interest.)

Further, the bill deems distributions of carried interest by a partnership in exchange for interest in other partnership property a sale or exchange of such property and, thus, requires the partner to recognize ordinary gain on the distributed carried interest.

Finally, the bill imposes self-employment taxes on carried interest income.

Dairy Business Innovation Act of 2025

This bill increases the authorization of appropriations for the Dairy Business Innovation (DBI) Initiatives for each fiscal year. Under the Agricultural Marketing Service, the DBI Initiatives support dairy businesses in the development, production, marketing, and distribution of dairy products. The DBI Initiatives provide direct technical assistance and subawards to dairy businesses, including for niche dairy products and dairy products derived from cow milk, sheep milk, and goat milk.

Country of Origin Labeling Requirement Act or the COOL Online Act

This bill requires sellers of imported products online to conspicuously disclose the country of origin of the products and the country where the seller's principal place of business is located.

This requirement does not apply to specified products, such as agricultural commodities, food or drugs, or previously owned items.

The Federal Trade Commission must enforce violations of this requirement as unfair or deceptive trade practices.