Millionaires are investing in farms as a safe bet in an economy that they think may collapse

Financial whiz kid Brian Luftman has been
investing in farms (Courier-Journal photo)

Millionaire investors are purchasing farms as a safe bet in what they think is an uncertain economy, Jere Downs reports for The Courier-Journal in Louisville. For example, Mississippi's Barry Gollott, a self-made millionaire, has bought farms in Alabama, Kentucky and Chile. He told Downs, "In a doomsday economy, farms are where the food has to come from. The way we are going, I think default is inevitable."

Conservative investors like Gollott "are finding safety for their assets in the farmland investor pools assembled by American Farm Investors, a Lexington, Ky. investment firm conceived in the ashes of the 2008 Great Recession," Downs writes. American Farm Investors was created by Brian Luftman, "a financial whiz kid who once traded derivatives in the cattle pit of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange," sometimes making as much as $200,000 a day.

Luftman, who said he bought an Illinois farm in 2008 for $4,800 per acre and sold the farm three years later for $8,800 an acre, told Downs, "Because the market was so scary, so tumultuous, and the banks were on the verge of collapse, I bought a farm." Luftman, who now acquires one to two farms annually, said that "when he looked around for a company that managed farmland for investors like himself," he couldn't find one. So he created American Farm Investors in 2011.

"To date, the annual financial returns on the nine farms purchased and managed by AFI mirror or exceed results achieved by investors in the bond market," Downs writes. "Unlike stocks and bonds, farmland is something an investor can touch, or visit. Unlike volatile securities, farmland's been appreciating in value an average 5 percent annually." (Read more)

Rural residents pool money, resources to save, revive local businesses they deem important

After the Blue Moose Saloon closed in Renwick, Iowa, locals
bought it and re-opened it. (AP photo by Charlie Neibergall)

In some rural towns with declining populations, residents are taking matters into their own hands to revive faltering local establishments, Scott McFetridge reports for The Associated Press. For example, in Renwick, Iowa, where the population has declined from 500 to 235, locals responded to the closure of the town's only bar by pooling their funds to buy the business and fix it up so it could reopen.

A similar situation occurred "in the Missouri River village of Decatur, Neb., where a dozen people put up money to help the owners rebuild when the Green Lantern Steakhouse burned in 2008," McFetridge writes. "The restaurant, established in 1956, was what brought people into town and served as the main meeting spot in the community of 450 an hour's drive north of Omaha."

Another example is in Kiester, Minn., where "the 486 residents went so far as gaining approval from the Legislature for the city to own the local food store," McFetridge writes. "Residents later formed a co-op, and the Kiester Market sign says: 'Proud to be community owned.'"

Also, in Bowdon, N.D., with a population 135, residents "created a co-op to save a meat-cutting plant after the owner died," McFetridge writes. "Although it only employed a few people, co-op board member Larry Crowder said it was 'the busiest place on Main Street,' and residents feared Bowdon's cafe and co-op grocery could fail if the plant wasn't there to draw people into town. They managed to sell 100 shares at $5,500 apiece to fund a new plant along with grants."

This item was first posted Jan. 3 but was reposted as part of overcoming a technical issue.

Aftermath of assault at Trump rally in N.C. has a dash of hope for some, dashed hopes for others

John McGraw and Rakeem Jones meet in court
(Post photo by Liz Condo)

The presidential election was contentious, not just among candidates, but voters, leading to protests, fights and accusations of racism. One such incident took place at a Donald Trump rally in Fayetteville, N.C., a city of more than 200,000 where the population is 42 percent black and 46 percent white and Hillary Clinton won the county of 325,000 by of 56 percent to 40 percent.

Fayetteville, "an increasingly polarized city in a polarized state in a polarized country," mirrors much of the country in that is the kind of place where two varying worlds exist, one where blacks and whites live separated from each other, Terrence McCoy reports for The Washington Post. The incident at the Trump rally involved a 79-year-old white man elbowing a 27-year-old black protester in the face. While both deny race played a part in the incident, it has undeniably had an impact on it since, with "little public agreement over who was ultimately the true victim that night."

John McGraw, the assailant, said at the time, “We don’t know if he’s ISIS. We don’t know who he is. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him," McCoy writes. McGraw now says he regrets saying those things, but has never apologized to Jones and suggests that he might be the one who is the victim of racism. McGraw, who said he often asks himself why he acted the way he did, said he has "never considered himself a bigot or a hateful person." McGraw, who said he was humiliated by the press coverage, said the event wouldn't have been news if the victim had been white or McGraw has been black.

The victim, Rakeem Jones, said he quit his job after the company's name was published and he used most of his savings to buy a car, to avoid using the bus, for his new job in a different part of time, out of fear that McGraw was serious about killing him or that a white-supremacist group might decide to try something, McCoy writes. He said in his rough neighborhood in northwest Fayetteville, "threats are sometimes carried out" and he has seen friends and family members die from violence.

The two ultimately met again in court, where Jones forgave McGraw, McCoy writes. "What he got when he returned to the trailer park that day were outraged messages and online comments. As news spread, more people started calling him a sellout for forgiving McGraw. They told him he was wrong to shake his hand, that he was wrong to hug him. But he had spent nine months thinking about McGraw and the Trump rally and believed, with the election weeks past, it was time to let it go. So when McGraw, now in his own trailer, unexpectedly phoned him the next day to see how he was doing and to thank him for his decency, Jones listened awhile and told him he appreciated the call."

This item was first posted Jan. 3 but was reposted as part of overcoming a technical issue.

DNA shows students their ancestries are mixed; knowledge could help heal a fragmented nation

Emma Krentler was surprised to find African,
Asian and Middle Eastern ancestry in her DNA.
(Washington Post photo by Melissa Rudolph)

DNA testing is showing students at West Chester University in Pennsylvania that their racial make-up isn't always what they thought it was, Susan Svrluga reports for The Washington Post. The results are giving "them a neutral place from which to start to talk" and could be a helpful in rural areas in a country fragmented by race.

Anita Foeman, founder and primary investigator of the DNA Discussion Project at West Chester, wondered: "What if people started finding out things they didn’t know about themselves?" Svrluga writes. "So she begins with a short survey asking people their race and what they know about their ancestry. They spit into a vial. Several weeks later, they get an email with an estimate of their ethnic makeup, a color-coded map of their past."

"That leads to questions, stories and curiosity," Svrluga writes. "It is a welcome reset from awkwardness, defensiveness, suspicion. Now that the DNA tests are cheaper, Foeman is able to ask all the students in her honors class—almost all of them freshmen just getting to know or redefine themselves—to take the test."

Students who identify as one race have been surprised to find they have other races in their ancestry, even if it's only a small percentage, Svrluga writes. "Statistically, Foeman and her colleague Bessie Lawton have found people overestimate their European heritage and whiteness, and underestimate ancestry from other regions. Half the people think their families will respond positively to results before they take the test. Afterward, fewer than 1 in 10 think so."

But the class has allowed students a place to talk about race, Svrluga writes. Student James Devor told Svrluga that the DNA test “helps us understand we’re not all from one special place, which is really peculiar to America. Because we’re all from different areas, with different ideas that come with that ethnic culture. What makes America great is we have all those cultures combined.” (Read more)

This item was first posted Jan. 3 but was reposted as part of overcoming a technical issue.

Controversial plan for gold/copper/zinc mine in U.P. of Mich. gets state OK; needs EPA approval

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel map

Aquila Resources announced last week that it has received two state permits from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for its gold, zinc and copper Back Forty Project in Michigan's western Upper Peninsula, Molly Thekan reports for WLUC in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. "The mine permit application included Aquila's plan for mining, management of tailings and waste rock, reclamation, monitoring, contingency plan and plan for financial assurance."

Native American tribes have protested the proposed mine, saying it is located on sacred ground, Brian Bienkowski reports for Environmental Health News. "The open pit gold, zinc and copper mine would be near tribal burial sites and centuries old raised garden beds along the Menominee River, the center of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin's creation story."

"Back Forty has been in the works for more than a decade," Bienkowski writes. "The mine would cover about 83 acres near the headwaters of the Menominee River." Canada-based Aquila "estimates the mine will yield 532,000 ounces of gold, 721 million pounds of zinc, 74 millions pounds of copper, 4.6 million ounces of silver and 21 million pounds of lead—metals used in many modern-day conveniences."

Joe Maki, head of the state mining division, said the operation still needs "two necessary permits before any mining begins: the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit and a wetlands permits," Bienkowski writes. "The NPDES permit goes through the Environmental Protection Agency and it’s unclear when it will go through, Maki said."

This item was first posted Jan. 3 but was reposted as part of overcoming a technical issue.

Park officials to blame for devastating Gatlinburg fire, say former U.S. Forest Service firefighters

Lisa McGill Reagan looks for personal belongings she
could save in the rubble of her home in Gatlinburg.
(Knoxville News-Sentinel photo by Brianna Paciorka)

Former U.S. Forest Service firefighters say National Park Service officials could have stopped wildfires that devastated homes and businesses near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Nov, 28, Don Jacobs reports for the Knoxville News-Sentinel. Bill Gabbert, a former Forest Service firefighter who writes an online blog about wildland fires and aviation resources to battle them, said the Park Service "should have doused a 1.5-acre fire . . . days before high winds created a mega-fire that swept into Gatlinburg."

Gabbert and four other former Forest Service firefighters said "officials in the national park should have summoned every resource available when alerted Nov. 26 of the expected high winds," Jacobs reports. Gabbert added, “I’ve written for years that the best way to keep fires from becoming mega-fires is to attack them with overwhelming force, both on the ground and from the air. People say that is very expensive, but it is not as expensive as losing 14 lives and $500 million in lost structures.”

The former Forest Service firefighters "agreed park officials didn’t pay attention to the severe drought, low humidity that provided a tinderbox for flames, available options to quell the slow-moving fire before winds made the flames uncontrollable, and alarming weather forecasts," Jacobs reports. Clay Jordan, deputy superintendent of the park, "said all the options outlined by park fire management officer Greg Salansky 'made sense to me,'" Jacobs reports. Jordan told him, “There was no way the fire could have been extinguished before the winds came."

Jacobs also reports, "No one turned the first spade of dirt for several days to contain the flames" after the fire was discovered Nov. 23; "In an apparent breach of policy, no one monitored the Chimney Tops 2 fire when high winds swept flames to other ridges a mile away; and the first direct attack on the fire didn’t occur until it had grown to 35 acres four days after it was discovered, and that suppression started late Nov. 27, limiting the number of airborne water dumps on the flames."
(Read more)

Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is in line to be Trump's secretary of agriculture

Sonny Perdue (Atlanta
Journal-Constitution photo)

"Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is emerging as President-elect Donald Trump's selection for agriculture secretary even though the search had focused in recent weeks on a woman or Hispanic and no official announcement has yet been issued," reports Philip Brasher of Agri-Pulse. "A source close to the transition team confirmed media reports Monday that Trump had settled on Perdue, whom the president-elect had interviewed in November."

Perdue was governor in 2003-11, after 11 years in the state Senate; he became a Republican in 1998. He is a veterinarian but "spent much of his career in business in rural Georgia, running a company with agribusiness and transportation holdings," Brasher notes.

A possible key to the selection: "Perdue's former campaign manager, Nick Ayers, is now an aide to Vice President-elect Mike Pence," Brasher reports.

Many in agriculture were expecting Trump to pick a Hispanic, since he "has yet to select one for his cabinet," Brasher writes. "Last week, Trump interviewed former Texas Gov. Henry Bonilla and former Texas A&M University President Elsa Murano in Florida and later was photographed with them. Trump also interviewed former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado and met briefly with Susan Combs, a former Texas agriculture commissioner and state comptroller."

Treating public notices as news, not just ads, increases readership and knowledge

The News-Graphic's public-notice page (for a
large version click on it, or here for the original)

At a time when local governments are asking state legislatures to eliminate or reduce the requirements for publishing paid public notices in newspapers, perhaps it's time for the papers to start treating the notices as the news that they are, not just advertising.

That's what Kentucky's thrice-weekly Georgetown News-Graphic is doing, making the "legal ads" look like news stories "designed to capture readers’ attention and promote the kind of serendipity that distinguishes newsprint from electronic formats," reports the Public Notice Resource Center, the national advocate for state public-notice laws.

News-Graphic Publisher Mike Scogin got the idea from newspaper design consultant Ed Henninger. “The news value of public notice is overlooked,” Scogin told PNRC. “I thought that redesigning our public-notice section was a good way to promote that. I also wanted to show the local government units that run the notices that we’re acting in their best interest.” Kentucky law requires the notices to run in 7-point type, so Scogin charges for them as if they were. “I’m happy to give up the extra space to provide our readers with information they need,” he said.

"He says local government officials have generally acknowledged the new look, but its biggest proponents have been his readers. He hears regularly from subscribers who hail the increased accessibility of the notices," PNRC reports. "Not everyone has been happy about it though. The owner of a liquor store who placed a notice in the News-Graphic to qualify for a liquor license was irate because its increased visibility prevented him from keeping his plans hidden from his local competitor."

Battles loom, some among Republicans, about farm and food policy under Trump and new Congress

The presidential election saw little discussion of farm and food issues, "Plenty of people in Washington, including powerful factions within the Republican majority in Congress, are hoping to change a wide variety of food-related policies, and believe that the new administration offers a prime opportunity to make those changes happen," Allison Aubrey and Dan Charles report for NPR's "The Salt." Kip Tom, a farmer in Indiana who was a member of Trump's advisory committee on agricultural policy, recently told The Salt that this is a time to 'swing for the fences'."

But just what that means is open for debate in the Republican Party. Some conservative Republicans will probably try again to separate the Farm Bill from food and nutrition legislation, but "Farm groups and poverty advocates are likely to mount a fierce counterattack. The stakes are high," Aubrey and Charles report. Also on the food front, "There could be attempts to roll back parts of the school-lunch reforms ushered in during the Obama administration."

Farm labor is another divisive issue for Republicans and president-elect Donald Trump. "Hostility to illegal immigration was central to Trump's campaign," NPR notes, "but farm groups, many of them bedrock supporters of the Republican Party, are adamantly opposed to any wholesale deportation of immigrants who aren't in the country legally. Many large-scale dairy farmers, and growers of fruits and vegetables, rely heavily on immigrant labor. This promises to be a delicate backroom negotiation."

When it comes to environmental regulations, Aubrey and Charles write, the question is "Which will go first?" A prime candidate is the Environmental Protection Agency's definition of "waters of the United States" under the Clean Water Act, but "Other environmental regulations that are less well-known but probably more significant may also face scrutiny. Among them are the 'conservation compliance' provisions of the Farm Bill. Under this law, farmers who plow up native grasslands or drain wetlands can lose their federal crop subsidies. The EPA also could reduce the number of large-scale animal feeding operations that it regulates as 'point sources' of pollution."

Environmentalists are concerned about what Trump's EPA will mean for bees and other pollinators. "Scientists are concerned that the widespread use of neonicotinoid pesticides on crops such as corn and soybeans is linked to bee decline. Under the Obama administration, the EPA has been reviewing the safety of neonics. The Sierra Club is watching this issue closely," saying in an email to supporters that "The fate of bees — and all the crops and ecosystems that depend on them — may come down to a standoff between the Trump administration and science itself."

Heitkamp, other Democratic senators in Trump states unsure how to satisfy hunger for change

U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.

"Like North Dakota’s whooping cranes and black-footed ferrets, Heidi Heitkamp is part of an endangered species," Margaret Carlson writes for Bloomberg View. "Less than two years from now, the first-term Democratic senator will be running for re-election in a state where Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 36 percentage points. Even for a centrist as popular as Heitkamp, that’s a mountain to climb."

She has company. "Heitkamp is one of 25 Democrats defending U.S. Senate seats in a post-Trump world," Carlson notes. "A few weeks ago she had a dinner of Chinese takeout for colleagues from four other states that went overwhelmingly for Trump: West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, Indiana’s Joe Donnelly and Montana’s Jon Tester. The consensus was that that there’s a fierce hunger for change that favored Trump and that Democratic candidates must find a way to satisfy it. No one was sure how."

As for Heitkamp, she "makes the case that she’s as representative of her constituents as any Republican presidential candidate," Carlson reports. "She lives in the state, commuting to Washington. She was speaking for rural voters before Trump came on the scene. Her challenge is to keep doing so without looking like she’s rolling with the Trump tide."

Post series on rural death rates end in another town that says 'This isn't the place it used to be'

A billboard on US 23 in Chillicothe offers help. Locals say the road
brings dealers from the north; it leads south to Portsmouth, site of
Dreamland, Sam Quinones' book about how "pill mills" helped create
the opioid epidemic. (Washington Post photo by Bonnie Jo Mount)

The Washington Post ended its year-long series about "an epidemic of self-destruction in small-town and rural America" with a visit by Joel Achenbach to Chillicothe, Ohio, where 40 people died of overdoses in 2015, three times the number recorded in 2012.

"Chillicothe was once protected from urban pathologies by its very remoteness. Today, everyone lives in a wired, networked, smaller world," Achenbach reports. "Addiction is like termite rot, eating at the foundation of a community. This cultural self-destruction is particularly pernicious when women with children can’t function as mothers."

In an accompanying piece, Achenbach takes a broader look: "It’s a national phenomenon without a single, simple explanation. A study by Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, published in late 2015, brought national attention to the spike in the white death rate. Our data analysis showed that this was driven largely by increased mortality in white women, and we also found a geographical gradient: The death rates had jumped most significantly outside big cities."

Achenbach drove US 50, "the backbone of America," and found people "falling victim to drugs, drink and suicide — the so-called diseases of despair. . . . They’ve found a great deal of traction in places facing economic decline and social stagnation. That describes much of rural and small-town America and certainly the industrial areas of the so-called Rust Belt. . . . As globalization took hold, factory jobs grew scarcer in small cities as well. The U.S. economy began to concentrate wealth in big cities and along the coasts. Unions lost power, and unskilled labor jobs saw little or no wage growth. Now add to this the prescription painkillers heavily marketed since the 1990s. There arose a pill economy, with pills as good as cash. The opioid epidemic exploded in places that are far away, physically and culturally, from the neighborhoods where lawmakers and media figures typically live."

Achenbach writes, "Along the road, I talked to judges, police officers, truant officers, addiction recovery counselors, addicts, and ordinary people coming and going. There was a common theme: This isn’t the place it used to be."

Please consider helping The Rural Blog and its publisher with a charitable donation today

By Al Cross, Director
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

As you write those year-end checks to charitable causes, please consider the publisher of The Rural Blog, the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

The institute does much more than the blog; it serves as a resource for rural journalists all over the country and for metropolitan journalists doing rural stories; conducts seminars and workshops on covering issues; conducts research on rural journalism; makes presentations at national and state news-organization meetings and universities; does a monthly issues column for the National Newspaper Association and state press associations; presents the annual Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism; co-hosts the hotline of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors and stands up for the essential role of journalism in democracy.

We are always looking for ways to expand our work. In 2016 we began making appearances on RFD-TV to discuss rural issues, started a Community Journalism Community in the Society of Professional Journalists; got a new advisory-board chairman who spearheaded development of a five-year strategic plan; and was part of an effort by the Kettering Foundation and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications to make service to democracy a stronger part of journalism-school curricula.

This month, the Institute got a favorable mention in a story by Kathy Kiely of Moyers & Co. about the future of journalism. It shorthanded our name, but used one of my chronic laments:

The Rural Journalism Institute’s Al Cross, who is trying to raise money to endow his organization, expresses a similar frustration. “Nobody wants to give money for journalism unless they can compromise your independence,” he says. “Everybody’s got an agenda.”

I was speaking mainly about philanthropies, and did note some exceptions; there are some people who do give money for journalism, and we appreciate that support. It allows me to have a half-time assistant who mainly produces The Rural Blog, but our endowment needs to grow to produce enough income for a full-time assistant that would allow the Institute to come much closer to reaching its potential. At a time when journalism is under stress, outfits like ours need a strong voice to speak up for its essential role in the transparency and accountability that serve democracy.

To make a tax-deductible donation to the Institute’s endowment at the University of Kentucky, via a secure Web site, click here and type “rural journalism” in the search box at the upper right to get a donation form. To contribute to our operating fund, send a check made out to the university, with "Rural Journalism" on the memo line, to the Institute at 122 Grehan Journalism Building, University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506-0042. Thanks!

Hundreds in E. Ky. seek to keep federal disability benefits put at risk by fraud of lawyer and judge

Attorney Eric Conn advertised widely.

Hundreds of families in Eastern Kentucky are fighting to regain the disability benefits they lost after the federal government said their attorney and a federal administrative law judge awarded the benefits fraudulently. At least three suicides have been blamed on the unprecedented debacle, and the Social Security Administration is refusing to let the people see the medical evidence on which their disability determination was based, though it has acknowledged there is no evidence that they were "involved in the scheme," Claire Galofaro reports for The Associated Press.

About 900 former clients of lawyer Eric Conn of Stanville had their benefits cut off. The suicides spurred U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, to get the SSA "to allow Conn’s clients to keep their checks as they struggled in a series of hearings to prove they deserved them all along. The Appalachian Research and Defense Fund, a legal-aid organization in Eastern Kentucky, grew so worried they recruited the largest network of volunteer attorneys since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," Galofaro reports. "The band of 150 lawyers – some of the best disability attorneys in the nation – has become a sort grassroots suicide prevention network."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article123600329.html#storylink=cpy

"The government has good reason to ferret out disability fraud," Galofaro writes. "Critics call it a secret welfare program that morphed over the decades from serving the truly disabled to aiding the unemployable: the uneducated, the frail, the unfortunates who live in places where a rotting economy relies on back-breaking labor. Burgeoning claims – in Kentucky’s Floyd County [where Conn's practice was based] 15 percent are on disability – have pushed the disability fund to the brink of insolvency. The government has squeezed other programs for the poor, leaving many in these crumbling corners of blue-collar America with few good options. The mass suspensions laid bare their absolute dependence on disability."

Former U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a physician who led a Senate investigation of Conn, sees "a broken system abused by those who don’t truly deserve it, yet grow dependent on government benefits," Galofaro reports. "They should have known better than to hire a 'shyster lawyer,' he said, and those who didn’t deserve benefits in the first place shouldn’t draw another dime. Government dependency, he believes, is the first step toward tyranny."

Coburn told Galofaro, “Do I feel sorry for them? Yes,” he said. “Do they have hardships? Yes. But do they meet the qualifications for Social Security Disability? Absolutely not. Here’s what the law says: if you can do any job in the economy you don’t qualify for disability. Rules have to mean something, and life isn’t fair.”

It certainly doesn't seem fair for disabled coal miner Tim Dye, the focal point of Galofaro's story, who has been told he could hold down a desk job. He and his wife, who said she nearly committed suicide, "wonder who would want to hire an old coal miner for a sit-down job, with nothing more than a high-school diploma, a crippled back and an eight-year gap on his résumé." Dye told Galofaro, “In a month or two, we won’t have nothing. We’re losing everything.”

The issue of access to medical evidence is in court. "U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar — on President-elect Donald Trump’s short list for the U.S. Supreme Court — issued an opinion last month that found a number of Conn’s clients were afforded fewer protections than suspected terrorists and ordered the Social Security Administration to reconsider its process," Galofaro notes. "But another federal judge sided with the agency. The question will now likely be settled by a federal appeals court." Ned Pillersdorf, the lawyer leading the legal-aid effort, has an op-ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Feds offer 5 options, none preferred, to limit mines on public lands to protect greater sage grouse

Grouse mating ritual in Colorado (AP photo by David Zalubowski)

The Bureau of Land Management offered five options Thursday to limit mining on federal property to protect greater sage grouse, but took the unusual step of leaving the choice up to the new administration after a public-comment period ends in March.

"The options range from banning new mining activity on about 15,000 square miles for up to 20 years to imposing no additional restrictions on mine locations," reports Dan Elliott of The Associated Press. "The rules would affect sage grouse habitat on federal land in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. Under all the options, mining and exploration projects already approved or underway could proceed. Energy companies could still extract oil and gas from any restricted lands, but they would have to use directional drilling from some distance away to avoid disturbing the surface."

Bureau of Land Management map; click on it to view a larger version

The posture of Trump's pick for Interior secretary, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Montana, toward the regulations is unclear. Up to 877,624 acres (1,320 square miles) in Montana could be affected. Randi Spivak of the the Center for Biological Diversity noted that Zinke describes himself as “a Teddy Roosevelt Republican,” interested in conservation of wildlife, but Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nevada, called the options an “11th-hour attack on Nevada and the West.”

"An estimated 200,000 to 500,000 sage grouse remain in 11 Western states, but their numbers are down significantly because they are losing habitat to development," Elliott reports. "The size of the sage grouse population is considered an indicator of the overall health of the vast Western sagebrush ecosystem and other species that depend on it. The proposed mining restrictions are part of a broad plan to save the chicken-size bird without resorting to the Endangered Species Act, which could bring stricter limits on mining, drilling, agriculture and other activity." The options are part of a draft environmental impact statement.

Coal-fired power plants will continue to close despite change at EPA, Brookings researchers say

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, administrator-designate of the Environmental Protection Agency, has threatened to dismantle EPA's Clean Power Plan to end the “war on coal,” but that phrase "is a false narrative that oversimplifies what is happening in the energy economy," write Devashree Saha and Sifan Liu of the Brookings Institution, a old-line liberal think tank.

Pruitt and President-elect Donald Trump "are ignoring fundamental market realities" that are buffeting the coal industry "in blaming environmental regulations under the Obama administration as the sole reason for the recent turmoil" in the industry, they write. "The natural gas glut has reshaped how we get electricity across the board, with natural gas-fired generation expected to surpass coal generation in the United States for the first time in 2016. At the same time, renewable energy is continuing to increase its market share aided by declining costs, increasing efficiency, and economies of scale."

The authors note that utilities retired 14.8 gigawatts of coal-fired electric generating capacity in 2015, and 6.5 gigawatts in the first half of 2016. For 2015, "The loss in coal energy represents 5 percent of the nation’s total coal-fired electrical generation capacity, a significant number in a single year," they write, along with a chart showing states Trump carried led the list of coal-plant retirements:

Click on chart to view a larger version

"The Energy Information Administration has identified an additional 14 gigawatts of coal capacity earmarked for retirement through 2028," the authors write. "The proposed coal plant retirements are geographically concentrated, with most closures in the mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Midwest where most coal generation takes place. . . . Two generators in Kentucky are scheduled to close by 2017 that compose 9 percent of the state’s coal-fired capacity. . . . Few new coal plants are in the works to replace those that are being shut down."

The authors predict, "Market forces enabling natural gas and renewable energy penetration across the nation will continue to drive down coal use. Regardless of the fate of the CPP, the utility industry is likely to move forward with cleaner energy. The CEO of Michigan’s largest electric-power provider recently announced that his company is still planning to retire eight of its nine remaining coal plants by 2030, regardless of whether Trump tries to repeal President Obama’s climate policies. Other large electric utilities are also realigning their long-term investment strategies in favor of natural gas and no-carbon power sources."

The writers work in Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Program. Saha is a senior policy associate and an associate fellow, and Liu is a research assistant. Their article cites a recent paper by Saha and Mark Muro, "Growth, carbon, and Trump: State progress and drift on economic growth and emissions ‘decoupling’." On Dec. 6, Saha published an article titled "Five charts show why Trump can't deliver on his coal promises."

EPA goes ahead with new rules aimed at protecting farmworkers from pesticides

Rejecting requests from the American Farm Bureau Federation and state agriculture departments, the Environmental Protection Agency says its new rule designed to protect farmworkers from pesticides will take effect Jan. 2, as scheduled.

"The rule includes a host of new requirements to protect the nation's 2 million farmworkers, including annual training (instead of every five years) for the workers themselves; mandatory posting of no-entry signs for the most hazardous pesticides; and new no-entry 'application exclusion zones' of up to 100 feet to protect workers from spray drift," Stephen Davies reports for Agri-Pulse.

A major objection to the rule is that it would allow farmworkers to designate a third party to receive information about pesticide use at a farm. Virginia Ruiz, director of occupational and ecological health at Farmworker Justice, "said it's important for workers, who often do not speak English and are afraid that asking for information might threaten their employment, to be able to designate someone else to receive pesticide use information," Davies reports. "Farm groups and their members are worried that anti-pesticide groups could gain access to the records and 'make it seem as if (the farmers) are doing something illegal,' said Paul Schlegel," Farm Bureau's director of environment and energy policy.

Some experts remain skeptical that new rules for antibiotics in animals will reduce use

New federal guidelines for use of antibiotics in animals, which take effect Jan. 1, may not reduce their use, reports Amy Mayer of Iowa Public Radio after interviewing farmers and agriculture experts.

Under the new rules, "all antibiotics important for human health" must be obtained with written permission from a veterinarian, "similar to a prescription," Mayer notes. "In the past, farmers could buy feed containing antibiotics at the local feed store without even consulting a vet. Now, they can't." One rule requires such vets to visit the farm and be familiar with its operations.

"Some public health officials, doctors and politicians have questioned whether the rules will bring about any meaningful changes," Mayer reports, quoting James Johnson, an infectious-disease doctor at the University of Minnesota: "I frankly am skeptical that we're going to see any drop in amount of drug used or any big shift in which particular drugs are used."

The rules are aimed at stemming the trend of bacteria that develop resistance to antibiotics. "It's very clear that these high-antibiotic use, intensive animal operations are great breeding grounds for resistant bacteria," Johnson told Mayer, who adds: "Johnson also recognizes agriculture's argument that there's limited data definitively linking on-farm antibiotic use to resistant infections in humans. The FDA declined to explain just how its new rules will reduce antibiotic resistance. But, in a written statement, told Iowa Public Radio that it's expanding its data collection on the sale and distribution of antibiotics in hopes of better studying the link between farm use and resistance."

769 hospitals penalized for patient-safety shortcomings; rural critical-access hospitals exempt

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has imposed a 1 percent cut in payments to 769 U.S. hospitals that have high rates of potentially avoidable infections and complications such as blood clots, bedsores and falls. "The reductions apply not only to patient stays but also will reduce the amount of money hospitals get to teach medical residents and care for low-income people," Kaiser Health News reports.

This is the third year of the Hospital-Acquired Conditions Reduction Program, created by the 2010 health reform law, but the first year that "the spread of antibiotic-resistant germs" has figured in the assessment, Jordan Rau notes for Kaiser. That may have caused a spike in the number of hospitals being penalized. Rau reports, "Forty percent of the hospitals penalized this year escaped punishment in the first two years of the program, a Kaiser Health News analysis shows."

The many rural hospitals that are designated "critical access" are not subject to the penalties. Neither are "specialized hospitals, such as those that treat psychiatric patients, veterans and children," Rau notes. "Of the remaining hospitals, the Affordable Care Act requires that Medicare penalize the 25 percent that perform the worst on these measures, even if they have reduced infection rates from previous years." The list of penalized hospitals is here; it's also available are a PDF or in a sortable Excel file.

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality "estimates there were 3.8 million hospital injuries last year, which translates to 115 injuries during every 1,000 patient hospital stays," Rau writes. "Each year, at least 2 million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, including nearly a quarter million cases in hospitals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 23,000 people die from them. Infection experts fear that soon patients may face new strains of germs that are resistant to all existing antibiotics. Between 20 and 50 percent of all antibiotics prescribed in hospitals are either not needed or inappropriate, studies have found. Their proliferation — inside the hospital, in doctor’s prescriptions and in farm animals sold for food — have hastened new strains of bacteria that are resistant to many drugs."

Obama creates two national monuments; Utah congressman vows to undo one of them

Screenshot of Salt Lake Tribune interactive map; click on it for larger version

President Obama created two new national monuments Wednesday, comprising 1.65 million acres in Utah and Nevada. "White House officials said Obama had hoped that Congress would act to enshrine the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and the Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada and that he only acted after the House and Senate failed to do so," Bill Tomson reports for Agri-Pulse.

The new Bears Ears National Monument, named after two mountain peaks, covers 1.35 million acres and is the more controversial of the two, Tomson reports: "A commission made up of five representatives from Native American tribes will manage the national monument, and mining, fracking and oil drilling will be barred, said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality."

The tribes are the Hopi, Navajo, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute and Ute of the Uintah Ouray. Both monuments contain land that tribes consider sacred, important cultural sites, and fragile wildlife habitat.

The White House noted that Obama's proclamation was based on a bill introduced by Utah Republican Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz of Utah, "but Chaffetz was sharply critical of Obama's action" and vowed to reverse it, Tomson reports.

"After years of painstaking negotiations with a diverse coalition, Utah had a comprehensive bipartisan solution on the table that would have protected the Bears Ears and provided a balanced solution,” Chaffetz said in a statement. “We will work to repeal this top-down decision and replace it with one that garners local support and creates a balanced, win-win solution.”

Goldfuss said the deed is done: “The Antiquities Act gives the president the authority to create monuments, but does not provide explicit authority to undo them.”

Deseret News map; for its story on the monuments, click here.

Some LGBT people in rural areas have a tough transition to retired life; some re-enter closet

http://www.npr.org/2016/12/27/507142842/for-lgbt-people-in-rural-areas-a-tough-transition-to-retired-life