$15 million ad campaign launched with money from Google to encourage public to support local news media

A $15 million "Support Local News" ad campaign launched yesterday in an effort to raise awareness about the need and importance of funding local newsrooms in the U.S. and Canada through subscriptions, donations and advertising, according to a press release.

The campaign is a collaboration between Local Media Consortium and Local Media Association, with funding from the Google via its Google News Initiative. The campaign will run for six weeks in newspapers, TV, radio stations, and news websites, encouraging people to visit the Support Local News website where they can find links to local news sources that need support, and can also donate to a fund supporting local investigative reporting in North American newsrooms. Donors can also designate contributions for publishers of color doing investigative reporting.

The ad campaign is meant to boost local news sources hurting from decreased ad revenue during the pandemic—a problem the public is largely unaware of. More than 30 local newsrooms have closed since the pandemic began, but a Pew study found that 71% of consumers think their local news media outlets are doing well financially.

Community Newspaper Holdings converts three papers to online-only after merging (in effect closing) several others

Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., which recently "merged" or closed newspapers in Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and Oklahoma, has converted a daily and a weekly in Southern Kentucky to online-only, following the strategy it recently took with a daily in Eastern Illinois.

Glasgow Daily Times publisher Bill Hanson announced Tuesday that the day's print edition would be its last, due to "steep losses in revenue" from the coronavirus pandemic "on top of burdensome print delivery costs, newsprint and ink expenses, and the production outlay required to run the presses. We urge Daily Times subscribers to continue to support the newspaper online."

Last week, giving identical reasons, CNHI did likewise with the Wayne County Outlook, a weekly in Monticello, which operates as a satellite of its daily Commonwealth-Journal in Somerset. The daily is now in a position to get the public-notice advertising for the county.

Glasgow will still be served by a weekly, the Barren County Progress, owned by a small regional group, Jobe Publishing Inc., which is owned by Jeff Jobe, this year's president of the Kentucky Press Association.

CNHI has taken the online-only strategy with one other paper, the Shelbyville Daily Union in Illinois. Its primary strategy has been to "merge" smaller papers into larger ones, in effect closing them. That began in Alabama in April, when the North Jefferson News in Gardendale was merged with The Cullman Times. The towns are 40 miles apart and in non-adjacent counties.

That looked much like the May merger of The Morehead News and two other weeklies in northeastern Kentucky with CHNI's Ashland Daily Independent. In Indiana, the company merged the Batesville Herald-Tribune and the Rushville Republican into the Greensburg Daily News, and the Zionsville Times-Sentinel into the Lebanon Reporter; in Iowa, it merged the Centerville Iowegian into the Ottumwa Courier, and The Pella Chronicle and the Knoxville Journal Express with the Oskaloosa Herald; and in Oklahoma, it folded the Edmond Sun into the Norman Transcript, though the two towns are on opposite sides of Oklahoma City.

CNHI news vice president Bill Ketter told The Rural Blog, "Again, the reason is financial, tied to insufficient local advertising and subscribers. We are providing news coverage of these communities by the merged newspaper. CNHI’s goal is to save newspapers and serve our local communities in the best way we can. But given the overall economic challenges facing the newspaper industry, we cannot operate our smallest markets at a financial loss. Thus the alternatives of digital only and merged newspapers."

Rural Americans just as worried about pandemic as national average, according to new poll

Early on in the pandemic, rural Americans as a whole tended to be more skeptical about the coronavirus pandemic than their urban and suburban counterparts, a difference driven mostly by political ideology. But a new nationwide online poll shows that most rural residents are taking the pandemic seriously these days, Tim Marema reports for The Daily Yonder. The poll was conducted from April 24-26 by Civis Analytics and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to the poll, nearly 90 percent of rural respondents said they will probably continue social distancing and other precautions even when their state begins to lift mandatory restrictions. "About three-quarters of rural respondents said they are somewhat or very concerned about the coronavirus," Marema reports. "The response from rural participants was slightly lower than the national response. But the 3-point gap is within the poll’s margin of error, meaning the rural and national responses are statistically indistinguishable."

Other results from the poll:

• About half of rural respondents, about the same as the nationwide average, agreed that their state has taken appropriate action to contain the pandemic.
• Only 5-6% of rural and national respondents said the government has overreacted to the pandemic.
• About three-quarters of rural and national respondents said they've avoided crowds and public spaces during the pandemic.
• About two-thirds of rural and national respondents said they're committed to social distancing.
• Rural attitudes toward the pandemic varied by region: rural Southerners were more likely to wish their states were doing more to control the pandemic than rural Northeasterners.
• About one-third of rural respondents said they're very unlikely to lose their job because of the pandemic, compared to about one-quarter of national respondents.
• About one-quarter of rural people of color said they were unlikely to lose their job because of the pandemic, compared to more than half of rural whites. 
• Rural and national respondents reported similar levels of trust in information sources except when it came to info provided by President Trump or Vice President Pence. Nationwide, 45.4% of respondents said they trust info from the president or vice president, compared to more than 55% of rural respondents.

Alabama nixes controversial charter school just before opening, the first time the state has shut down a charter

"A controversial public charter school in south Alabama met its end today, two months before opening," Trisha Powell Crain reports for Alabama.com. After a half-hour closed session, the Alabama Public Charter School Commission voted to revoke the charter for Woodland Preparatory School in Chatom "for failing to meet conditions of pre-opening, lack of adherence to generally accepted financial standards, and failing to establish community support for the school."

That was two weeks after a hearing in which school representatives explained at a hearing why they haven't been able to meet the commission's conditions. The school was first approved in May 2018 and scheduled to open this August, but in February the commission voted to begin the revocation process, Crain reports. The move marks the first time the state commission has revoked a school's charter. There are currently four public charter schools operating in the state under the commission's authority.

The for-profit rural school, first approved in May 2018, has been beset with controversy since the beginning, plagued by local worries that the charter would drain tax money from local public schools. Locals were also concerned that a national organization that evaluates charter school applications gave the for-profit charter was given a failing grade. Some locals were also worried because the school would have been part of an informal network of charter schools run operated by followers of a Turkish Muslim preacher living in Pennsylvania. 

In rural town, virus threatens vital summer tourist revenue

A rural tourist town in north-central Washington state illustrates the consequences of the pandemic and the controversy it can cause among locals trying to keep the town afloat while staying safe.

Winthrop, Washington, which has fewer than 500 residents, depends on an influx of summer tourists who use the town as a jumping off point for hiking, biking, and mountain climbing nearby, Bill Lucia reports for Route Fifty. At least two dozen counties in the state have been approved for lighter restrictions, but Gov. Jay Inslee has still advised people to limit non-essential travel, including to tourist towns.

"Despite recommendations like this, tourist traffic will likely continue to flow into towns like Winthrop as the state eases virus-related restrictions and people who’ve been cooped up venture out, seeking to take advantage of long days and beautiful summer weather," Lucia reports. "It’s a set of circumstances many rural tourist destinations are apt to face in the months ahead."

Tourists flocked to Winthrop on Memorial Day weekend, and while some locals told Lucia they were grateful for the increase in revenue, others said most tourists weren't social distancing or wearing masks, and they were worried about the pandemic spreading. The area had only five confirmed covid-19 cases since mid-April, but the mayor said a bump in cases could strain scarce local medical facilities.

Republicans moving $900M bill to fix national parks and protect public lands – and two vulnerable GOP senators

Sens. Daines and Gardner (Photo by Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call)

"After decades of frustration over low levels of funding, the nation’s conservation community is on the brink of realizing a long-held goal — legislation that would assure that federal money is available for the preservation of public lands," Carl Hulse reports for The New York Times. "That is thanks to a desire among Republicans to protect what they consider two worthy assets of their own:" GOP Sens. Corey Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana, who are in close re-election races.

The bill would fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million annually. Moving it "has required an about-face by the president and the grudging cooperation of some Republicans who have long opposed the measure on principle, believing it adds too much to the soaring deficit," Hulse reports. "The legislation cleared a procedural hurdle on Monday by a lopsided vote, 80 to 17, in an indication that it is headed for passage this month. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who is eager to hold on to his position as majority leader after November’s elections, has gotten behind the bill . . . He is always careful to credit the two Western senators for the measure that he describes in glowing terms."

The arguments and timing for the bill are more than just political. "Its sponsors note that the pandemic has focused public attention on the need for public space for outdoor recreation, and that the park maintenance aspect alone will provide tens of thousands of jobs in communities that have been hit hard by the loss of tourism," Hulse reports.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who was working on a similar bill that is included in the legislation, said in a press release that it would be "the biggest boost to our national parks in 50 years" and cut in half their $12 billion deferred maintenance backlog. He said the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina, the most-visited park, "has $224 million of deferred maintenance and an annual budget of $20 million a year." He said that is "a massive disappointment to people who consider our national parks as our greatest treasures – who go to our parks and find a campground closed, a bathroom not working, a bridge that's closed, a road with potholes, a trail that’s worn out or a visitor center that could be dilapidated . . . things that are broken and don't work, and interfere with the ability of the American people to go outdoors."

Rising real-estate sales in rural New York reflect pandemic-spurred urge to get away from city congestion, infection

The pandemic seems to be driving up rural real estate sales in rural areas north of New York City, Lisa Green reports for Rural Intelligence. The trend may be repeated in other states as well.

Even before the pandemic, rising housing prices were already driving urban residents to head for less-populated pastures, but the pandemic seems to have accelerated the trend. Part of the urge to move to more rural areas may come from wariness about living in the close quarters of the city, which can encourage the spread of infection. More relaxed work policies that allow telecommuting are another factor, Brad Cartier reports for Million Acres, a Motley Fool website.

As early as March, a report from real estate brokerage Redfin showed that "the seven-day average change in page views of homes in rural and small towns was up 115% and 88%, respectively. Further, the decline in pending sales was less dramatic in small towns than in urban ones," Cartier reports.

In a nationwide Harris poll conducted in early May, 37% of respondents said the pandemic made them want to live in a rural area more than 21 miles away from a major city.

Democrats wary of aid to farmers being a political tool

As the Department of Agriculture begins distributing $16 billion in direct payments to farmers hurt by the pandemic, many are "raising questions about how the money will be allocated and whether there is sufficient oversight to guard against partisan abuse of the program," Sharon LaFraniere reports for The New York Times. "Months before an election in which some farm states are major battlegrounds, Democrats and other critics of the administration’s agriculture policies are expressing concern that the new subsidies, provided by Congress with bipartisan backing, could be doled out to ensure President Trump continues to win the backing of one of his key voting blocs.

Their worries are based on how the administration distributed $28 billion over the past two years on direct aid to farmers hurt by the trade war with China and lousy weather. Farmers, their lobbying groups, politicians and others have criticized the administration for distributing such funds unequally, saying the program was "excessive, devised on the fly and tilted toward states politically important to Republicans," LaFraniere reports. "Polls suggest that farmers are strongly united in supporting Trump. They are important voting blocs in key swing states like Wisconsin, vital in some states like Iowa that he is fighting to hold, and a core constituency in many other solidly Republican states across the Midwest and South."

Farmers have increasingly relied on federal aid over the past few years; direct federal payments made up an estimated 24 percent of all farm income in 2019.

U.S. oil output increasing as global demand remains down

Though oil and gas drilling in the United States recently hit an 80-year low, and global demand remains down, American oil producers are bringing production back up.

"Scores of shale-drilling companies turned off wells to reduce output when U.S. oil prices fell to negative territory in late April, after millions world-wide stopped driving and flying due to the new coronavirus, causing a steep drop in global demand," Rebecca Elliott reports for The Wall Street Journal. "Now that more of the world is reopening and prices are rebounding to nearly $40 a barrel, companies including Parsley Energy Inc. and WPX Energy Inc. are starting to turn some of those wells back on, even as they continue to put off most new drilling."

Output is still "far below" pre-pandemic peaks, when the U.S. was the world's top producer of crude oil. "While turning existing wells back on is likely to temporarily boost U.S. production this summer, American oil output is still widely expected to drop in 2020," Elliott reports. "That is because shale wells lose steam quickly, and companies have sharply cut back on the number of new wells they are drilling." That will likely continue to hurt the nation's economy, according to analysts.

Global oil demand has increased, though it's still an estimated 13% below last year's levels. On Saturday, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to extend production cuts for another month to bring prices up. "OPEC delegates were briefed on the likelihood that U.S. producers would turn the taps back on last week," Elliot reports, "but also discussed forecasts that American production would likely decline later in the year before agreeing to extend output cuts."

Rural African Americans are at higher risk from covid-19

Though all population groups have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic, some are at a disproportionate risk of dying from covid-19 in the United States. That includes rural residents and racial/ethnic minorities. Those who are both, especially rural African-Americans, have a much higher risk of being hospitalized and/or dying from the infection, according to a newly published paper in The Journal of Rural Health.

That echoes other studies that have found rural non-whites' overall medical risk to be higher, compounded by their rural location, access and health issues spurred by historical racial inequalities, and unconscious bias from medical providers.

The paper examines three possible explanations for why African-Americans are at a greater risk for covid-19, including social determinants of health (where someone is born, what kind of family they're born in and grow up with, and other factors all influenced by the distribution of money, power and resources), comorbidities and coexposures (underlying health issues and risk factors such as smoking), and genetic differences.

The authors recommend "innovative preventive and therapeutic interventions targeting the rural African American communities" to help fight the spread of covid-19.

Racial justice protests happening in rural areas too

Chad Jones of Holland, Ark. (photo provided)

Thousands of communities, some in foreign countries, have held demonstrations over the past week to protest the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other people of color at the hands of law enforcement, as well as general racial and ethnic inequality. But such protests aren't limited to big cities: some are happening in small towns.

Some are college towns, like State College, Pa., and Morehead, Ky.; such communities tend to have younger and more liberal residents, Alisha Ebrahimji reports for CNN. Others are smaller, agrarian communities like Holland, Ark., pop. 552. Local farmer Chad Jones staged a one-man protest recently because he wanted to show that "not all small towns come with small minds."

"Demonstrators marched and chanted for racial justice in Corbin, Morehead, Barbourville, Richmond and many more Kentucky cities and towns," the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. Corbin had "a notorious incident in October 1919 in which a white mob forced scores of black people out of town." In Midway, between Lexington and Frankfort, dozens of locals drew anti-racism messages on sidewalks Saturday, the Midway Messenger reports.

Hundreds of residents in small, politically conservative towns in southern Illinois have protested in recent days. As one protester said: "We don’t want Franklin County to be known for its racism. This is more about bringing the community together more than anything else," Molly Parker reports for The Southern Illinoisian.

In Ontario, Oregon, pop. 11,366, hundreds came out for a protest Thursday where local educators, organizers, and government officials gave speeches and shared stories about their experiences with ethnic and gender inequality, Rachel Parsons reports for the Malheur Enterprise.

Maps show spread of covid-19 to rural and Trump counties

New high-prevalence covid-19 counties through April 19 (left) and from April 20-May 31 (right). Brookings maps.

The coronavirus initially hit large urban areas, most of which went for Hillary Clinton in 2016. "However, covid-19 is continuing to spread to more parts of the country; since late April, counties with a high prevalence of cases have transitioned from 'blue' America to 'red,' where arguments for immediate reopening have been more pervasive," William Frey reports for Brookings.

High-prevalence covid-19 counties by population,
March 29-May 31 (Brookings chart)

According to a Brookings analysis, counties that were newly designated as having a high covid-19 prevalence—at least 100 cases per 100,000 people—in the six week between April 20 and May 31 were more rural, less racially diverse, and more likely to have voted for President Trump in 2016 than counties with a high covid-19 prevalence before mid-April, Frey reports.

"Clearly, the demographic attributes of the most recently identified high-prevalence counties are more favorable to Trump, given his popularity in smaller and rural areas and among white voters," Frey reports. Here's a Brookings map showing how high-case counties increasingly became more common in rural areas:

Rural Journalism director: Newspapers must embrace bold, persistent experimentation to survive and thrive

This is the author's latest monthly "Into the Issues" column in Publishers' Auxiliary, the newspaper of the National Newspaper Association.

By Al Cross

Director, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

Our country may not be in a depression, but the newspaper business is, and its fatality rate may be as great at that of the coronavirus. The pandemic and its economic restrictions have accelerated closures and mergers, which have increasingly affected county-seat weeklies, long the most stable type of American newspaper.

The economy is gradually reopening, but with no vaccine or proven treatment, the virus remains a threat, and that threatens a resurgence of covid-19 cases and more economic reversals. To get through this, newspapers need to prove their value, and they need to try new things.

The pandemic is spawning rivers of misinformation, an if there was ever a time for newspapers to reassert their franchise as the main finders of fact for democracy, this is it. But they must remember to assert that on social media, too, and to remind social-media consumers how those media and newspapers differ.

We must repeatedly explain that news media offer journalism, which has a discipline of verification: we emphasize facts, attribute opinion, and clearly separate the two. (That separation has eroded lately, and needs shoring up.) Social media have almost no discipline and no verification, so the facts get lost in a sea of opinion and invective, driven by algorithms giving people what they want, not what they need. They need to know that.

Don’t like online arguments? This is a fight for your life, so you should wage it on all fronts. Ask your critics to cite specifics, and when they do, remind them that it’s easy to pick examples of bad journalism from thousands of reports. As someone who got into journalism as a youth baseball scorekeeper and correspondent, I like to say journalism has a fielding percentage about as good as Major League players, around .984. By my reckoning, we’re fair and accurate 49 times out of 50. We do make two-base errors sometimes, but unlike social media and ballplayers, we correct them.

Newspapers’ survival depends on more than trust. They must provide value, which means good public-service journalism. How do you pay for that when advertising has dried up? Community newspapers need to be more aggressive in following their metro counterparts in asking their audiences to provide a greater share of revenue, and they need to be frank with their readers about their paper’s finances.

They also need explore a source of revenue that’s becoming more common: philanthropy. It’s unlikely that many community papers will have reporters paid by nonprofits, or get grants from foundations, but in every county in this country, there are people with money who would like to put it to good use. Many of them would define becoming a sponsor of a newspaper, to help it offer good journalism and stay alive, as a good use of their money.

Perhaps the best example of that is the Foothills Forum, a nonprofit in Rappahanock County, Virginia, that finances high-quality, in-depth journalism for the weekly Rappahannock News. The county has more money and more journalists than average, because it’s a little over an hour from Washington, D.C., but its paper has more than four years of experience that could provide guidance for others. We’ve written about it several times on The Rural Blog.

Philanthropists often want to help students, and that includes student journalists. When many University of Missouri journalism students’ internships fell through, faculty members Kathy Kiely and Damon Kiesow created a pop-up newsroom to produce stories for news outlets across the state, with students paid with funds from the school, the Knight Foundation and alumnus Walt Potter. As paid internships have become less common, students are accepting unpaid internships at community papers, and the relationship is mutually beneficial.

Universities can help in other ways. There is scant published research about community newspapers, and state press associations or newspaper groups should get researchers to examine the relationships of community papers and their audiences – including why they are losing readers and how they might get them back.

Another potential source of help is government – not the direct subsidies that are anathema to most journalists, but public-service advertising during the pandemic. In Kentucky, local governments have financed sample-copy editions of weeklies loaded with information about the coronavirus and preventing covid-19, and there is even more reason to do that now, as we need to take care to prevent a resurgence.

Now also might be a good time for a makeover, to spur single-copy sales. Think about a magazine format like The Canadian Record in Texas, which runs a compelling color photo on the front with blurbs about major features. It goes for $1.50 a copy, and folks in Hemphill County snap it up, because they know it’s good journalism.

Many other ideas are out there, in Pub Aux, state press groups and the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors’ online discussion board and monthly newsletter. The May edition had ideas on advertising, covering covid-19, online journalism, dealing with social media and helping communities get through the crisis.

Ideas are what we need. Not all will work, but our industry is at a juncture much like the bottom of the Great Depression, when presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt called for “bold, persistent experimentation.”

That’s not something for which newspapers are known, especially community papers, but they’d do well to follow it. After all, FDR’s line was written by a newspaper reporter, Ernest K. Lindley of the strongly Republican New York Herald Tribune. When Lindley and other reporters chided him about the lack of zing in his pre-convention remarks, FDR challenged them to draft a speech. “Lindley took the bait,” wrote presidential historian James MacGregor Burns, and bold, persistent experimentation helped save the country. It might save newspapers, too.

Most counties lost jobs in April, but rural counties lost a smaller percentage of theirs; county-level data available

Job losses from March-April 2020; differences among states may reflect policies on unemployment benefits and other factors. (Daily Yonder map; click on the image to for a larger version, or click here for the interactive version)

"Just about every corner of the country lost huge numbers of jobs between March and April of this year, but rural places fared far better than the nation’s largest cities," Bill Bishop reports for The Daily Yonder. "April was the first full month of lockdowns and business closings due to the covid-19 outbreak, so nearly every county suffered job losses. But the decline in employment diminished as one moved away from the centers of the nation’s largest cities, according to employment data just released by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics."

Specifically, the most rural counties (those that touch no metropolitan area) lost 10.8 percent of their jobs, rural counties near metro areas lost 11.7%, and the largest metro counties lost 15.1% from March to April, Bishop reports. Rural economies dependent on farming lost 7% of their jobs in that time period, compared to rural counties dependent on recreation, which lost 13.3% of their jobs.

Read more at the Yonder for a deeper statistical breakdown among rural-urban lines.

Editor's view: What journalists do, and how they should do it

By Jim Zachary
    Journalists play an important role during volatile times, mass protests and racial discord.
    Journalists give voice to the voiceless.
    Journalists write the first draft of history.

    Journalists share the pain, the angst and the frustrations of the people they cover, through their words.
    Journalists provide context.
    Journalists report on and help explain the positions of those in power.
    Journalists can provide a bridge between polarized communities and individuals through dispassionate reports.
    The role of the journalist is to chronicle events as they unfold.
    Journalists should be unimpeded by the authorities and should always have full access, free to report exactly what happens on the streets, in neighborhoods and in the halls of government.
    In turn, journalists should be professional and go about doing their jobs while maintaining high standards of journalistic ethics and conduct.
    The role the journalist plays is not in carrying signs, chanting slogans or marching in the streets.
    Journalists do their jobs with words.
    Their words can be powerful.
    Their words can effect change.
    Their role is to observe, to listen and to learn.
    Their role is to report.
    Their role is to speak — or write — truth.

    Their role is to tell the stories unfolding all around them.
    They are not present to take sides. Their side is the side of truth.
    Not everyone will like the truth they tell or the stories they share, but dedicated journalists persevere, not as activists, but as truth tellers.
    Sometimes journalists are attacked.
    Some have even been attacked by police — pushed, hit, shoved and arrested.
    That is wrong and police must be held accountable when they strong arm the press. The freedom of the press to cover and report is guaranteed by the First Amendment and crucial to an open and free society.
    Far more journalists are attacked in public spaces and on social media by people who simply do not like the truth.
    Simple straightforward reporting often conjures cries of “fake news” and “enemy of the people.”
    News reporting that people simply do not like is erroneously labeled “fake.”
    Reporters who are doing little more than chronicling the things they see and hear are called “enemies.”
    The women and men — the journalists — at your local newspaper are someone’s daughter, son, mother, father, brother or sister. They are people you know, people who live in the community. You might sit next to them at ball games or church services. They may be shopping in the grocery store beside you or eating at the table next to you in a restaurant.
    They cover your child’s school play or ballgame. They share news about a fundraiser of a nonprofit you volunteer with or write a compelling feature story inspiring philanthropy and incubating a spirit of generosity.
    They are, most certainly, not your enemy.
    Journalists do hold the powerful accountable and expose nefarious acts. They investigate corruption, keep an eye on the public purse and defend the public’s right to know.
    While they are not working in laboratories to develop a cure for a global pandemic or in harm’s way on the frontlines of a battlefield in a war-torn country defending freedom, they are providing vital services, viz. celebrating community, reporting facts and demanding accountability.
    Journalists are the friends of democracy, friends of justice — friends of the truth.

Jim Zachary is Deputy National Editor of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., editor of The Valdosta Daily Times and president of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. He can be reached at jzachary@cnhi.com.

Bipartisan bill aims to help farmers profit from carbon credits

A bipartisan group of four senators introduced a bill Thursday, June 4, that would make it easier for farmers to make money from reducing greenhouse-gas emissions on their land and selling carbon credits. The bill is sponsored by Mike Braun, R-Ind.; Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

"In what might be considered a stunning trifecta for a climate bill in Congress, the Growing Climate Solutions Act lists significant support among a cross-section of agricultural groups, major corporations and environmental organizations," Chris Clayton reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer. "The bill does not address broad fundamental challenges to lowering greenhouse-gas emissions nationally. But for farmers and owners of major forestry operations nationally, the legislation does create a certification program at USDA that would help address technical barriers for farmers and landowners who want to participate in carbon-credit markets."

Who's buying the credits? "California and 10 Northeastern states have set up markets for buying and selling credits for the right to emit carbon into the atmosphere, effectively putting a cap on those states’ contributions to climate change," Dino Grandoni and Paulina Firozi report for The Washington Post. "Other voluntary markets let eco-conscious consumers pay money to offset emissions from airline travel and other activities."

Braun said the program could help farmers who are struggling right now because of low prices and other factors during the coronavirus pandemic, the Post reports.

"The bill also promotes access to technical assistance, comparable to what USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service provides now for conservation practices," Clayton reports.

Quick hits: Evangelicals vary in response to Trump's Bible photo op; Tyson reinstates policy penalizing absent workers

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Op-ed advocates making investing in resilient, localized food system part of next stimulus. Read more here.

Critics say small rural businesses left out of Paycheck Protection Plan funds; Reuters analysis shows how much PPP money went to big businesses that ducked paying taxes. Read more here.

Evangelicals vary in response to Trump's Bible photo op. Read more here.

Op-ed touts solar power as economic engine in rural eastern Kentucky. Read more here.

Webinar discusses news media perspectives on mental health during the pandemic. Read more here.

Tyson reinstates policy penalizing absentee workers, but says workers with covid-19 symptoms won't be penalized. Read more here.

Execs at Pilgrim's Pride and Claxton Poultry Farms indicted in alleged price-fixing scheme; others could be charged

"The chief executive of one of the country’s largest chicken producers was indicted on a price-fixing charge on Wednesday along with three other current and former executives at companies that supply chicken to groceries and restaurants across the United States," Cade Metz reports for The New York Times. "The indictment, by a federal grand jury in United States District Court in Denver, alleges that senior executives at Pilgrim’s Pride, based in Colorado, and Claxton Poultry Farms in Georgia fixed prices and rigged bids from 2012 to 2017. The charges are the first in a still-open Justice Department investigation involving several other major chicken producers."

The DOJ began investigating U.S. meat processors in recent weeks after farmers and ranchers complained that processors have been paying them extremely low prices for their livestock, even though meat prices (especially beef) surged for buyers, Leah Nylen and Liz Crampton report for Politico.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere hit a record high, though total greenhouse gases decline due to pandemic

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as recorded at the
Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. (Washington Post chart)

Greenhouse-gas emissions have dropped because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the amount of carbon dioxide in the air just hit a record high.

"According to readings from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the amount of CO2 in the air in May 2020 hit an average of slightly greater than 417 parts per million. This is the highest monthly average value ever recorded, and is up from 414.7 ppm in May of last year," Andrew Freedman and Chris Mooney report for The Washington Post. "Carbon dioxide levels are the highest they’ve been in human history, and likely the highest in 3 million years. The last time there was this much CO2 in the atmosphere, global average surface temperatures were significantly warmer than they are today, and sea levels were 50 to 80 feet higher."

This sustained, and accelerating, increase in greenhouse gases is hastening global warming, the Post reports, which has serious implications for agriculture and more.

Appeals court bans dicamba-based herbicide sales in U.S. for 6 months; EPA is likely to reauthorize it for next year

A federal appeals court has essentially halted the sale of dicamba-based herbicides in the U.S. for the next six months after ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency did not do its due diligence when reauthorizing the chemical in 2018. That reauthorization expires Dec. 20.

Environmental groups sued EPA in 2018 in an attempt to force the agency to cancel its approval of XtendiMax, a dicamba-based herbicide then produced by Monsanto, which has since been acquired by Bayer AG, Joel Rosenblatt reports for Bloomberg. The ruling applies to dicamba-based herbicides by other companies such as BASF and Corteva Agriscience.

The three-judge panel ruled that the EPA had "failed entirely" to acknowledge the risks of dicamba and therefore violated federal regulations by reauthorizing XtendiMax for two years in October 2018," Rosenblatt reports. The judges wrote in the opinion that the EPA's decision also failed to consider the "enormous social cost to farming communities" where disagreements over dicamba damage have "turned farmer against farmer, and neighbor against neighbor," and cited the 2016 murder of an Arkansas farmer during an argument over dicamba damage.

Dicamba is well-known for vaporizing after application and drifting to nearby fields, where it can damage crops not genetically engineered to resist it. That can unfairly influence farmers to buy dicamba-resistant seeds and pesticides, the judges ruled. "The decision is the latest blow to Bayer in the wake of its $63 billion takeover of Monsanto — a deal that made the German company a leader in agriculture products but also saddled it with a mountain of legal liabilities related to weed killers," Rosenblatt reports. In February, a Missouri peach farmer was awarded $265 million in a lawsuit against Bayer and BASF over dicamba-damaged crops.

State inspection agencies have been inundated with similar complaints for the past three years. Bayer's XtendiMax herbicide is "widely blamed for damaging 3.6 million acres of untreated soybeans in 2017, and more than 1 million acres in 2018," Rosenblatt reports.

"Still, the EPA will probably re-authorize dicamba in a revised form in time for next year -- and the agency could even move up that reauthorization before Dec. 20, when the current clearance was set to expire."