Washington Insider-- Tuesday

New Fed Inflation Target Coming

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

Lighthizer/Liu Meeting Did Not Happen

The video conference between U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He that had been reported as being set for August 15 did not take place.

Some reports chalk up the situation to an effort to let China continue to make their purchases of U.S. farm and other goods while other reports indicated it was nothing more than a scheduling issue. However, the session had never been formally confirmed by either government.

Trade sources have noted that there have been repeated contracts between the U.S. and China throughout the process since the deal was implemented back in February.

Reuters reported that China's state-owned oil firms had tentatively booked tankers for at least 20 million barrels of U.S. crude for August and September and said that trade contacts indicated that PetroChina and Sinopec had stepped up their purchases.


EPA May Not Issue Decisions on Small Refiner Waivers Until After Elections

EPA appears poised to not make any public announcement on its decisions relative to gap-year small refinery exemptions (SREs) under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) until after the November elections.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler last week in Kansas and in Wisconsin made statements indicating the issue was complicated and that the agency had only started its analysis of the recommendations on SREs that were sent to the agency from the Department of Energy (DOE). He also questioned whether refiners could really claim being financially damaged by the waivers in 2012 or 2013 if they are still in business today.

The SREs are one issue but the other matter still to be resolved is the 2021 biofuel and 2022 biodiesel Renewable Volume Obligations (RVOs), another issue that could be delayed until later this year. Wheeler last week commented that there is great uncertainty on the gasoline demand front due to the COVID-19 situation and that EPA is reworking its proposed levels.

While the law requires EPA to finalize the plans by November 30, that deadline has been missed in the past.

P[L1] D[0x0] M[300x250] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]

***

Washington Insider: New Fed Inflation Target Coming

Bloomberg is reporting this week that the Fed is close to adopting a new inflation strategy with a somewhat relaxed target, especially with regard to “crossing its 2% goal.” The report notes that more “radical” options were rejected after the Fed's year-plus listening tour.

Bloomberg calls the change as “a subtle yet profound shift in monetary policy” and that it likely will officially embrace the new view.

In addition to fighting the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and colleagues spent 2020 finishing up the central bank's first-ever review of how it pursues the goals of maximum employment and price stability set for it by Congress. It's a process that began in early 2019 and included a nationwide listening tour.

Bloomberg thinks that the Fed is now close to presenting the results, perhaps as soon as September. The central bank will signal clearly to the market that not only will the Fed tolerate inflation temporarily above 2%, “but that it favors it, and will try to aim in that direction,” said Mickey Levy, chief economist for the U.S. and Asia at Berenberg Capital Markets.

Several other economists interviewed made precisely the same prediction and agreed that many Fed officials have already been pursuing that strategy for months. Investors also see it coming.

The 10-year breakeven rate, a market-based gauge for expected annual inflation over the next decade, has rebounded to 1.66% from as low as 0.47% in March. “Rising inflation expectations are, in part, indicative of the market beginning to price in the Fed's shift,” said Bill Merz, senior portfolio strategist and head of fixed-income research at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis.

More details on when and how the Fed will wrap up its review may be revealed this week when the central bank releases minutes to the July 28-29 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.

The shift in how the Fed seeks to control inflation may sound meager, but it's meaningful, Bloomberg says.

The Fed first pronounced a 2% target for inflation in 2012 and officials took that to mean they would always shoot for 2%, no matter how much or for how long they missed. Bygones, they said, would be bygones.

However, the Fed's preferred measure of inflation has consistently fallen short, averaging just 1.4% since the target's introduction—and that's a “vexing problem for central bankers” the report says. Combined with low economic growth, it means interest rates have remained historically low. That's squeezed away the Fed's ability to fight off future economic downturns, making them deeper and longer, costing more jobs and destroying more businesses.

Bloomberg sees the current, pandemic-induced recession is the perfect example. The lower end of the Fed's target range for its benchmark rate sat at a mere 1.5% when the crisis struck. Officials promptly slashed it to zero in just two moves in March--but that was nowhere near a sufficient response to the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Once again the Fed was forced to make massive bond purchases to stabilize markets and push down real borrowing costs. It's not clear yet how effective those measures will prove to have been.

The issue, however, was clear even before COVID-19 hit the U.S. and by early 2020 many Fed officials had already come to the view they'd be better off sometimes pushing inflation modestly above their target so that, over time, it roughly averaged 2%.

“The Fed needs to acknowledge there's a cycle with inflation,” said Ethan Harris, head of global economic research for Bank of America Corp. “Some overshooting late in the cycle makes sense.”

However, for some Fed watchers, such a conclusion to the much-ballyhooed framework review likely will seem a dud, Bloomberg says. Officials chewed over, but ultimately rejected, a slew of more daring proposals, from raising the inflation target to abandoning it for a nominal GDP target. They also were cautious in re-examining what they might do when rates hit zero.

They decided negative interest rates would be a bad option in the U.S. and haven't warmed to the idea of capping the yields on some Treasury securities -- known as yield-curve control -- though they haven't entirely ruled that one out.

In the end they see their current tools -- bond purchases and communication on the future path of interest rates -- as still the best options. Atop that they will add the important wrinkle that inflation should average close to 2% over time.

That shift, however, will only go so far. When the Fed articulates its new embrace of inflation averaging, officials likely won't apply it in rule-like fashion, economists said, and may not even mention the word “average.”

“They'll use language that will convey the notion that the Fed has total, total discretion,” Berenberg's Levy said. From the beginning of the review, Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida promised “evolution, not revolution,” and that seems to be what the central bank will soon deliver. But the question for the Fed as it wraps this review is: Will it be enough?

As Peter Hooper, global head of economic research for Deutsche Bank AG, put it, “Have we really increased the store of ammunition and the weapons one can draw on to deal with this problem?”

At this time, the answer to that question remains unclear — even as the evolving U.S. fiscal policies continue to be vitally important. These certainly should be watched closely by producers as they evolve, Washington Insider believes.


Want to keep up with events in Washington and elsewhere throughout the day? See DTN Top Stories, our frequently updated summary of news developments of interest to producers. You can find DTN Top Stories in DTN Ag News, which is on the Main Menu on classic DTN products and on the News and Analysis Menu of DTN's Professional and Producer products. DTN Top Stories is also on the home page and news home page of online.dtn.com. Subscribers of MyDTN.com should check out the US Ag Policy, US Farm Bill and DTN Ag News sections on their News Homepage.

If you have questions for DTN Washington Insider, please email edit@dtn.com

P[] D[728x170] M[320x75] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
P[L2] D[728x90] M[320x50] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
P[R1] D[300x250] M[300x250] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
P[R2] D[300x600] M[320x50] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]