Hearing on Obama administration's fracking regulations to be held after his presidency ends

The court date for the Obama administration's proposed regulations on horizontal hydraulic fracturing on public and tribal lands has been pushed back until after Donald Trump's inauguration, meaning "the Obama administration will no longer have the opportunity to defend its signature fracking regulation," Ellen Gilmer reports for Energywire. The court date, originally scheduled for Jan. 17, was moved to March 22 to allow extra argument time.

"The Bureau of Land Management rule sets new requirements for well construction, wastewater management and chemical disclosure for fracked wells on public and tribal lands, and was the administration's most high-profile attempt to increase oversight as fracking and horizontal drilling took hold across the country," Gilmer writes. "The rule was finalized in March 2015 and immediately challenged in court by states, industry and tribes."

A district court in Wyoming ruled in 2015 that the Obama administration does not have the authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing on public lands, but the administration said the court made a legal error.

"It's unclear how the Trump administration plans to approach the case," Gilmer writes. "His administration could continue to defend the rule in court—a possibility some experts consider likely because the litigation focuses not just on the regulation but on the high-stakes question of whether BLM has authority over fracking." Officials with the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Department of Justice "could also move to settle the lawsuit with states, industry and the Ute Indian Tribe. In an extreme scenario, Trump could withdraw the rule before oral arguments." (Read more)

McConnell claims environmental rules, not natural gas, mainly to blame for coal industry's downturn

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) released a letter he sent to President-elect Donald Trump, dated Jan. 4, proposing ways the incoming administration can revitalize the region's coal industry. McConnell, who has blamed President Obama for coal's downfall, said environmental regulations are largely to blame for the downturn in the industry and that natural gas is not the solution to the nation's energy needs.

"I have concerns about recent shifts away from coal infrastructure in favor of natural gas," McConnell wrote. "Historically, natural-gas prices have fluctuated over time, and continuing to shift our infrastructure away from coal could have harmful lasting economic effects if gas prices shift back to the high levels experienced not long ago." Gas prices have become lower and more stable because of the huge increase in supply caused by horizontal hydraulic fracturing.

McConnell recommended repealing regulations, starting with the Stream Protection Rule, the Obama administration's new regulation aimed at reducing water pollution from surface mining, Dylan Brown reports for Greenwire. "McConnell asked Trump to bar enforcement of the rule by the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. He also asked Trump to support a resolution of disapproval. The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to strike any regulation within 60 days. Republicans have already started the process in the House."

McConnell "urged Trump to stop the federal defense of the Clean Power Plan—carbon-emission limits for power plants—and the Waters of the U.S. regulation defining the federal regulatory reach over wetlands and waterways" under the Clean Water Act, Brown writes. "Trump has said he disapproves of both rules, and U.S. EPA regulations generally."

"McConnell also asked Trump to maintain spending to help Kentucky and neighboring Appalachian states and to help keep the $90 million abandoned mine land pilot project for cleaning up old mines to spur economic development," Brown writes. "He also asked for a long-term solution to the health care crisis facing thousands of retired union coal miners. McConnell, long an obstacle to the effort, recently declared he will push for reform."

Rural Iowa journalist says Trump won rural America due to divergent world views: secular and religious

UPDATE, Jan. 16: The Times has published several letters responding to Leonard's essay.

Donald Trump supporters at an Iowa rally
(New York Times photo by Sam Hodgson)

The difference between Republicans and Democrats, and the reason Donald Trump was elected president, is the contrasting ways each party views the world, Robert Leonard, news director for Knoxville, Iowa, radio stations KNIA/KRLS, opines in The New York Times:"Political analysts have talked about how ignorance, racism, sexism, nationalism, Islamophobia, economic disenfranchisement and the decline of the middle class contributed to the popularity of Trump in rural America. But this misses the deeper cultural factors that shape the thinking of the conservatives who live here."

Leonard, a self-described liberal, said he had long struggled to understand how his conservative friends and neighbors in Marion County, Iowa, "could think so differently from me, not to mention how over 60 percent of voters in my county could have chosen Trump." Then he met J. C. Watts, a Baptist minister and former Republican congressman from rural Oklahoma.

Watts told him in 2015, “The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe people are fundamentally bad, while Democrats see people as fundamentally good. We are born bad. We teach them how to be good. We become good by being reborn — born again. Democrats believe that we are born good, that we create God, not that he created us. If we are our own God, as the Democrats say, then we need to look at something else to blame when things go wrong — not us.”

Leonard writes, "Hearing Watts was an epiphany for me. For the first time I had a glimpse of where many of my conservative friends and neighbors were coming from. I thought, no wonder Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on things like gun control, regulations or the value of social programs. We live in different philosophical worlds, with different foundational principles."

And it's not just an older-generation type of thing, Leonard writes. He sees an increasing number of young conservatives in rural areas: "They are part of a growing movement in rural America that immerses many young people in a culture—not just conservative news outlets but also home and church environments—that emphasizes contemporary conservative values. It views liberals as loathsome, misinformed and weak, even dangerous."

"Rural conservatives feel that their world is under siege, and that Democrats are an enemy to be feared and loathed," Leonard writes. "Given the philosophical premises Watts presented as the difference between Democrats and Republicans, reconciliation seems a long way off." (Read more)

Trump took almost all Rust Belt counties that rely on manufacturing, mining and farming

A study by Emsi, a labor-market advisory firm, found that Donald Trump won nearly every county in six key states in the Rust Belt that has "a higher-than-average concentration of manufacturing, mining or agriculture jobs," Danielle Paquette reports for The Washington Post. In those states—Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana and Pennsylvania—Trump won 437 of 489 counties. Some of those counties had supported Democratic candidates in every election since 2000. (Emsi map: Presidential election results)

Study author John Wright said that in 93 of those counties—all won by Trump—"the share of manufacturing jobs is three times higher than the national average," Paquette writes. Wright "said areas with dense manufacturing sectors particularly pulled for Trump, perhaps because he came to represent hope for a struggling industry. Traditional manufacturing jobs in the U.S. have sharply declined since 2001, dropping, by his calculations, from 12 percent of the workforce to today’s 8.2 percent."

"Trump promised throughout the campaign to bring back American jobs, the kind vanishing across the Rust Belt," Paquette writes. "Exit polls and interviews suggest voters believed him."

Having a small-market insurer could cost you 21% more at the doctor's office, study finds

Large-market insurers negotiate lower prices for doctor-office visits than small-market insurers, says a study by researchers at Harvard Medical School published in Health Affairs. For example, "Insurers with market shares of 15 percent or more negotiated prices for office visits that were 21 percent lower than prices negotiated by insurers with shares of less than 5 percent." Small-market insurers are more likely to be in rural areas.

Analyzing 15.3 million claims in 2014, researchers found that for a routine visit to a smaller provider, insurers with less than 5 percent of the market share negotiated an average price of $88. The average price for insurers with 5 to 14 percent of the market share was $72, and for insurers with 15 or more percent of market share, the average cost was $70. For large providers, costs for insurers with less than 5 percent of the market was $97, it was $86 for insurers with 5 to 14 percent of the market share and $76 for insurers with 15 or more percent of market shares. (Harvard graphic: Average negotiated prices for insurers with different market shares billing the same providers for office visits)

Researchers suggest mergers as a way to give providers the wiggle room to negotiate lower prices, Max Ehrenfreund reports for The Washington Post. "Since doctor's offices often agree to calculate all their prices using a single formula, these figures suggest that a group of doctors working in an independent office could increase their revenue by nearly 20 percent if they sold out to a larger partnership."

One problem with the study is that the data from 2014 could be outdated, Ehrenfreund writes. "The numbers reveal little about how recent mergers might have affected the strategic situation for participants in this market or about how future mergers might affect premiums for ordinary people." Diana Moss, an economist and the president of the American Antitrust Institute, said "one possibility is that mergers among insurers will induce doctors and hospitals to conglomerate as well, which in turn will encourage greater consolidation in the insurance sector."

Portable wi-fi devices allow rural library patrons to 'borrow the internet'

Sign at the library in Clearwater, Kan.

In an attempt to combat internet dead zones, some rural libraries have begun "circulating cellular-based hotspot devices, similar to a cell phone," that provide internet anywhere cellular service is available, reports the Daily Yonder.

What began as an urban project has been spreading to rural areas, the Yonder reports. In 2015, the New York Public Library (NYPL), the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Public Library system piloted a hotspot lending program for New York residents without broadband at home." NYPL has since "partnered with 24 rural libraries in Kansas and Maine to see how the program might be different in more remote areas. Some libraries in Kansas chose to continue their programs by coming up with their own funding source."

Internet hotspot device

At the Goodland Public Library in northwestern Kansas, the program has been so popular that after funding ended the library "continued the hotspot lending program on its own, funding the $40-a-month cost for each device with help from the library board," reports the Yonder. "Goodland Library negotiated with Verizon and obtained unlimited, unthrottled data services; regular cellular wireless plans often have a monthly cap on data usage. Currently, Goodland has one device it loans out for short term uses and the remaining devices have a loan period of seven days."

Peabody Memorial Library in Jonesport, Maine, has enjoyed success through the program, reports the Yonder. "With 13 devices total and occasional wait lists, the director estimates that 40 to 50 families have taken advantage of the hotspot devices, with at least 20 families consistently relying on one." In Jonesport, where more than 20 percent of the population lives in poverty and 60 percent of students receive free or reduced price lunches, students with school-issued laptops get first choice on the devices.

Study suggests Vermont law enforcement agencies more likely to profile black and Hispanic drivers

Black and Hispanic drivers in Vermont are stopped and searched at higher rates than other drivers, even though white and Asian drivers are more likely to be found with contraband, says a study by researchers at the University of Vermont and Cornell University. The study, which used 2015 data from 29 law-enforcement agencies—covering 78 percent of the state's population—found that black drivers are four times more likely than white drivers to be searched, and Hispanics three times more likely than whites. Asian drivers are less likely to be searched than other drivers.

"Black drivers are estimated to be stopped at a rate that is between 161 percent to 193 percent of their population share and Hispanics are estimated to be stopped at a rate that is 179 percent of their share of the population," states the report. Black drivers are searched 3.6 percent of the time, Hispanics 2.6 percent, whites 0.9 percent and Asians 0.5 percent. At the same time "hit rates" for contraband, searches that led to citations or an arrest, are highest for Asians, at 89 percent, followed by 67 percent for whites, 61 percent for Hispanics and 56 percent for blacks. (Rate of traffic stop searches in Vermont by race)

Warnings were given to black drivers 58.9 percent of the time, Hispanics 56.4 percent, whites 62 percent and Asians 60.6 percent. When it comes to tickets, black drivers receive one 40.6 percent of the time, Hispanics 42.1 percent, whites 37.4 percent and Asians 38.7 percent.

"The study is the first examining traffic policing and race following a 2014 state law mandating the data collection," Elizabeth Murray reports for the Burlington Free Press. While no state agency has been tasked with analyzing the data, law enforcement officials who attended a press conference Monday where the study was released, "said the data will be useful in examining current practices and informing training and supervision going forward."

Vermont is one the nation's most rural and least diverse states, with 94.8 percent of the population white, according to a 2015 report from the U.S. Census Bureau. Hispanics make up 1.8 percent of the population, blacks 1.3 percent and Asians 1.6 percent.

Rusty patched bumble bee listed as endangered; Bayer denies pesticides to blame for declines

Region where rusty patched bumble bees have been found.
Yellow areas are historical residences, purple are counties
of permanent residence. (U.S. Geological Survey map)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has named the rusty patched bumble bee an endangered species. Much of the natural habitat of the bees, grasslands and tallgrass prairies in the Upper Midwest and Northeast, "have been lost, degraded, or fragmented by conversion to other uses," states the agency. Increased use of pesticides, parasites and disease also suggest why the species has lost 87 percent of its population in the past 20 years and is now found in 13 states and Ontario, Canada, after having been found in 28 states.

Agri-Pulse reports, "FWS said that while it is 'difficult to pinpoint exactly when the species’ decline began, data show that the bee’s 'precipitous declines' became apparent around 1995 and continued into the early 2000s, a period that 'coincides with increased neonicotinoid use.'"

Bayer CropScience and CropLife America said "the decline began before neonics began to be widely used and that bees are, in fact, able to coexist with corn and soybeans," reports Agri-Pulse. "Bayer, for example, said that FWS did not consider field studies that 'have found no adverse effects when bees are placed near treated crops and allowed to forage naturally.' FWS acknowledged 'that there are studies that did not find adverse effects, but that 'the totality of data … suggests some insecticides kill bumble bees and others cause sublethal effects.'" Agri-Pulse is subscription only, but can be viewed by clicking here.

NOAA: 2016 was second warmest year on record

Last year was the second warmest year on record, says a report released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA found that the average annual temperature was 54.9 degrees Fahrenheit, 2.9 degrees above average. The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service had called 2016 the warmest on record, finding its average to be 58.64 degrees, 0.36 degree higher than the record high set in 2015. Records have been kept for 122 years.

NOAA did find that weather and climate disasters in 2016 caused 138 deaths and $46 billion in damages. Overall, there were 15 weather and climate disasters in 2016, each causing more than $1 billion in damage. The total included eight severe storms, four inland floods, one hurricane and one drought and one wildfire that each affected multiple areas. (NOAA graphic: 2016 weather and climate disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage)

First large-scale 'clean coal' plant in U.S. is operational; different type to be started up Jan. 31

Petra Nova project (Energywire photo by Edward Klump)

The first large-scale "clean coal" plant in the U.S. was declared operational on Tuesday, Chris Mooney reports for The Washington Post. The Petra Nova project by NRG Energy and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corp., is near Houston. "The companies say that the plant can capture over 90 percent of the carbon dioxide released from the equivalent of a 240-megawatt ... coal unit, which translates into 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide per day or over 1 million tons per year. They’re calling it 'the world’s largest post-combustion carbon capture system (CCS).'”

Another clean-coal plant, operated by Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co., was supposed to be the first commercial clean-coal facility, but delays have put the project several years and billions of dollars behind schedule. It is now set to be operational on Jan. 31, Mooney reports. The "plant has been designed to turn lignite, a type of coal, into a gas called syngas, stripping out some carbon dioxide in the process. The syngas is burned for electricity and the CO2 is ... shipped to an oil field to aid in additional oil recovery."

Christa Marshall and Edward Klump report for Energywire, "Analysts say the plants are starkly different, considering that one involves a retrofit of a plant that captures CO2 after burning coal and the other involves gasifying coal and pre-combustion capture. Along with building a gasification plant from scratch, Kemper is testing its new Transport Integrated Gasification technology to turn coal into synthetic gas for the first time."

President-elect Donald Trump "hasn't specified in detail whether he supports CCS incentives," reports Energywire. "The leading proposal in Congress to boost CCS is expanding an existing tax credit for carbon storage called Section 45Q. It remains unclear, though, how much an expansion would help prompt new projects by itself, particularly on power plants."

Study of Ky. meth-lab busts boosts case that drug use is less prevalent where alcohol sales are legal

Meth use is more prevalent in counties where the sale of alcohol is illegal, say researchers at the University of Louisville. They looked at meth-lab seizures (based on Drug Enforcement Administration records) and local-option ordinances in Kentucky counties from 2004 to 2010, and found that "the number of meth-lab seizures in Kentucky would decrease by 34.5 percent if all counties became wet." (UofL maps: Meth lab seizures by county, with green indicating more busts; alcohol status: red for wet, orange for moist or limited, and yellow for dry)

In 2010 Kentucky had 39 "dry" counties (where all alcohol sales are banned), 32 "wet" counties (sales are allowed), 20 "moist" counties (contain some wet jurisdictions) and 29 "limited" counties (sale by the drink in restaurants meeting certain criteria). All the dry counties were rural; several have since gone wet or moist.

For the study period the mean lab-seizure rate was 2.17 per 100,000 residents in wet counties, 2.26 in moist counties and 3.92 in dry counties. The highest rates of lab seizures were along the border of Tennessee, a state in which beer is generally available but stronger drink is less so.

Christopher Ingraham of The Washington Post reports, "After running some statistical tests, the researchers found that this is more than just a simple correlation." They said, "Our results add support to the idea that prohibiting the sale of alcohol flattens the punishment gradient, lowering the relative cost of participating in the market for illegal drugs."

"In other words: people who buy alcohol in places where it's illegal become accustomed to dealing with the black market," Ingraham writes. "If you're going to get punished whether you trade in booze or trade in meth, why not give meth a spin?" (Post graphic using data from UofL study)

The UofL research "fits in with other findings showing harmful effects of localized alcohol prohibitions," Ingraham writes. "A 2005 paper in the Journal of Law and Economics found that when Texas counties changed from dry to wet, their incidences of drug-related mortality decreased by 14 percent as people substituted alcohol for other drugs. Records from the Kentucky State Police show that dry counties tend to have higher rates of DUI-related car crashes than wet ones, presumably because when you live in a dry county, you have to drive farther to get your booze. A 2010 report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that binge drinking rates were often higher in Alabama's dry counties than its wet ones."

Wisconsin Native American tribe says 'no' to crude-oil pipeline through its reservation

MLive map of Enbridge pipelines; see below for closer map
of area at issue, west of Saxon at west end of Lake Superior

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, a Native American tribe in Wisconsin, "has voted against renewing agreements allowing Enbridge Inc. to use their land for a major crude oil pipeline," Nia Williams reports for Reuters. "The Bad River Band decided not to renew easements on Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline last week because of concerns about the risk of oil spills, and called for the 64-year-old pipeline to be decommissioned and removed." Bad River Tribal Chairman Robert Blanchard said in a statement: "As many other communities have experienced, even a minor spill could prove to be disastrous for our people."

Calgary-based Enbridge, Canada's largest pipeline company, "said it had been discussing the easement renewals since before the agreements expired in 2013 and the pipeline had operated safely through the reservation since 1953, Williams writes. The company said in a statement on Monday: "We are surprised to learn of the Bad River Band’s decision not to renew individual easements within the reservation for Line 5 after negotiating in good faith for the past several years."

Bad River Band land is east of Ashland, Wis. (WNMU map)

Line 5 carries 540,000 barrels per day of light crude and natural-gas liquids from Superior, Wisc., to Sarnia, Ontario, Williams writes. "Enbridge said the pipeline traverses 12.3 miles of the Bad River reservation and there are 15 tracts of land with expired easements, making up about 20 percent of the right-of-way within the reservation. The tribe has partial ownership in 11 of those. The other 80 percent of tracts within the reservation have easements that expire in 2043 or never expire." (Read more)

New Democratic N.C. governor wants to expand Medicaid before Trump gets in; GOP says illegal

The Obama administration said Monday it will act quickly on plans by North Carolina's recently elected Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to expand Medicaid in the state, William Douglas and Lesley Clark report for McClatchy Newspapers. President-elect Donald Trump has said repealing federal health reform, of which Medicaid expansion is the most expensive part, is one of his first priorities after taking office at noon Jan. 20.

Cooper last week sent a letter to federal officials "alerting them of his intention to expand Medicaid, which currently covers 1.9 million North Carolinians and costs $14 billion a year," reports McClatchy Newspapers. "Two-thirds of the expense is paid for by the federal government."

North Carolina Republicans in the House and state legislature responded with "a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Andrew Slavitt, urging him to reject Cooper’s expansion plan," McClatchy reports. They "said Cooper’s move was illegal because a 2013 state law prevented the governor from seeking expanded Medicaid coverage without the state legislature’s support." They wrote: “Any governor of North Carolina does not have the legal authority to submit a Medicaid expansion plan to CMS. Such actions would commit the state to approximately $600 million in new spending each year."

Most farmers' expectations for the next 12 months zoomed higher after Donald Trump's election

Farmers are growing more pessimistic about their current condition, but have become more optimistic since the presidential election, though their views vary with income, according to the DTN/The Progressive Farmer's Agricultural Confidence Index.

Surveys of 500 farmers in December produced an index of 98, on a scale where 100 or above indicates optimism. The figure was way up from 72 in August.

Farmers are surveyed three times per year, "before spring planting, just prior to harvest, and at year's end, to determine their opinions about their current economic situation and about that situation in the year to come," Greg Horstmeier reports for DTN. "Those answers create a score for farmer's 'current condition,' how they feel about their businesses at the time of the survey, and a score for their 'future expectations' for the coming year."

The index is created from those two scores. The current conditions score was 44.2, the lowest since the index began in 2010, but the future expectations score was 127. (DTN graphic: Index results in blue, current-situation scores in red, and expectations in green)

The current conditions are not good. "Commodity prices show little sign of more than minor price blips to cash in on," land and input costs show only minor relief, and "acreage estimates for 2017, along with weather predictions, give little chance of a short U.S. crop," Horstmeier writes.

So, why are future expectations so optimistic? "The only thing you can tie that positivity to is the election. Farmers have a lot of hope for the new president," said Robert Hill, principal of Caledonia Solutions and the creator of the index,.

The future-expectations score varied with income. Farmers earning $100,000 to $249,999 a year were at 112.6, those making $250,000 to $499,999 had a score of 129.9, and those with incomes of $1 million or more scored 79. Hill said the results suggest "that farmers in the lower income levels were more concerned with regulatory and other non-profit-related issues that a Trump presidency has promised to remove. Larger farmers, faced with a higher level of concern over land costs, employee needs, and commodity prices in general may put those worries ahead of the more emotional regulatory issues."

2016 officially hottest on record, European Union says

Last year was the hottest on record, says a report by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service. Researchers found that global surface temperatures in 2016 averaged 58.64 degrees Fahrenheit, 2.3 degrees "higher than estimated before the Industrial Revolution ushered in wide use of fossil fuels," Alister Doyle reports for Reuters. Temperatures last year were .36 degrees higher than the record high temperatures in 2015.

The report found that the Arctic had the sharpest rise in temperatures, "while many other areas of the globe, including parts of Africa and Asia, also suffered unusual heat," Doyle writes. "A few parts of South America and Antarctica were cooler than normal." The report, released Thursday, was the first to compile data for all of 2016. (Copernicus graphic: Annual global surface temperatures from 1880 to 2016; note that the chart's left-hand baseline is not zero degrees Celsius, or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but the temperature average at the beginning of the industrial era in Europe and the U.S.  The right-hand scale shows the cumulative increase in temperature from that era.)

White evangelicals and nostalgia for 1950s rural life helped land Trump in White House

President-elect Donald Trump got 81 percent of the votes of white evangelicals—a group often consisting of older Americans who long for the good old days of the 1950s when minorities had fewer rights, Sarah Pulliam Bailey writes for The Washington Post. A 2016 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 74 percent of white evangelicals believe American culture has mostly changed for the worse since the 1950s, compared to 62 percent of African Americans and 57 percent of Hispanic Americans who think the culture has changed for the better.

Take Mount Airy, N.C. (Best Places map), birthplace of Andy Griffith and the town many believe to be the inspiration for Mayberry on The Andy Grffith Show. The town is in Surry County, North Carolina, which Trump easily won, 23,210 to 7,280 for Hillary Clinton. The county of 73,170 is 92.3 percent white, and Mount Airy is 84 percent white, 8.2 percent black and 6.7 percent Hispanic.

In Mount Airy there seems to be a definite nostalgia for the past among the older generation, Bailey writes. Mayor David Rowe, 72, "said African Americans often bring hardship on themselves." Asked to explain what he meant, "he amended the statement to mean young blacks." He told Bailey, “When you’re my age and you see an African American boy with pants at their knees, you can’t appreciate them.” Rowe, who said he would never employ someone who dressed that way, told Bailey, “I’m worried about when a person chooses to dresses like that, what kind of effect will that person have on society.” He also said he rarely encounters non-whites in social settings, “because folks tend to self-segregate.”

Thresa Tucker, whose husband is a Baptist pastor in Mount Airy, said "African Americans who have voiced concerns over what Trump will do for the poor would have a different perspective if they tried harder to help themselves," Bailey writes. Tucker told her, “I think black people think they’re owed something. I think if they acted differently, people would be apt to help them.” Tucker "later added that some white people expect handouts, too."

Ron Jessup, an African American who grew up in Mount Airy in the 1950s, said the town was a generally friendly place to be "as long as he and other blacks obeyed the racist laws and social mores of the time," Bailey writes. He called Trump's “Make America Great Again” slogan "code for 'take America back again,' and a reaction to President Obama’s election." Jessup told Bailey, “Sometimes we use Christianity when it’s convenient for what we want. You can’t allow someone to have racist remarks and then go to church and talk about Jesus as the center of your life.” (Read more)

Outgoing EPA head says one of her biggest regrets was failing to connect to rural America

Outgoing Environmental Protection Agency head Gina McCarthy says one of her biggest regrets was a failure to connect to rural America, Valerie Volcovici reports for Reuters. McCarthy told Reuters, "We tried to change the outreach and messaging in rural America in a number of ways, but . . . has it changed the rhetoric that people hear? It hasn't. We couldn't get it, but I wish we had." 

The EPA chief sometimes rubbed rural folks the wrong way and inadvertently offended people. That was evident during her failed attempts to explain EPA's expanded definition of "waters of the U.S." under the Clean Water Act to farmers, in which she called their concerns about the rules "silly" and "ludicrous," words she said were taken out of context.

"McCarthy said her struggle to convince rural Americans that a clean energy economy can also provide jobs was a major disappointment in a four-year tenure that she felt was mostly positive," Volcovici writes. "She said crafting the country's first carbon regulations for power plants and taking strong enforcement actions against companies like Volkswagen—accused of cheating on emissions tests—were high points that proved the agency's serious approach."

She said she "tried to build more visibility and stronger partnerships in rural communities to emphasize the value of the EPA's role, particularly in protecting local air and water," Volcovici writes. "But she said political baggage around the term 'climate change' had hampered those efforts. She told Reuters, "Just because climate continues to be bandied about as a partisan issue instead of just a science issue, it's made EPA's job more difficult." McCarthy also said coal-mining communities "unfairly blamed the EPA for a downturn in the industry that began decades before the regulatory shift against carbon, and which has accelerated because of competition from natural gas."

New York Times story looks at opioid epidemic in 7 communities, finds use not slowing down

An undercover Homeland Security agent in
Nogales, Ariz. (Times photo by Caitlin O'Hara)

The opioid epidemic, which is disproportionately rural, shows no sign of letting up any time soon, says a New York Times investigation that looks at the impact of painkillers on communities in Arizona, California, Iowa, Massachusetts, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.

"Public health officials have called the current opioid epidemic the worst drug crisis in American history, killing more than 33,000 people in 2015," reports the Times. "Overdose deaths were nearly equal to the number of deaths from car crashes. In 2015, for the first time, deaths from heroin alone surpassed gun homicides."

"This epidemic is different from those of the past in significant ways. One is that it has spawned a growing demand for medications that can help modify addiction’s impact," Abby Goodnough writes in a story that looks at rural Marshalltown, Iowa. "For people in this rural community of 28,000, getting medication to help overcome opioid addiction used to require long drives to treatment centers."

In Nogales, Ariz., on the Mexican border, Customs and Border Protection agents last year "seized more than 930 pounds of heroin in Arizona, which is almost one-third of all heroin seized along the entire southern border," Fernanda Santos writes. "Agents acknowledge that they catch only a small fraction of what goes through. Much of the heroin that enters this country comes hidden in cars, concealed in suitcases, squeezed inside hollowed fire extinguishers, or strapped to the thighs, crotches and chests of Mexicans and Americans who cross between the two countries."

In Huntington, Utah, "There are few options for drug treatment in the high desert of central Utah, a remote expanse of struggling coal mines, white-steepled Mormon towns and some of the country’s highest opiate death rates," Jack Healy writes. "The lone doctor licensed to prescribe one addiction-treating drug has a waiting list. The main detox center is the county jail. The rate of prescription overdose deaths among the 32,000 people sprinkled across two neighboring counties in this corner of Utah is nearly four times the state average. Addiction has rippled through ranks of miners who relied on pain pills after years of digging coal and working in the power plants."

Rural voters boosted Trump, but he's late in naming his agriculture and veterans secretaries

Sonny Perdue: Secretary or not?

President-elect Donald Trump's delay in naming a secretary of agriculture is causing concern in rural areas, Alan Bjerga reports for Bloomberg News. Trump, who will be inaugurated on Jan. 20, has filled 13 of 15 Cabinet positions, but not the one that most connects with rural areas.

Trump also hasn't named a head of the Department of Veterans Affairs; service members hail disproportionately from rural areas. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports Trump met today with Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton, who is an Air Force veteran and an African American.

Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, the second-largest farm lobby, told Bjerga, “It certainly has folks concerned or worried that maybe it just doesn’t seem to be getting the attention that we would like it to. Folks in agriculture and rural America feel like they delivered for this president and they just want there to be more attention.”

The last three presidents, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, all named an agriculture secretary before Christmas, Bjerga writes. "Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Wednesday the president-elect is continuing to meet with qualified people for the job. Spicer gave no further update when he spoke Thursday with reporters on his daily call to brief them about the transition."

Kathleen Merrigan, who was deputy to outgoing Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, told Bjerga, “People feel like they delivered for Donald Trump and now they’re kind of the last in line. I’m just stunned that it’s taking this long.” Former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, who served six years under Clinton, told Bjerga, “I find it in a sense unsettling because it was in small towns and rural America where the president-elect picked up his biggest margins and he hasn’t named a secretary of rural America.”

Those close to Trump say one of the top candidates is former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue. "Others interviewed include former Lt. Gov. of California Abel Maldonado, former Texas A&M University President Elsa Murano, former U.S. Representative Henry Bonilla of Texas and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller,." Bjerga reports. Also, Kip Tom, a member of Trump’s ag advisory committee and a large farm operator in Indiana, visited Trump Tower Thursday, Laurie Bedford reports for Successful Farming. Agri-Pulse reports that Tom may be under consideration to be a special ag adviser to Trump, which he might want to announce in conjunction with the secretary pick.

Trump's pledge to deport undocumented workers could lead to a labor shortage in agriculture

In California, the nation's top agriculture state, concern is growing that if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on plans to deport undocumented workers there will be a shortage of farm labor, reports Scott Smith of The Associated Press. Many of the back-breaking farm jobs held by undocumented workers are ones Americans refuse to take.

Some leaders in the industry are "calling on congressional representatives to educate the incoming president on the workforce it takes to feed the country and they’re assuring workers they’ll protect them," Smith reports.

Undocumented workers also are concerned for their safety. Leticia Alfaro, a farm food-safety supervisor told Smith "that many of her friends who work in the fields don’t have proper documentation like her, and they take Trump’s threats seriously." She said "they fear being deported and torn from their children who were born here. After Trump takes office, they wonder if it will be safe to make a simple trip to the grocery store, fearing checkpoints where they’ll be pulled over and have to show their documentation." (CNN graphic: Industries with most undocumented workers)

Fear is growing in other states, such as Texas, Florida and Georgia, that have large migrant communities working in agriculture, AP reports. "The fear stems from Trump’s campaign rallies, where he received a rousing response each time he vowed to deport people who are in the country illegally—up to 11 million. That position softened after Trump won the election, when he said he’d start with 3 million with criminal records."

"Some farmers point to Trump’s post-election shift as a sign his campaign bluster won’t become reality," the story says. "He is, after all, a businessman like them, they say. But others believe this shift underscores the president-elect’s unpredictable nature." Joe Garcia, a farm-labor contractor in California who hires up to 4,000 people each year to pick grapes from Napa to Bakersfield and along the Central Coast, told AP, “Our workers are scared. If they’re concerned, we’re concerned.” (Read more)