Publishers of Mountain Eagle get award named for them

Tom and Pat Gish receive their
namesake award.

Tom and Pat Gish, publishers of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., accepted on Feb. 28, 2005 the first Gish Award, which the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues will give to rural journalists who demonstrate courage, tenacity and integrity often needed to render public service through journalism. The award was presented at the Institute's first conference for journalists, on covering health care and health in Central Appalachia, at the University of Kentucky's Center for Rural Health in Hazard, Ky. The following article is adapted from the tribute to the Gishes at the presentation of the award.

By Rudy Abramson, Advisory Board Chair, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

On November 22, 1956, The Mountain Eagle carried a front page story reporting that W. P. Nolan and his wife Martha had sold the newspaper they had published since 1938 to Tom and Pat Gish.

Tom was a Whitesburg boy who had made good. Ever since graduating from journalism school at the University of Kentucky he had worked for the old United Press, mostly covering the state capital of Frankfort. Pat, a Paris, Ky., girl, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UK and a former editor of the Kentucky Kernel, had been a reporter for the old Lexington Leader, covering a variety of beats for eight years.

The Mountain Eagle purchased by the Gishes was an unremarkable, fairly typical weekly paper. Its masthead accurately proclaimed it “A Friendly Non-Partisan Weekly Newspaper Published Every Thursday.” To give you its flavor, I will read you the lead from its story at the top of Page 1 not long before Tom and Pat bought it:

“On Thursday, March 4, the Kiwanis Club of Jenkins has the pleasure of presenting Mr. P.L. McElroy, vice president of Consolidation Coal Company, Pittsburgh, Pa., who will deliver a lecture entitled, ‘The Future of Coal.’ . . . Mr. McElroy is well versed on all phases of the coal industry and is thoroughly qualified to speak on all aspects of our most abundant natural resource.”

There was no reason for folks in Whitesburg to expect that new ownership at the Eagle portended great change. But that’s exactly what was in store.

The Gishes had put out just two issues of their paper when Whitesburg, Hazard, and other communities were devastated by the worst flooding in a generation. Their coverage was fantastic. It equaled that of the Lexington and Louisville papers and it followed up on the story long after the city papers had forgotten it.

But notwithstanding the natural disaster, there was not a lot of obvious breaking news in Whitesburg and Letcher County in the late 1950s, and the so the Gishes turned to seriously covering the business of public agencies. They had not bought the Eagle with a strategy of launching crusades, but they quickly found themselves in an inevitable role of crusaders.

In those days in Whitesburg, as in many iPublishers of Mountain Eagle get award named for them if not most small towns of Appalachia and elsewhere, public business was conducted with little public knowledge. Tom and Pat surprised city and county officials by showing up for their meetings. They surprised them even more when they began to report what was said and done, and this went against the grain of a lot of them.

The county school board, for instance, was the biggest public employer in the county. It had its meetings in a little room with seating space only for its members. Citizens who had business with the board were called in one at a time. Often they were dismissed with their issue left to be addressed by the board in private. No doubt to the astonishment of board members, Pat Gish began standing in a corner through these meetings and reporting the proceedings in the Eagle.

It didn’t take long for the board to adopt a resolution saying press coverage of its meeting was not permitted, and it didn’t take long for other public agencies to follow suit.

But this outrage was only the beginning. There followed, as most of you know, efforts to drive the Gishes out of business with advertising boycotts, competition, and eventually even arson.

The doctor who delivered Tom Gish into the world was the school board chairman and the political boss of Letcher County, and he put out word that school board employees were not to buy the Mountain Eagle. Along Main Street in Whitesburg, word was spread that Tom was a Communist. The Eagle lost for all time its major advertiser, an automobile dealer, which had been largely responsible for keeping the paper’s books in the black.

All of this took place at an extraordinary time. Appalachia’s wartime and post-war coal boom had collapsed. Throughout the fifties, families left Whitesburg and Letcher County in droves. The population had fallen by half, and thriving communities, such as Seco where Tom Gish grew up, withered away.

Mechanization of the mines not only threw tens of thousands of miners out of work, it brought environmental havoc to the mountains.

The Gishes’ Mountain Eagle, having replaced its “Friendly Bipartisan Newspaper” label with the defiant slogan, “It Screams,” became perhaps the country’s most defiant, most consistent, and most compelling voice against strip and auger mining in Appalachia.

The Eagle pulled no punches.

In 1960, its editorial leveled scathing criticism at Bert Combs, a mountain neighbor who would long be regarded as one of Kentucky’s most progressive governors, for failing to take a stronger stand against strip mining and for doing too little to address the economic distress of the mountains.

There were times when anarchy and insurrection loomed. The National Guard had to be sent in to prevent violence in the coal fields; The Eagle reported meetings in which citizens seriously suggested withdrawing from the state.

One Mountain Eagle editorial opined, “If five or ten thousand Letcher county residents went to Frankfort and pitched tents on the governor’s lawn and stayed until he put in an appearance, Combs might pay some attention to us.” Perhaps anyone who presumes to teach journalism in Appalachia ought to require a reading of editorials in The Mountain Eagle during the bad old days of the Sixties.

It quickly became one of the first news organizations to charge the federal government itself — specifically, the Tennessee Valley Authority — with being one of the major causes of strip mining.

Wikipedia photo

With the publication of Harry Caudill’s Night Comes to the Cumberlands in 1963, the ravages of strip mining, mountain poverty, and the condition of schools became national news stories, and Whitesburg became a frequent destination for magazine and newspaper reporters and television crews.

Readers of the Mountain Eagle were already familiar with places such as Beefhide Creek, which Caudill made famous. They already knew about TVA coal contracts that accelerated the spread of strip mining across Appalachia. They already knew about the deplorable condition of schools. Letcher County had nearly 70 one and two room schools when the Gishes began writing about the system, and The Eagle called most of them unfit for human habitation. Tom bitingly observed that Albert Einstein would have lacked qualification to teach algebra at Whitesburg High School.

In November 1963, shortly after the publication of Caudill’s book, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Homer Bigart traveled the hollows and mountain roads of Eastern Kentucky and wrote that Christmas would find many citizens facing serious hunger. His article brought an outpouring of food and clothing from across the country and became a landmark as the federal government considered an economic aid program for Appalachia. Interestingly, four years before Bigart’s article, a piece in the Mountain Eagle had begun with almost the same sentence: “ Many Letcher County homes will miss a visit from Santa Claus this year unless some of Santa’s helpers get to work immediately. Some may even do without a Christmas Day.”

The Gishes faced good times and bad together as Pat Gish
types away and daughter Kitty helps.

As the national press, the White House, and Congress discovered Appalachian poverty, Tom Gish and Harry Caudill became the most prominent spokesmen for the region. Caudill’s law office and the Gishes’ newspaper office became the places outside reporters went first for tips, for information, and for quotes.

Bill Bishop, a 1970s Mountain Eagle reporter who now writes for the Austin American-Statesman, remembers the day after the 1976 Scotia mine disaster when a New York Times reporter arrived in Whitesburg on deadline. The pages for the next day’s Mountain Eagle were already made up and were about to be loaded into Tom’s car and taken to the press. The Timesman grabbed and phone and dictated a story directly from the article written for the next day’s Eagle.

Not surprisingly, a great many local people deeply resented the national spotlight, and some blamed Gish and Caudill for negative portrayals. One local official threatened a BBC film crew filming citizens lined up to receive government food handouts. Later, a producer for a Canadian television crew was shot to death.

Through it all the Gishes remained stubbornly undaunted. Jim Branscome, who was the point man in pressuring TVA to open its board meetings when he was a young stringer in Knoxville for the Eagle, still recalls arriving in Whitesburg the day after an arsonist hired by a Whitesburg policeman had torched the newspaper’s offices. He went to the Gishes’ house and there sat Tom on the porch hunched over a typewriter, composing a story for the next issue. The issue appeared on schedule, with a famously altered motto on its masthead: "It still screams."

“Here he was not far away from his heart attack, having quit a five pack a day habit,” Branscome recalled recently. “And here he was determined to get out a few pages, just to let all the bastards know the Eagle was still screaming. Was it an incredible act of courage, commitment, or just plain mountain stubbornness? I still haven’t figured out the proportions of these three things, but I am leaning toward the last one as explaining a lot.”

It should also be said that The Mountain Eagle has done much more than fight for open access, expose strip mining, and expose corruption.

Every reporter and editor who came to work at the paper was instructed that the community columns by Siller Brown, Mabel Kiser and the other columnists who reported the illnesses, doings, and deaths from Millstone, Neon, and elsewhere around the county were not to be touched. Community columns continue to be an Eagle mainstay even though Mabel and others who first worked for the Gishes have gone to their rewards.

It’s very hard to sum up Tom and Pat. I have not even touched upon the things they’ve done outside the Eagle, the fine family they have reared, or their contributions such as Tom’s work on behalf of education in Kentucky, including a term on the state school board.

Others who presented awards to them have talked of many of the same things I have mentioned here. But the most cogent statement I have seen was sent to me last week by Tom Bethell, another fine editor and journalist who worked at the Eagle during the turbulent sixties, and I would like to quote him:

“They have produced week after week, nearly 3,000 times so far, a living, breathing, working definition of what good rural journalism is all about. They have always paid close attention to what could be described, wrongly, as the small stuff. In the pages of the Eagle you can count on knowing when the redbuds are blossoming and how the mist looks on Pine Mountain, who has come home for the holidays, who owes back taxes, and who has died.”

Recalling how the Eagle covered TVA, the War on Poverty, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate caper, Bethell went on: “One of the many reasons why Tom and Pat are great journalists is that they have always understood that there is almost no such thing as a strictly local story, and they have been willing to follow the story wherever it takes them. That, surely, should be a model and a mantra for rural journalists wherever they are.”

Over the past several years, the Gish team has received awards from professional associations, universities, civic organizations, and other publications, and national honors named for people from Helen Thomas to Elijah Lovejoy. Now, the fledgling Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues institutes an award — maybe we should call it a Prize — named for the Gishes.

From time to time, it will be bestowed upon a person or persons considered to have demonstrated the courage and tenacity that have made Tom and Pat icons of community journalism, and that are often necessary to render public service through journalism in rural America.

Frankly, I think this overlooks an even more important Gish trait — integrity. It has been their personal integrity that has made their courage, commitment, and tenacity so meaningful.

And so, I am honored to present the first Tom and Pat Gish Award to its namesakes — two great journalists, two fine people, and two sterling citizens of Appalachia and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Tom and Pat Gish in 2005, when the award named for
them was started and they became the first recipients.

GOP using coal country fears against incumbents

Anxieties about jobs and possible environmental legislation have become a focal point for Republican campaigns aimed at incumbent Democrats in the coalfields. "With Democrats holding total control of the federal government and a cap-and-trade bill still looming, the GOP is fanning widespread coal country fears that the national Democratic Party is hostile to the coal mining industry, if not outright committed to its demise," Jonathan Martin of Politco reports. Democrats in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Ohio are among the targets.

In West Virginia, 17-term Rep. Nick Rahall and 14-term Rep. Alan Mollahan have come under attack for what Republicans view as a weak defense of coal interests. Former state Supreme Court judge Elliott "Spike" Maynard, who switched parties to challenge Rahall, told Martin, "Our part of the world and way of life is threatened by liberal Democrats in Washington." Rahall and Mollahan both voted against the House energy bill, but Republicans say that was only because the Democrats already had enough votes for the bill to pass.

In Kentucky, Bluegrass-area Rep. Ben Chandler voted for cap-and-trade, which Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues Director Al Cross told Martin was the reason Republican Mike Templeman, a recently retired coal company CEO, entered an already busy primary race. In Southwest Virginia, Rep. Rick Boucher is likely facing his toughest race since his first re-election in 1974, Martin writes. In eastern Ohio, freshman Rep. John Boccieri and second-term Rep. Zack Space are facing similar fights because of their support for cap-and-trade. (Read more)

Census can't find takers in Northern Michigan

Michigan is having trouble finding rural census workers. How is your community doing? In Muskegon County, where a U.S. Census Bureau office is housed, plenty of workers have applied, but not in other areas covered by the office. "Our biggest problem areas are the great white north, in the very isolated tracts," Greg Debniak, manager of the Muskegon office, told John S. Hausman of the Muskegon Chronicle. "A lot of those areas are woefully short. So we’re redoubling our (recruitment) efforts up there."

In a region with some of the highest unemployment in the nation, Debniak was surprised to be short on applicants, Hausman reports. Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Osceola, Lake, Newaygo and Mecosta counties are covered by the office, and most of the jobs are for "so-called 'enumerators' who will knock on doors of people who don’t return mailed questionnaires, among other duties," Hausman writes. Some enumerators also do counts in at institutions, such as prisons, hospitals, dormitories, group homes and assisted-living centers. (Read more)

Census pay in Michigan ranges from $11.25 per hour in northern Michigan to $16 per hour in Detroit, Dustin Dwyer of Michigan Public Radio reports. Debniak told Dwyer the problem isn't just isolated to his office, but also affects many other rural northern counties. (Read more)

How does your county rank in fast food outlets?

As First Lady Michelle Obama launches her "Let's Move" campaign targeted at childhood obesity, the number of fast food restaurants per capita is one area worth looking at. New data from the Food Environment Atlas show 22 rural U.S. counties have more than 1½ fast food restaurants per 1,000 people, the Daily Yonder reports. The atlas, released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, is a "tool for providing a spatial overview of a community’s ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so."

San Juan County, Colo. (Wikipedia map), leads the country by a wide margin with 7.117 fast food restaurants per 1,000 people (four restaurants and a population of 558), the Yonder reports in a Top 50 list. A quick glance at the Yonder map below suggests that tourism and highways have a lot to do with a high rate.

The Yonder also has county-level maps for pounds of meat and poultry eaten per person, gallons of soft drinks consumed per person, pounds of fruits and vegetables eaten per person and the percentage of obese adults. A great source for some local reporting on a national problem that in many cases is a local problem.

Residents of 13 states average spending more than $500 each per year on fast food. The data often relate to diabetes, obesity and lack of phyisical activity, as measured by continuing national surveys. Five states report less than 60 percent of their residents are defined as physically active (150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week, 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week, or some combination of the two). Kentucky is the only state in both categories. (Read more)

Asian carp threaten small Illinois town's economy

We've been following the progress of Asian carp toward the Great Lakes, most recently here. The carp are coming from the Mississippi River system, where maky streams have long been under assault from the invasive fish. Some in Illinois already fear Peoria has lost the battle, making Spring Valley the front line of the Asian carp war on the Illinois River. "In Spring Valley, an old coal-mining town 100 miles southwest of Chicago, signs proclaim the city the sauger fishing capital of the world," Joel Hood of The Chicago Tribune reports. "The Illinois River is so critical to the local economy and tourism that area residents say the town might cease to exist without it."

Spring Valley residents say since the Asian carp showed up a few years ago sauger fishing hasn't been the same. The Masters Walleye Circuit event each March is Spring Valley's biggest fishing tournament of the year and used to bring in 225 teams with another 30 on a waiting list, Hood reports. Last year only 100 teams registered and fewer than 40 have registered for 2010 so far. The event brought $1 million to $2 million in revenue to the community in its heyday, Hood writes.

"We need this spring tournament in our town," Spring Valley Mayor Cliff Banks told Hood. "We have one hotel that struggles here. At the gas stations and the grocery stores, we need these people in our town." Banks favors a proposal, suggested by Tim Leeds of Heartland Processing, to build a mobile fish processing plant for Asian carp in Spring Valley. Advocates say the plant could grind up as much as "4,000 pounds of carp an hour to produce marketable products from fertilizers and livestock feed to bulk protein and fish oils," Hood reports. Said Leeds: "If (the government) gets on board, it'll be a win-win for everybody. Except the carp." (Read more)

Mexicans bring black-tar heroin to rural America

"Farm boys" from an isolated Mexican county have brought cheap black-tar heroin to "vast stretches of America's heartland . . . cities and small towns across the United States, often creating demand for heroin where there was little or none," Sam Quinones reports for the Los Angeles Times.

"The dealers have been especially successful in parts of Appalachia and the Rust Belt with high rates of addiction to OxyContin, Percocet and other prescription painkillers. They market their heroin as a cheap, potent alternative to pills," Quinones writes. They "drove black tar's eastward expansion, moving into Columbus and from there to parts of rural Ohio and Pennsylvania," where powdered heroin, usually from Colombia, is relatively rare. "Their product began to appear in communities where users weren't prepared for its potency," and competitionamong the dealer groups cut prices to $12.50 a dose.

The groups "have no all-powerful leader and rarely use guns, according to narcotics investigators and imprisoned former dealers," Quinones relays. "Their acumen and energy are a major reason why Mexican heroin has become more pervasive in this country." His report will be in three parts; as a teaser for tomorrow's he wries that one of the places plagued is "a small town in West Virginia, 160 miles south of Columbus, where before the fall of 2007, few people had ever heard of black-tar heroin." (Read more)

USDA: Farm income to rise more than 12% in '10

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released its farm 2010 Farm Sector Income Forecast and it projects net farm income will increase this year. USDA projects income to be $63 billion for 2010, up $6.7 billion from 2009. The 2010 forecast is $1.4 billion below the 10-year average net farm income.

"Macroeconomic forces undergird our optimism in projecting a boost in 2010 farm income," USDA's Economic Research Service reports. "Fertilizer prices have fallen by about 50 percent in the past year. The dollar’s decline against other currencies should make agricultural exports of both crops and livestock/meat more competitive. Continued population growth, particularly in developing countries, will increase global demand if accompanied by rising incomes." Ethanol and biodeseil plants operating at greater potential in 2010 should help farm profits, ERS expects.

Of the various agricultural industries, ERS forecasts: "Economic conditions for livestock producers are expected to improve, while the economic conditions for crop producers are expected to deteriorate slightly or stabilize. Protein foods produced from animals and animal products are higher-cost items, and subject to budgeting considerations. Amid a recession, consumers can reduce consumption of meat, milk, and eggs, or buy lower priced products." (Read more from Keith Good of FarmPolicy.com)

Veterinarian shortage spreads, and rural areas bear burden; farmers sometimes play vet

A shortage of veterinarians, especially those who treat large animals, is spreading across the country but particularly in rural areas. "As a result, more people are depending on their rudimentary knowledge of veterinary procedures to get the jobs done," Michelle Rupe Eubanks of the Times Daily in Florence, Ala., reports. Large amounts of debt also push recent vet-school graduates to metropolitan areas, where pay is better.

Dr. Donna Anagarano, associate dean for academic affairs at the Auburn University School of Veterinary Medicine, told Eubanks the shortages in rural areas will worsen. An area of specialization is up to each graduate, but most of Auburn's 97 graduates last year plan to focus on small animals. "That's the largest [number of graduates] we've had, but there is still a shortage, and we do plan to grow the numbers," Anagarano told Eubanks. Nationally, 80 to 85 percent of vet-school applicants are women, who are less likely to want to work with large animals.

Rural areas bear more of the burden. "In a really small area, it's difficult to make a practice work," she told Eubanks. "Vets want to have outside interests, and many of them are married to other professionals. You want your spouse to be able to find a job, too. Small communities also often don't offer enough support to pay down that debt and make the practice feasible." (Read more)

CBS report raises public health concerns about routine antibiotic use in livestock

Last week we reported many in the agriculture industry were bracing for an unflattering report about antibiotic use in livestock from the CBS Evening News. Now after several delays the report has aired. Katie Couric reported that a 2009 University of Iowa study found a new strain of MRSA in 70 percent of hogs and 64 percent of the workers on several farms that used antibiotics in Iowa and western Illinois. On antibiotic-free farms, no MRSA was found.

"Health officials are concerned if workers who handle animals are getting sick - what about the rest of us?," Couric wrote. "Drug resistant infections have sky-rocketed over the past two decades, killing an estimated 70,000 Americans last year alone." Now scientists fear Americans may be acquiring drug-resistant MRSA from handling tainted meat from animals fed antibiotics to promote growth and prevent disease, Couric reports. Liz Wagstrom, a veterinarian with the National Pork Board, told CBS most farmers use antibiotics appropriately. (Read more)

A bill in Congress would restrict use of antibiotics in animals raised for human consumption. In Part 2 of the report Couric visited Denmark to report on the country's attempts at producing antibiotic-free livestock. As of Friday the two online stories had more than 130 reader comments combined.

New mining policies don't stop annual Kentucky rally for 'stream saver' bill in legislature

The "I Love Mountains" rally in Frankfort, Ky., in support of a state "stream saver" bill was held for the fifth straight year yesterday, though some legislators say the bill is no longer needed after the state adopted new regulations governing strip mining and valley fills. Those at the rally maintained that further scrutiny is needed, James Bruggers reports for The Courier-Journal in Louisville. The rally was highlighted by an appearance from Grammy-winning musician and West Virginia native Kathy Mattea.

Democratic state Rep. Don Pasley, who sponsored an unsuccessful stream-saver bill more than once, withdrew his support in January after he decided the bill was no longer needed, Bruggers reports. K.A. Owens, chair of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, said the agreement among regulators, environmentalists and the industry would "greatly reduce the size and number of valley fills," but he told Bruggers that it is "up to us to see that it is enforced." Dave Moss, vice president for the Kentucky Coal Association, told Bruggers he didn't understand why any legislators would back a stream-saver bill now.

Rally participants again called for the end of mountaintop-removal mining, and a return to civil discourse about the issues. The solution "starts with realization, the remembrance, that we are not enemies – that we are brothers and sisters in conflict," Mattea told the crowd. Democratic Sen. Kathy Stein of Lexington, the sponsor of the current bill and a native of Wise County, Virginia, told the crowd, "You have got to make your voices heard. We need your help."(Read more)

Advocate says Obama has broken promise to stop subsidy payments to passive 'farmers'

President Obama has done some things to help rural America, but he has failed to follow through on a central promise of his campaign's rural agenda, writes Chuck Hassebrook for the Nebraska-based Center for Rural Affairs. In Iowa in October 2007, Obama outlined his rural platform, including "pledging immediate action to close loopholes by limiting payments to active farmers who work the land and their landlords," Hassebrook writes. "Last month the Obama administration joined its predecessors in failing to act by releasing regulations that continue this gaping loophole," by allowing otherwise passive investors to count as active farmers if they participate in conference calls about the operation.

Hassebrook, who was apparently considered for a post in the Department of Agriculture, characterizes the decision as not just a forgotten campaign promise, but a dismissal of the "centerpiece of Obama’s rural policy and his central message to rural America about the kind of change he offered." He gives Obama credit for preventing "payment limitation rules from hurting smaller farmers who receive payment far below the limit," but says the president would be well served to return to his other rural commitments. "Our communities have real opportunities to advance," Hassebrook writes. "But one key to our future is a federal government that works with us to capitalize on those opportunities, rather than against us by subsidizing agricultural concentration." (Read more)

Coal industry exaggerations unnecessarily pit coalfield residents against each other, writer says

Increased environmental regulation and agreed-to changes in strip mining will help taxpayers in the long run, but coal-company scare tactics are hurting Kentucky's chances for a more energy independent future, a Kentucky environmentalist writes in an op-ed for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "We need approaches that shed light — not heat — on our problems and solutions," Kentuckians for the Commonwealth member and Southeast Community and Technical College professor Roy Silver writes. "Unfortunately, all too frequently many coal executives seem more prone to stoking fear."

"Coal executives grossly exaggerate the immediate threat to our region from legislation to reverse global warming," Silver writes. "The impact of proposed legislation will not be felt here for decades. We have a wonderful opportunity to diversify our local economy, reinvest some of the wealth extracted from our mountains and convert existing factories to making parts for windmills, solar panels, etc." Silver cites recent data showing significant declines in coal demand even as stockpiles grow and the loss of coal mining jobs as mines become more mechanized as justification for his claim. He argues better enforcement of water quality standards will save taxpayers money by reducing the cost of cleaning drinking water.

When the chair of Coal Operators & Associates in Pikeville recently referred to those with legitimate concerns about coal mining as "environmental jihadists," he was just the latest industry executive to use hyperbole to scare off detractors, Silver writes. "Pitting neighbor against neighbor is not healthy," he concludes. "We should follow a path that appeals to our better nature." (Read more)

Ky. county trying to set example for sustainable development in rural America

A small, rural county in Central Kentucky is hoping to strengthen its reputation as the greenest, most sustainable county in the state and set an example for other rural areas. The government of Washington County (Wikipedia map) cleaned up 27 illegal dumps in 2001, which led the state to declare it the state's first Certified Clean County, Carol Spence of the University of Kentucky reports. Now the county has a master plan that focuses on farmland preservation but still encourages growth.

In the county seat of Springfield, "Residents take advantage of a free curbside-pickup recycling program; farmers participate in study groups about sustainability; children bring home free energy-efficient light bulbs from school; and leaders of a local non-profit organization are focusing their current efforts on local food and making homes more energy efficient," Spence reports. "They have worked on this a small part at a time. They've done little steps," Lori Garkovich, UK professor of community and leadership development, told Spence.

Achieving sustainablility in a rural county was eased by a shared vision of what could be and the ability to break up the big picture into smaller pieces, Spence reports. "We're doing our little bit," said Sister Claire McGowan, a Dominican nun and leader of the grassroots organization New Pioneers for a Sustainable Future. "And we're hoping that we can provide some light to other rural communities in Kentucky. Yes, it is hard work, but you can have fun while you're doing it, and it really will end up making a big difference, not just for us, but also for the future generations who will live in and love this place." (Read more)

Careful planning important to sort out competing goals in public-private broadband partnerships

Public-private partnerships for rural broadband development will be favored in the second round of stimulus broadband funding, but they may not be right for all communities, Craig Settles writes for the Daily Yonder. "Communities that are responding with plans for public-private technology partnerships should not take such efforts lightly or pursue them in haste," Settles writes. "This promising approach is also fraught with challenges great enough to knock you off track."

Understanding the forecasts for return on investment under both best and worst case scenarios is key to financial sustainability of the projects, Settles writes. He says the "business of broadband is as much about managing growth as curtailing losses." Michael Johnston, vice president of Internet technology and broadband at Jackson Energy Authority, a public utility in Tennessee, encountered some of the public-private challenges with a telephone company during the rocky start of what eventually became a 16,000-subscriber fiber-optic network in Jackson.

"Partnering with a telco does help because you have to be ready for the different world of telecom operations," Johnston told Settles. "You can have completely different goals that are at cross purposes. The town or county wants to deliver services in places where it’s currently not offered. The partner needs to make money." Settles advocates that community leaders and private investors spend a lot of early time in "frank conversation so that both parties thoroughly understand how the other’s business works." These discussions can identify trouble spots as well as potential irreconcilable differences, and can help "construct and evaluate a business model with clear knowledge of how it affects all partners," Settles writes. (Read more)

Backyard Bird Count this weekend can be a snapshot of environmental trends

Bird watchers across the country can unite this weekend as the Great Backyard Bird Count commences its 13th annual event. The GBBC "aims to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent and in Hawaii" and is sponsored by the National Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and, for the first time, Bird Studies Canada, Kelly Burgess of the Los Angeles Times reports. Participants count birds for as little as 15 minutes on at least one day of the event and report their sightings online. (Hummingbird photo by Pete Thomas)

"Even if you can identify a few species you can provide important information that enables scientists to learn more about how the environment is changing and how that affects our conservation priorities," Judy Braus, the Audubon Society's vice president for education, told Burgess. Last year's count included 94,165 checklists which identified 620 species and counted 11,558,638 individual birds, Burgess reports. (Read more)

The GBBC's Web site includes more information about the count including including printable regional tally sheets, frequently asked questions and information on entering the annual photo contest.

States will be able to count inmates separately from localities, often rural, affecting redistricting

The Census Bureau will give states the option of not counting prison inmates where they are incarcerated, which is disproportionately in rural areas. Inmates are usually counted with the rest of the locality that contains the prison, but in May 2011 the bureau will "identify exactly where group quarters like prisons are and how many people occupy them," Sam Roberts of The New York Times reports. The decision could reduce state legislative representation of predominantly rural districts.

"This removes a technical problem," Peter Wagner, executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative, an advocacy group that favors alternatives to prison sentences and urges that inmates be counted in their hometowns, told Roberts. "The census is going to say where the prisons are and how many people are in them, which will enable states the practical choice of counting them in the wrong place or not counting them at all." He added, "About 100 rural governments currently remove the prison populations manually, but this difficult and error-prone process was impossible to do on a state level. For the first time, state and local governments will have access to prison population counts in time for redistricting."

Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Wisconsin and perhaps other states are "weighing legislation requiring that prisoners be counted at their last known address . . . a change that would likely favor larger and mostly Democratic cities," Roberts reports. One extreme example of prison populations skewing legislative districts is in Anamosa, Iowa, where the three council districts have the same population, but one has all but 58 of its 1,400 residents living in a prison. (Read more)

EPA sets up program for public to play watchdog on natural-gas drilling in Marcellus Shale

The Environmental Protection Agency has launched a citizens' watchdog program to track water pollution and waste disposal related to natural gas production from the Marcellus Shale (which underlies the area shown on map). The program, Eyes on Drilling, "encourages people to report suspicious activity related to federal officials through a toll-free hotline," Tom Wilber of the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin reports.

EPA wants information including location, time and date of problems; materials, equipment and vehicles involved; and observable environmental impacts. The agency lacks direct oversight of drilling, which is handled by states, but does have authority over waste disposal and water pollution, of increased concern because of the hydraulic and chemical fracturing used to break up the deeply buried shale and release its gas.

"EPA wants to get a better understanding of what people are experiencing and observing as a result of these drilling activities. The information collected may also be useful in investigating industry practices," David Sternberg, a spokesman for EPA Region 3, which will run the program, told Wilber. The hotline will also take complaints from residents and forward them to appropriate officials for follow-up. More information about the program is available from its Web site or the toll-free hotline at 877-919-4372. (Read more)

Dodge City reporter ignores subpoena to testify, loses support of newspaper

A Kansas reporter, subpoenaed to testify about a confidential source, has been held in contempt for not appearing in court Wednesday. Clair O'Brien of the Dodge City Daily Globe will be fined $1,000 per day until she appears in court, James Carlson of The Topeka Capital-Journal reports. O'Brien told Carlson that attorneys for GateHouse Media, which owns the Globe, wouldn't pay for her legal representation unless she answered the prosecutor's questions under oath, and have disrupted her attempts to seek help from a national journalism group. The newspaper and O'Brien had tried and failed to get the subpoena quashed.

GateHouse told Carlson it hadn't decided whether to provide legal counsel for O'Brien to continue fighting the subpoena and denies it has blocked her from seeking outside counsel. The company did have an attorney in court Wednesday, but told Carlson that O'Brien has "taken steps to separate herself from the company, including firing her personal attorney paid for by GateHouse." (Read our previous reports on the subject here and here)


"What she did was really stick a thumb in the judge's eye today," Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who has been speaking with O'Brien for more than a week, told Carlson. "Even if you're not going to answer questions, you still have to go to court." An editor with the Globe and the Kansas Press Association also expressed disapproval. "I feel like I'm being battered by forces more powerful than I," O'Brien told Carlson. "I don't feel that I have the right to make my own choices." (Read more)

Chair of rural school board wins sexual harassment case against road construction firm

Sandra Crouch has spent the last 22 years as a member of the Board of Education in Bath County, Kentucky (Wikipedia map). In January she was re-elected chairman. It is part of her official duties to make sure no one under the board's jurisdiction is harassed, sexually or in any other manner, and that no one is made to work or study in a hostile environment, reports Appalachian author Betty Dotson-Lewis.

"Never in a million years did Sandy imagine she would be the one on the receiving end of those actions -- subjected to sexual harassment while attempting to perform her duties on the job in a hostile environment," Lewis writes. But Crouch filed a lawsuit, and won it a few weeks ago. "Not only is it unusual for a woman to win a unanimous jury verdict of this size, there is something else remarkable about this case: It’s even more unusual for a female chairman of a county school board to win a sexual harassment case while pursuing her day job in a nontraditional field, road construction." Lewis's story is here.

Urban schools could learn from rural counterparts

While rural schools are often shortchanged by current federal education policies, they "routinely use practices that could be useful to boosting student performance in their urban and suburban counterparts," says a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education. One third of the nation’s high schools are rural, and one in five children attends a rural school, the report says. That finding was part of the report's examination of "Current Challenges and Opportunities in Preparing Rural High School Students for Success in College and Careers: What Federal Policymakers Need to Know."(Fact Sheet)

The alliance describes itself as "national policy and advocacy organization that works to make every child a high school graduate - to prepare them for college, work, and to be contributing members of society." The report explains at-risk students in rural schools are less likely to be overlooked and "successful rural high schools have utilized online courses and other distance learning to expand advanced learning opportunities for their students."

"America’s rural high schools offer solutions, but they also face challenges," Bob Wise, president of the alliance and former governor of West Virginia, said in a news release. "Most of the recent debate on high school reform at the federal level has not involved rural schools, but when one out of every four rural students fails to graduate from high school, it’s not just a ‘local’ issue, it’s a national crisis. No longer can our nation write off large numbers of children, whether by race or by geography, and still meet the steadily growing skill demands of the 21st century." (Read more, from Maureen Downey's blog post for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)

Case against tomato company is harbinger of feds' new focus on illegal practices in agriculture, food

A possible tomato monopoly is the latest target in the federal government's increased scrutiny of the food sector. Federal prosecutors in Sacramento allege that SK Foods of Monterey, Calif., used more than $330,000 in bribes from 1998 to 2008 to subvert competition and nail down deals to sell the company's tomato paste, peppers and other products, P.J. Huffstutter of the Los Angeles Times reports. The investigation comes on the heels of federal looks into dairy distributors, egg producers, citrus firms and seed developers.

"Behind the push are growing concerns that, as the industry becomes increasingly consolidated, the public's grocery bills are getting bigger in part from corrupt or monopolistic practices among food processors, distributors or farmers," Huffstutter writes. Next month the Justice Department and the Department of Agriculture will hold meetings about lack of competition in the dairy, grain, livestock and poultry sectors. Christine Varney, who leads the administration's antitrust team, promised during her confirmation hearings that agriculture would be a focus.

"Nearly 95 percent of all tomatoes grown in the U.S. are processed by four companies in California," Huffstutter reports. Justice Department investigators say what they uncovered at SK Foods during a 20007 investigation of the California tomato industry was "a scheme designed to trick food makers into buying a lesser-quality tomato paste (which had been mislabeled to appear of a higher grade) and then shut out rivals on deals with big processors and supermarket chains," Huffsutter writes. (Read more)

Pa. to increase natural-gas drilling inspection staff

In December we cited a ProPublica report detailing how states were lagging in regulation of increased natural gas drilling. Now one of the states at the center of the boom is moving to catch up. Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell has "announced that the Department of Environmental Protection will nearly double its enforcement staff, open a new office closer to the drilling action and release new drilling regulations of its own," reports Sabrina Shankman of ProPublica, which has been bird-dogging the issue of hydraulic and chemical fracturing of gas reserves.

In 2008 Pennsylvania had just 35 people to oversee 74,774 wells, Shankman reports, but that number increased to 76 in 2009 as the industry grew. Rendell plans to add 68 more people to the Bureau of Oil and Gas Management, Shankman reports, and will pay for the expansion with revenue from drilling permit fees, which it raised last year for the first time since 1984. Rendell also proposed a severance tax on gas in his 2010-11 budget.

Forty-five of the new hires will be on the oil and gas enforcement staff, bringing the state's total to 121. Conversely, Texas, the nation's largest drilling state, "had an enforcement staff of 106 to oversee 263,704 wells, of which 16,569 were new and required the most oversight," Shankman writes. (Read more)

Virginia county says no to wind farm on mountain

A southwest Virginia county has become the latest example of local governments regulating against wind power. The Tazewell County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to approve "approved an ordinance that prevents wind farm construction on specified locations," Jessica Lilly of West Virginia Public Broadcasting reports. Wind industry supporters told Lilly the decision was the latest example of the "anti-wind agenda" gaining steam.

The conflict centers on a proposed wind farm on East River Mountain, southwest of Bluefield, Va. and W. Va. Dominion Resources and BP Wind Energy announced the $200 million project in January 2009, but several locals spoke out against the project, including friends of a nearby airport, Lilly writes. A representative of the Mercer County Airport, just north of Bluefield, W.Va., said planes using the southwest approach would have to fly higher before dropping sharply to land at the airport. The southwest approach to the airport is used only 10 percent of the time, Lilly reports.

Wind-industry spokesman Frank Maisano told Lilly the decision would be bad for the future of the region: "It’s kind of disturbing to have the very active political anti-wind folks gathering steam and promoting their approach undercutting a message that is good for rural communities." (Read more)

Here's a Google map of the area, with the airport marked. East River Mountain is the largest ridge, in the bottom third of the satellite photo.

Cap-and-trade is all but dead for 2010, but some climate legislation could be part of an energy bill

Cap-and-trade legislation to limit climate change is all but dead for the year, but some climate measures could still pass as part of an energy bill, says the editorial board of The Washington Post. "It fell victim to Senate gridlock, yawning gaps between lawmakers over how and even whether to tackle the issue and President Obama's decision last year to place it third on his list of priorities, after the stimulus and health care," the Post writes. Even the president seemed to admit temporary defeat last week by citing speculation that the Senate might pass a modest bill without cap-and-trade.

"A version of such a scaled-down energy bill passed the Senate Energy Committee last year, and it contains some worthwhile provisions, such as updating building codes and the electricity grid," the Post writes. "It is also incomplete, lacking both much in the way of revenue to pay for its programs and any economy-wide emissions limit." The Waxman-Markey climate bill, which includes cap-and-trade and passed the House in the fall, is "marred by giving away far too many valuable pollution permits to politically favored groups, a scheme of which many senators are rightly skeptical," the Post says.


Despite the dim future of cap-and-trade, the Post explains there are options for legislation that meets somewhere in the middle. The editorial board points to a proposal from Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine called the CLEAR Act that would "cap the amount of carbon the United States produces and sell pollution permits to those who produce or import dirty fuels" as one option. The senators say 80 percent of Americans would break even under their plan which would raise costs, but would reroute 75 percent of the permit auction revenue back to the public. (Read more)

Next wave of 'clean coal' ads to focus on jobs; how much have the ads influenced public policy?

The next wave of the advertising campaign designed to push "clean coal" technologies is scheduled to start this week, as some evidence suggests the success of previous installments, Anne C. Mulkern of Greenwire reports for The New York Times: "Top policymakers, including President Obama, are echoing a key message from the ads, that technology in the future could reduce coal's carbon pollution and keep coal a part of the energy mix." The new ads focus on the job opportunities from coal and mention previous environmental arguments.

Last week Obama "created a task force charged with advancing five to 10 commercial demonstrations of carbon-capture-and-sequestration technology by 2016," Mulkern writes. Some credit for clean-coal technology's improved prospects could be attributed to promising early reports from a pilot project at an American Electric Power plant in West Virginia. Nevertheless, "There's a reason companies do these campaigns," Kenneth Green, resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, told Mulkern. "It's because they tend to work."

However, Josh Dorner, spokesman for the Sierra Club, voiced skepticism about the ads' effect. "The coal industry has a stranglehold over the U.S. Congress more than anything that would be reasonable. Whether that's because of a $120 million in advertising spending," in addition to spending on lobbying, he added, "remains to be seen." (Read more)

The campaign "dates back to the summer of 2007, when Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, a precursor of the coal trade group that later became American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, told its members it needed to commit to a lengthy and expensive effort to protect coal," Mulkern reports. ACCCE has the new ads in addition to previous one on its Web site.

Toyota's Ky. town follows local paper's advice in weathering storm of bad press about recalls

Toyota hasn't received much good publicity in recent week in the midst of a massive recall across several models for sticking brakes, but one small town to which the company brought thousands of jobs is staying positive. Workers at the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Ky., and other U.S. towns with similar facilities are returning to a more normal schedule this week as the company resumes full production, and they maintain the company will thrive again, Mickey Meece of The New York Times reports.

An editorial in the local newspaper, the Georgetown News Graphic, may have helped quell some local fears, Meece reports. Its headline read, "Rest easy, Toyota is on the job," in the editorial's headline. "In many parts of the country, Toyota is a brand,” said the editorial by Publisher Mike Scogin. "But to those of us here in Georgetown and in Kentucky, we know Toyota because we are Toyota. Our friends, neighbors and family members manufacture the cars in question." (Read more)
Meece writes, "For more than a week, Mr. Scogin said, Toyota news has dominated the front page of the newspaper, which is published three times a week. By Saturday, coverage of the murder of a former school bus driver was the top story." Georgetown, about 15 miles north of Lexington, held a population around 10,000 before Toyota opened its plant 20 years ago and has since ballooned to 25,000, Meece reports. (Read more)

Meanwhile, Toyota dealers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas pulled their ads from ABC-TV affiliates, protesting "excessive" coverage of the company's problems. Here is ABC's report. UPDATE, Feb. 10: Led by Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, the Republican governors of Indiana, Mississippi and Alabama, all with Toyota plants, have sent a letter to Congress asking for "responsible and fair" treatment for the company, praising its "exemplary citizenship," decrying "aggressive and questionable news coverage," and asserting that "the real story is how quickly Toyota identified the problems, found solutions and delivered those solutions to its dealers." Beware when politicians start telling you what the real story is, but here's the letter.

Broadband funding moves more slowly than hoped

Interest in the economic stimulus package's $7.2 billion for broadband was expected to be high, but the demand has turned out to be so overwhelming that government officials are struggling to meet the program's deadlines. The high demand, coupled with questions from large cable and phone companies such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable and AT&T, has "swamped the agencies in charge and created a bottleneck that might threaten disbursement," David Lieberman of USA Today reports.

After almost a year, only 7 percent of the funds has been assigned to specific projects. "There's significant doubt as to whether the monies can be awarded before the end of September," when the funding authorization expires, Dan Hays, who directs the communications practice at consulting firm PRTM, told Lieberman. Officials abandoned their original plan to assign $4 billion by the end of 2009, and now say "they're poised to hit as much as $2 billion when the first round ends this month, as they begin to consider applications to the second — and last — round up to March 15," Lieberman writes.

The two agencies with the money, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and USDA's Rural Utilities Service, maintain they will meet the Sept. 30 deadline for allocating it. Finding which places need broadband investment most has also proved difficult. "Because the United States has not taken [broadband needs] seriously until the Obama administration arrived, we don't know exactly how many people are unserved" or precisely where they are, RUS Administrator Jonathan Adelstein told Lieberman. (Read more)

Many of the grants are being made to map where broadband service exists. One example is a $2.1 million NTIA grant accounced today for mapping Kentucky, which was one of the first states to develop a comprehensive broadband map. "While the project fulfilled the requirements at the time, updates are necessary due to the ever-changing technology, growth of households and expansion of broadband providers," said a state press release. Meanwhile, people in the shadow of Pine Mountain in southeastern Kentucky complain about lack of broadband on Dial-Up Rocks, a blog hosted by Democracy in Action.

Genetic engineering may come to Southern U.S. forests in form of non-invasive (?) eucalyptus

Genetic engineering has long been a mainstay in the agricultural sector, but now it may be coming to silviculture, the growing of trees. Forestry giants International Paper Co. and MeadWestvaco Corp. are "planning to transform plantation forests of the southeastern United States by replacing native pine with genetically engineered eucalyptus, a rapidly growing Australian tree that in its conventional strains now dominates the tropical timber industry," Paul Voosen of Greenwire reports for Scientific American.

The companies' joint biotech venture AborGen LLC is hoping to use a controversial gene splice that restricts the eucalyptus trees' ability to reproduce to alleviate fears of the species turning invasive and overtaking native forests. "If such a fertility-control technology -- which has come under fire in farming for fear seed firms will exploit it -- is proven effective, it could open the door to many varieties of wild plants, including weedy grasses, to be genetically engineered for use in energy applications like biomass and next-generation biofuels without fear of invasiveness," Voosen writes.

Already countries like Brazil have used eucalyptus to transform their wood industry. The eucalyptus tree offers a significant upgrade over native southern pines in growth rate, the company told Voosen. Timber consultant Curtis Seltzer, who has studied ArborGen, describes its trees as a "game changer." Currently, only two of ArborGen's experimental eucalyptus stations have been allowed to flower. The company reports little in the way of pollen production, and earlier this month the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently issued a draft approval, subject to public comment, of expansion to 28 sites totaling 330 acres across seven states. (Read more)

3 governors and an aggressive fish: Michigan's chief unhappy with U.S. plan to control carp

A White House meeting about a fish? It happened yesterday, as Govs. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Jim Doyle of Wisconsin huddled and talked on the phone with Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn about the threat that Asian carp from the Mississippi River system pose to the fisheries and ecosystems of the Great Lakes. (Associated Press photo by M. Spencer Green: Big carp and smaller white bass in Chicago's Shedd Aquarium)

"Granholm came away from the summit less than satisfied with the results" and the plan for operating the locks in the canal that connects Lake Michigan with the Mississippi watershed, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The Army Corps of Engineers "will open and close [the locks] less frequently, and the water will be treated each time the locks are open to prevent the fish from swimming through to the Lake Michigan side," Mark Guarino writes. Michigan wants the locks permanently closed, but its lawsuit to do that was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. It wants the court to take another look, noting that on the day the court ruled, the Corps "discovered two DNA samples ... showing that Asian carp had breached Lake Michigan."

The Obama administration's role yesterday was to announce "a $78.5 million commitment to deal with the issue," Guarino reports, with "new water sampling, the construction of a concrete and chain-link fence between the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and the Des Plaines River, and the construction of a third electric barrier on the canal." Grahholm said the plan's "objectives are not sustainable and that this is a plan to limit damages, not solve the problem." (Read more) (Illustration by Phil Moy, University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute, from Environmental Protection Agency Web page on Asian carp)

Appalachian Ohio prescription drug trade worsens

Prescription drug abuse in Ohio is escalating, with most of the problem centered on the southeastern region of the state. In 2008, Ohio pharmacists filled 2.7 million prescriptions for narcotics that contain oxycodone and 4.8 million prescriptions for hydrocodone medications, Holly Zachariah of The Columbus Dispatch reports. The oxycodone prescriptions amounted to almost one for every four Ohio residents, while the hydrocodone prescriptions were enough for almost one of every two and one-half Ohioans.

The state's drug abuse is particularly bad in its Appalachian region for a number of reasons, including poverty, location and apathy, state officialsm say. US 23 "provides a pipeline to and from Columbus," Zachariah reports. "Bordering states of Kentucky and West Virginia have significant amounts of prescription-drug abuse." William Winsley, director of the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy, told Zachariah the area also has a track record of limited resources and uncooperative elected officials who have refused to help with drug investigations.

Scioto County in Southern Ohio was named to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's watch list of the 10 most significant places in the country for trafficking in medications. While government officials brainstorm ways to tackle the problem, a grass-roots movement in Southern Ohio has risen up against the abuse, Zachariah reports. Activists in the region are considering pickets at the pain clinics and want to photograph the cars that come and go. (Read more)

Group has guide to help rural places with census

As the 2010 U.S. Census gets under way, rural communities are in particular need of accurate counts. "Each person represents around $1,200 in federal funding for their community for services such as schools, hospitals and transportation," the Main Street Project, the nonpartisan arm of the League of Rural Voters, reports. "That’s more than $10,000 per person and more than $40,000 for a family of four over ten years."

The Main Street Project "works to document the strengths and challenges facing people in increasingly diverse rural communities, give voice to their hopes and aspirations, and provide creative and practical tools to turn possibilities into realities," their Web site reports. In preparation for the 2010 Census the group has released a guide for helping your community receive an accurate representation. "Communities lose around $1,200 every year in federal funds for each person who goes uncounted," Steven Renderos, organizer with the project, told the Daily Yonder. "Many of the people in these communities will be unlikely to participate unless they get information from organizations and leaders they know and trust." (Read more)

Forum on Friday at the Newseum to discuss meeting the food needs of the next generation

Agricultural experts and stakeholders are joining in a "Town Hall 2.0" forum Friday to discuss the unique challenges associated with meeting the food needs of the next generation as Earth's population grows. The event, "Now Serving 9 Billion: Global Dialogue on Meeting Food Needs for the Next Generation," is hosted by CropLife International, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and CAST at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

A panel of experts will discuss the challenges facing agriculture the next century, including how to feed 2.5 billion more people by 2050 and how to grow more food on less land. The event will Webcast live with an accompanying Twittercast, under #AgCast. Interested readers can register for the online discussion or in-person forum at the event's Web site.

USPS closing rural post offices across the country under rules meant for suspension of service

Has a rural post office closed near you recently? It's not the only one, and the U.S. Postal Service may be using a loophole to avoid the usual closing procedure. A three-page handwritten letter from an 87-year-old Hacker Valley, W.Va., woman whose post office recently closed has spurred the federal Postal Regulatory Commission to "investigate whether the Postal Service violated procedures or the will of Congress when it shut down Hacker Valley and 96 other post offices in 34 states over the past five years," P.J. Dickerschield of The Associated Press reports.

The cutbacks "have fallen most heavily on poor, rural communities, where the post office is not just a place to buy stamps, but a gathering spot where townspeople trade news and gossip," Dickerschield writes. USPS cited soon-to-be expiring leases as emergency justification for suspending nearly 100 post offices. "Ultimately, 25 were officially closed, five are facing closure, and Hacker Valley and 64 others are in limbo," Dickerschield reports.

Post office closures normally require 60 days notice, opportunities for public comment, an accounting of the reasons for the decision and an opportunity for residents to appeal, Dickerschield reports. A suspension, supposedly reserved for natural disasters, health or safety hazards or unanticipated lease problems, doesn't carry the same requirements. Under suspensions, the office is not technically closed, "but as far as customers are concerned it's not open," Norm Scherstrom told Dickerschield. (Read more)

Residents of some affected communities, including Midland, Ohio; Coralville, Iowa; Crescent Lake, Ore.; Prairie City, S.D.; Laketon, Ind.; and Howell, Utah, are hoping Congress intervenes and rescues their post offices, Dickerschield reports. At least one rural post office has already been saved, reportedly by congressional intervention. USPS officials rescinded the emergency suspension order for the closure of the Clifty post office in Todd County, Kentucky, after urging from Republican U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, the News-Democrat and Leader in adjoining Logan County reports. The Todd County Standard also reported the decision; here is its blog item.

EPA releases its assessments of 40 more coal-ash impoundments; index available online

The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday released information on 40 more coal ash impoundments with "high" or "significant" potential to cause loss of human life, environmental damage, or damage to infrastructure. Twenty-two of the facilities "have written action plans to make them safer," Environmental News Service reports.

Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, told ENS, "The information we are releasing today shows that we continue to make progress in our efforts to prevent future coal ash spills." EPA has provided an index of the new information about the 40 impoundments, spread across 16 different facilities, in addition to the 22 company action plans on its Web site.

"The assessment reports were written by firms under contract to EPA, who are experts in the field of dam integrity, and who EPA says reflect the best professional judgment of those engineering firms," ENS reports. EPA says if companies fail to take sufficient action to protect the dams, the agency will "take further action and provide additional information to the public on the impoundments and facilities as it becomes available."

Even as the new information was released, one group was launching new complaints against EPA's relations with the electric power industry and coal-ash recyclers. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility maintains "the coal ash industry has been working in concert with EPA behind closed doors to counter state proposals for stricter regulation of coal ash waste and help the industry market this waste as an additive to construction materials and to spread on agricultural land or use in land reclamation," ENS reports. PEER based its accusation on e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. (Read more)

USDA abandons plan for national animal ID system

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is abandoning plans to implement a nationwide animal tracking system. The plan would have developed a system to track livestock from "birth to the butcher shop," Tom Lutey of the Billings Gazette notes. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack made the announcement Friday, and by noon most of the references to the failed program had been removed from the agency's Web site.

The announcement was praised by ranchers wary of big government, Lutey reports. "It certainly means we have a USDA that is genuinely listening to the concerns of independent producers and is striking off in a new direction to achieve disease trace-back and prevention of communicable diseases," Bill Bullard, CEO of the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, told Lutey.

Small producers said the system would threaten their businesses. A Kentucky group said at a USDA "listening session" in that state that the plan "would do nothing to improve animal health or food safety, but would annihilate family-scale farms, which are the majority of farms in Kentucky," said a news release from the Community Farm Alliance, which says it is "grassroots membership organization with over 2,000 members in 75 Kentucky counties." Groups like the American Veterinary Medical Association backed the plan because they felt "extensive identification would protect consumers and minimize livestock loss," Lutey writes.

"Vilsack said he will turn to state and tribal veterinarians for a uniform way to track animals shipped across the country," Lutey reports. "Tracking animals moving intrastate will be left up to each state government." USDA had spent over $142 million developing the program, which was criticized for possibly requiring so much cattle information to be reported to meatpackers that ranchers would have difficulty negotiating fair cattle prices and for the plan’s mandatory government inspection requirements. (Read more)

Bipartisan bill would cut sulfur, nitrogen and mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants

Climate-change legislation has been a hot topic in the Senate in recent weeks, but two senators filed a bill Thursday to reduce three chemicals other than carbon dioxide from the air. The bipartisan proposal from Delaware Democratic Sen. Tom Carper and Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander targets coal-fired power plants to cut soot-forming sulfur dioxide (SO2) by 80 percent by 2018, smog-forming oxides of nitrogen (NOx) by 53 percent by 2015 and mercury by 90 percent by 2015, Robin Bravender of Environment and Energy Daily reports.

"We have a number of different things to work out on carbon," Alexander told Bravender. "But there's no excuse for waiting a minute on SOx, NOx and mercury because we have the technology, we know what to do, and we shouldn't be operating coal plants without pollution control equipment." The new bill would codify the Clean Air Interstate Rule program through 2011 and then impose even stricter limits than the Bush-era program.

The bill is co-sponsored by South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham and Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman, who are also working on a bipartisan climate-change and energy bill. "Environmental groups and utilities applauded the bipartisan bill, calling it a much-needed step forward to ensure emission reductions and regulatory certainty for the power sector," Bravender reports. But Republican Sens. Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma and George Voinovich of Ohio issued a statement saying they had "significant problems with key proposals of the Carper-Alexander legislation." (Read more)

Columnist: Rural youth should leave for a while

The rural brain drain has become a catch phrase to describe the outmigration of high-achieving rural youth, but one rural columnist has a different take. "The rural brain drain is the collective expression of thousands of individuals pursuing their best economic-development strategy.," freelance columnist Curtis Seltzer writes for Landthink.com. "When the reasons that brought people to the countryside no longer exist, it will make economic sense for people to leave and force these communities to find a new — and, admittedly, often lower — level of sustainability."

Seltzer describes the phenomenon reported by Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas in Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America as one of numbers, not quality. "My impression of watching local kids leave over more than 25 years doesn’t square with the finding of Carr and Kefalas," Seltzer writes. "Both stayers and leavers in this county of 2,500 are a cross-section of their group. All the best don’t leave, and all the worst don’t stay—the pattern that Carr and Kefalas report."

Seltzer uses his own daughter's experience in leaving a rural area to go to New York City for a job to reach a provocative conclusion. "I’ve come to believe that all rural kids should leave their hometowns for a while, whether or not they go to college," he writes. "They improve themselves when they function on their own in a broader world. They learn skills and develop networks. They rub intellectual and financial elbows with people unlike themselves. They return better able to make a living and a difference." (Read more)

Outbreak of horse ailment uncommon to U.S. traced to famous ranch in Texas

A famous South Texas ranch is the epicenter of a deadly horse disease with a 20 percent mortality rate. Through Jan. 20, "364 cases of equine piroplasmosis had been confirmed," Jaime Powell of the Scripps Howard News Service reports. "Of those, 289 are on the sprawling King Ranch." The World Animal Health Information System also reports cases in Indiana, Texas, Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.

The Texas Animal Health Commission has identified the King Ranch, right, between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, as the source of the outbreak. The ranch has sold horses with equine piroplasmosis in 15 states since 2004. "Horses, donkeys, mules and zebras are susceptible to the disease, which is caused by two parasitic organisms," Powell writes. "More severely affected animals can have fever, anemia, jaundiced mucous membranes, swollen abdomens and labored breathing." (King Ranch map)

While the disease has a high mortality rate, no horses in Texas have died yet and the ranch's 300-plus horses have been quarantined. The case marks the first occurrence of piroplasmosis in Texas, Powell reports. The disease rarely appears in the U.S., but it is prevalent in 90 percent of the world and commonly found in Mexico. 1946 Triple Crown winner Assault and 1950 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner Middleground were bred at the 825,000-acre King Ranch. (Read more)

Wild hog proliferation reaches all but six states; hunting preserves may contribute to spread

Wild swine populations are spreading across the country at a record pace, with only six states remaining without documented herds. Researcher Jack Mayer, a wild-hog expert at the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, tells Isaac Wolf and Jason Bartz of the Scripps Howard News Service that the population has doubled in size and range over the last 20 years. In 1982 feral hogs were documented in 17 states; now all but six states have populations.

"Wildlife experts say the hogs, which can weigh as much as 500 to 750 pounds, are increasingly running roughshod in rural areas, suburbs and even a few cities, digging up cemeteries, gardens and lawns; causing car wrecks -- and occasionally attacking people," Wolf and Bartz write. Feral pigs cause an estimated $800 million in property and crop damage, and 27,000 auto collisions, and Mayer tells the reporters a federal intervention with enforcement of animal transportation laws is needed to solve the problem.

Much of the spread can be attributed to hunting. Swine are transported from "Southern states like Texas and Florida, where wild hogs have been documented in every county, into backwoods areas several states away where they are let loose on private land for hunters," the reporters write. The pigs that aren't killed by hunters ignore property lines and are prolific breeders. (Read more)

Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute, a fan of this topic, passes along several hog-reporting resources in his "Morning Meeting," including Scripps' state-by-state list of known populations.

Utah governor's office cashed coal company check on same day permit application was fast-tracked

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's campaign aides cashed a $10,000 check from a coal company on the same day in September that he met with the company to hear complaints about delays in the permitting of a strip mine. State regulators at the meeting listened to Alton Coal Development LLC's pleas and "agreed to fast-track a decision approving the mine near Panguitch, despite opposition from residents," Paul Foy of The Associated Press reports.

Herbert's office told Foy the governor never ordered regulators to give their approval and didn't know about the company's donation. "The decision has some residents of the small tourist town about 200 miles south of Salt Lake City concerned," Foy writes. Environmental groups are claiming the strip mine would raise dust and foul air quality 10 miles from the Bryce Canyon National Park. "This mine will damage the pristine air and water quality and wildlife of the area, increase dangerous truck traffic and have negative impacts on tourism and the visitor experience at Bryce Canyon National Park," Clair Jones of the Utah Sierra Club, told Foy.

AP obtained a 33-page memo from the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining showing the result of the company's meeting with the governor was fast-tracking of a decision by regulators. While a Jan. 11 filing by Herbert's political action committee indicated that the coal company made its $10,00 donation on the same day it met with Herbert, spokeswoman Angie Welling told Foy the check actually arrived four days earlier and was deposited on the day of the meeting. (Read more)

ASARCO bankruptcy settlement will pay for 80 toxic-waste cleanups in up to 20 states

In December, the Justice Department announced the American Smelting and Refining Co. will pay a record $1.79 billion to settle claims for hazardous waste pollution at 80 sites in as many as 20 states. The ruling represents one of the largest environmental bankruptcies in U.S. history, John Burnett of National Public Radio reports. Cleanup at the copper smelter in El Paso, one of ASARCO's most notorious polluters, is scheduled to begin this year.

"A landmark study by the Centers for Disease Control in the early 1970s found that more than half of the children living within a mile of the smelter had levels of lead in their blood four times today's acceptable limit," Burnett reports. Children in Juarez, Mexico, just across the border, were found to have similar blood-lead levels. "We found in these children who seemed to be healthy that they had reduced IQ, slowing of their reflexes, impairment of their motor coordination," Dr. Philip Landrigan, the epidemiologist who led the research nearly 40 years ago, told Burnett. "This was one of the very first demonstrations that lead could cause toxicity on the human brain in children who appeared to have no symptoms." (Read more)

ASARCO toxic industrial sites in Tacoma, Wash., and Omaha, Neb., have been reused for condos, office buildings and a convention center after cleaning. Approximately $1 billion of the settlement goes to the Environmental Protection Agency for cleanup of 26 Superfund sites. Of that $1 billion, $436 million was a cash payment toward future cleanup costs at the Bunker Hill & Metallurgical Complex site in Idaho, the largest "cashout" amount ever for the Superfund enforcement program, EPA reported in a news release.

Study: Climate change will dry up prairie wetlands

A new study reveals the prairie wetlands in the Upper Midwest's "Pothole Prairie" region may be more sensitive to global warming that previously thought, and climate change there could affect millions of waterfowl that depend on the region for food, shelter and raising their young.

The study, published in the research journal BioScience, used a new wetland model that projected major reductions in water volume, shortening of the time water remains in wetlands and changes to wetland vegetation dynamics, Newswise reports. "The impact to the millions of wetlands that attract countless ducks to these breeding grounds in spring makes it difficult to imagine how to maintain today’s level of waterfowl populations in altered climate conditions," Dr. Glenn Guntenspergen, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher and one of the authors, said in a news release. "Parents may not have time to raise their young to where they can fly because of wetlands drying up too quickly in the warming climate of the future." Many wetland species require a minimum time in water to complete their life cycles.

"Unfortunately, the model simulations show that under forecasted climate-change scenarios for this region (an increase of 4 degrees Celsius), the western prairie potholes will be too dry and the eastern ones will have too few functional wetlands and nesting habitat to support historical levels of waterfowl and other wetland-dependent species," Dr. W. Carter Johnson, another study author and a researcher at South Dakota State University, said in the release. (Read more)

Obama publicly acknowledges that Senate may pass energy bill without cap-and-trade system

Last week we reported rumors of the growing chance of Congress moving ahead with a climate bill without a system for capping and trading greenhouse-gas emissions. Yesterday President Obama publicly voiced that possibility for the first time. "We may be able to separate these things out," Obama said at town-hall meeting in Nashua, N.H. "And it's conceivable that that's where the Senate ends up. But the concept of incentivizing clean energy so that it's the cheaper, more effective kind of energy is one that is proven to work, and is actually a market-based approach."

"I think cap and trade has a long road here obviously," New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg told Darren Samuelsohn of ClimateWire and The New York Times. "There's a lot of good initiatives on energy policy that are on a shorter track and will hopefully be pursued aggressively." North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan told Samuelsohn he wants the Senate to pass the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee bill, which would establish a nationwide renewable electricity standard along with a host of other energy incentives.

Obama told the crowd his energy agenda is centered on promoting energy efficiency and clean technologies, including renewables, nuclear power and carbon capture and storage at coal-fired power plants. He said going for an energy bill alone is like saying, "let's do the fun stuff before we do the hard stuff." A White House spokesman told Samuelsohn Obama's comments were simply observationsabout the Senate debate, and his views about comprehensive energy and climate-change legislation were made clear in last week's State of the Union address. Advocates of a broad Senate climate bill "were quick to downplay the president's remarks," Samuelsohn reports. (Read more)

Betting on the come, feds say corn ethanol can be produced with a smaller carbon footprint, so is OK

The Obama administration yesterday unveiled a broad new vision of biofuels development to meet the mandate for 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022. Chief among the new strategies is a change of opinion from the Environmental Protection Agency that the corn-based ethanol and soy-diesel industries can have a carbon footprint small enough to be part of the plan, Jessica Leber of Environment and Energy Daily reports. Most of the current 12-billion-gallon biofuel supply comes from corn ethanol, but Leber writes, "much of the remaining mandate will be met by cellulosic fuels that have a smaller carbon footprint and aren't made with food or feed grains."

Biofuel companies were relieved by the long-delayed regulations, which provide some stability for the industry. "Still, the controversial regulation drew simultaneous praise and criticism from special interests on all sides of the issue, from the biofuels industry itself and from environmental groups," Leber writes.

Some environmentalists questioned EPA's decision to include corn ethanol because it relied on improvements in the industry to mitigate water, land and carbon impacts that are not yet in place. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson defended the decision, saying it came after EPA "revised models to incorporate updated crop yield estimates and the use of animal feed co-products" to calculate the carbon footprint, Leber writes.

EPA also included "120 additional countries in their estimates of the international carbon emissions spurred by an expanded domestic ethanol market," Leber reports. Environmentalists want the footprint calculation to include estimates of indirect emissions, caused when farmers abroad clear forests to plant grain, but some in Congress say they will keep fighting the idea. "To think that we can credibly measure the impact of international indirect land use is completely unrealistic, and I will continue to push for legislation that prevents unreliable methods and unfair standards from burdening the biofuels industry," said House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., who this week introduced a bill to that effect. (Read more)

Ken Anderson of Brownfield Network, citing the Nebraska Corn Board, says "EPA estimated that corn-based ethanol reduces greenhouse gases 21 percent over gasoline. Without that penalty, corn ethanol would achieve a 52 percent reduction rating." The board applauded EPA's higher rating for distillers' grains, the leftover feedstock that is fed to animals. (Read more)

Weekly papers decry proposed Postal Service rule

A proposed U.S. Postal Service rule may be the last straw for some weekly newspapers that depend on the mail to reach most of their readers, the editor-publisher of a crusading weekly in the Texas Panhandle wrote in a letter reprinted in this month's newsletter of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.

"Our number will surely be smaller" because most papers will fail the "droop test," in which a paper is dangled from a flat surface, writes Laurie Ezzell Brown, left, of The Canadian Record. The old rule allowed a paper to droop four inches and still qualify for discount mailing rate; under the proposed rule, if a paper droops more than three inches, its rates will go up 54 to 78 percent, according to the National Newspaper Association, the main lobbying group for weeklies. "NNA hasn’t seen any evidence than one inch of ‘droop’ more or less is going to affect handling costs one iota," NNA Postal Chairman Max Heath told USPS in a letter.

What galls many weekly publishers is that the Postal Service increasingly fails to live up to the last word in its name: "I am interrupted repeatedly by telephone calls from subscribers to The Record in surrounding communities who did not receive this week’s newspaper in the mail today," Brown writes. "Each caller has told us how important the newspaper is to him, and how much he enjoys reading it." She is especially moved by those who refer to it as "my Canadian Record," which to us helps define whether a newspaper is a community paper or not.

The Record is online, but "We find that most of our customers — even the young ones — prefer the more tactile experience of leafing through the pages of their community newspaper," Brown writes. "If there is a last straw, this new and rather aptly named 'droop' test may well be it. Most lightweight periodicals like newspapers will almost certainly fail the new deflection test." And she adds, "The new standards are likely to affect the Postal Service’s delivery standards as well, promising more calls of complaint and more — yes, more — cancellations of subscriptions by readers who alue the product we create but have lost faith in our ability to deliver it."

Brown's letter is a strong case for rural newspapers. The ISWNE newsletter is online here. The comment period for the new rule ended Jan. 13.

Recycling wastewater may be key to tapping tight gas fields in more environmentally friendly way

We've been following the natural-gas "fracking" boom closely, but now the country's largest news agency is on the story. "A drilling technique that is beginning to unlock staggering quantities of natural gas underneath Appalachia also yields a troubling byproduct: powerfully briny wastewater that can kill fish and give tap water a foul taste and odor," Marc Levy and Vicki Smith of The Associated Press report. (AP map by P. Prengman)

Fracking, short for "fracturing," is a drilling method in which "millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are blasted into each well to fracture tightly compacted shale and release trapped natural gas," the reporters explain. It has opened the Marcellus Shale's deep, vast gas reserves for the first time, but the industry must develop proper wastewater disposal and recycling techniques before moving ahead, Levy and Smith write. "The Marcellus Shale in on its way to being the nation's first gas field where drilling water is widely reused," they predict.

"Many doubt the hard Appalachian geology is porous enough to absorb all the wastewater, and the climate is too humid for evaporating ponds," the reporters write. "That leaves recycling as the most obvious option." Entrepreneurs are currently marketing systems to distill the wastewater at well sites, Levy and Smith report, and Range Resources Corp. in southwest Pennsylvania already "pipes wastewater into a central holding pond, dilutes it with fresh water and reuses it for fracking." Levy is based in Pennsylvania, Smith in West Virginia. (Read more)

Meat industry prepares for a negative report from CBS-TV on antibiotics in livestock production

The meat industry is bracing for what it fears will be an unflatering CBS Evening News two-part series about antibiotic use in livestock production. The story will air tonight and tomorrow after being pushed back from its original scheduled airing by the Haiti earthquake coverage, Rita Jane Gabbett of Meatingplace.com reports. UPDATE, Feb. 4: Looks like it has been pushed back again. Nothing last night or tonight. (Ditto for Feb. 5.)

"Feedback from pork producers suggest the segments will be highly critical of livestock and poultry production," Dave Wamer, National Pork Producers spokesman, told Gabbett. CBS also interviewed Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., sponsor of a bill that would control antibiotic use in livestock. The crew also visited farms where free-range and antibiotic-free livestock are raised. (Read more, subscription required)

Government to amp up biofuel production efforts

To meet the nation's biofuel goal, the government must accelerate the development of biofuel crops and products, says a new report from the White House. In the report to be released today, "An administration task force said the government needs, among other things, to set targets for commercializing new types of fuel crops, such as switchgrass," Phillip Brasher of the Des Monies Register reports. The report also advocates a regional approach that promoted specific fuels to suit particular regions.

Not everything in the report will please the biofuel industry, though. It suggests federal agencies identify "environmental and social issues that may confront biofuels development," Brasher writes, and it says new biofuel refineries must have guaranteed markets. The industry has been outspoken in its belief that such a requirement would make it virtually impossible for companies to obtain federal loan guarantees.

"Past performance and business as usual will not get us there," the report says of the 2022 mandate for the nation to use 36 billion gallons of biofuels. "Today, only 12 billion gallons of biofuels are produced annually." The report did not say how the agency would deal with the 10-percent cap on the amount of ethanol that can be added to gasoline, and greenhouse-gas reduction standards that could limit the increased production of ethanol and biodiesel, Brasher reports. (Read more)

Kansas reporter must testify in murder trial; expected to be asked to reveal confidential source

Last month we reported the Kansas Supreme Court had granted Dodge City Daily Globe reporter Clair O'Brien a stay of a lower-court order preventing her from being forced to reveal a confidential source. Now the court has refused to quash a subpoena ordering O'Brien to testify about her jailhouse interview with murder suspect Samuel Bonilla, Editor and Publisher reports. Ford County Attorney Terry Malone issued the subpoena just days after the initial stay was granted. (Read more)

Obama budget again calls for stopping farm subsidies to wealthy, but prospects remain dim

As part of his proposed fiscal 2011 budget, President Obama has again proposed slashing crop subsidies to "wealthy farmers." Obama targeted those payments last year, but failed to pass the cuts. Charles Abbott of Reuters reports the chances of passage this year may be slim.

The plan would "end crop subsidies to people with more than $250,000 adjusted gross income (AGI) from off-farm sources or more than $500,000 on-farm AGI," Abbott reports. The caps now are $500,000 off-farm AGI and $750,000 on-farm AGI. The budget proposal also calls for reforming "administration of the federally subsidized crop insurance system to end 'huge windfall profits,' Abbott writes.

Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said she will oppose "cuts that will harm farmers, ranchers and rural communities." House committee chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., added, "It is Congress's job to write the annual budget, and based on my conversations with House leadership, no one is interested in making cuts to the Farm Bill after the battle we just fought to pass it a year and a half ago." (Read more)