Disability rates highest in rural, white, working-class counties; see your county's since 2004

Washington Post maps; click on them to enlarge

Rural America has "experienced the most rapid increase in disability rates over the past decade," with 100 of the 102 counties with the highest rates—where more than one in six working-age adults receive disability—being rural, Terrence McCoy reports for The Washington Post. Of those counties, all but 18 were, on average, 87 percent white.

McCoy's report includes an interactive chart that allows users to track each county's disability rate since 2014.

From 1996 to 2015, the number of working-age adults receiving disability rose from 7.7 million to 13 million and "the federal government this year will spend an estimated $192 billion on disability payments, more than the combined total for food stamps, welfare, housing subsidies and unemployment assistance," McCoy writes.

"The rise in disability has emerged as yet another indicator of a widening political, cultural and economic chasm between urban and rural America," McCoy writes. "In the 2016 presidential election, the majority-white counties voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, whose rhetoric of a rotting nation with vast joblessness often reflects lived experiences in these communities."

"Most people aren’t employed when they apply for disability—one reason applicant rates skyrocketed during the recession," McCoy writes. "Full-time employment would, in fact, disqualify most applicants. And once on it, few ever get off, their ranks uncounted in the national unemployment rate, which doesn’t include people on disability. The decision to apply, in many cases, is a decision to effectively abandon working altogether. For the severely disabled, this choice is, in essence, made for them. But for others, it’s murkier. Aches accumulate. Years pile up. Job prospects diminish."

McCoy gives a detailed example in the case of Desmond Spencer, a former roofer in Beaverton, Ala., who lost two jobs when companies left the country, before losing another during the recession, McCoy writes. At 39, Spencer, who limps from a work accident that he never sought treatment for, hasn't had a job in a year. Family members urge him to apply for disability benefits, but he doesn't want to be seen as a failure and he wonders if he is actually able to work and thus doesn't need assistance. He told McCoy, “There’s a stigma about it. Disabled. Disability. Drawing a check. But if you’re putting food on the table, does it matter?”

Spencer's situation may not be typical of all people who get disability benefits or are considering seeking them, but the Post is casting a wider net; at the bottom the story it has a questionnaire asking people to tell about their own applications.

Climate skeptics sending teachers a book and DVD; National Geographic offers contrary info

"A libertarian think tank that rejects the scientific consensus on climate change" has mailed 25,000 public-school teachers its book and DVD Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, and plans to reach 200,000 teachers, Katie Worth reports for PBS's "Frontline." The Heartland Institute "dismisses multiple studies showing scientists are in near unanimous agreement that humans are changing the climate," Worth reports.

A more scientific approach appears in the April edition of National Geographic, which lists the things everyone should know about climate change. Last year was the warmest on record, "1.69 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average," the magazine reports. Warming trends didn't come from one or two sources, but from thousands of weather stations, buoys, ships and satellites. "No natural cause explains the half-century warning trend. The sun's output cycles up and down every 11 years; volcanic eruptions sporadically cool the planet. Meanwhile, human-emitted greenhouse gases form a steadily thickening blanket that traps heat at the Earth's surface."

Nine of 10 scientists agree that climate change is occurring and they have the data to back it up, National Geographic reports. Ice is melting fast, sea levels are rising and the weather is getting more intense, led by an increase in heat waves, droughts and flooding.

Climate change has negatively affected wildlife, as rising temperatures depress some animal and plant populations, "driving species toward the poles, shifting migration and patterns," the magazine reports. That has led to extinction of some species, with regions being transformed, ice loss forcing some animals to land, alpine ecosystems being squeezed off mountaintops and warming ocean temperatures triggering coal bleaching and die-offs at reefs.

Overall, 47 percent of species surveyed in a 2016 study "had vanished from areas they'd previously occupied on the warm edge of their range." A 2015 study found that 16 percent of species risk global extinction if the climate warms by eight degrees, which could occur by 2100 if emissions are not cut.

The main thing to take away from climate change is that we can do something about it, National Geographic says. "The cost of solar energy is plummeting. Even without a carbon tax, renewables soon may be cheaper sources of electricity." A 2016 study found that every ton of CO2 we emit melts 32 square feet of Arctic ice, or 525 square feet annually. National Geographic notes, "Every energy-saving building, retired gas-guzzler and acre of preserved forest helps. But none of it will help much if the world doesn't switch to carbon-free energy support soon."

UPDATE, April 4: Some leading Democratic members of Congress urged teachers to throw the books away, Hanna Hess of Greenwire reports.

Top 3 coal producers want U.S. to keep climate-change agreement; top independent doesn't

The top three coal producers in the U.S.—Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and Cloud Peak Energy—told White House officials they would not object to the U.S. remaining in the Paris climate-change agreement, particularly if the Trump administration "can secure more financial support for technology to reduce pollution from the use of coal," Andrew Restuccia reports for Politico. But that approach faces resistance from others in the industry, such as Murray Energy, the largest private coal company in the country. CEO Robert Murray has close ties to the Trump administration.

White House sources said Peabody, Arch and Cloud Peak, which are publicly traded and mine more than 42 percent of the coal produced in the U.S., "hope to see their policy priorities reflected in the reworked domestic climate plan that the Trump administration would probably submit if it decides to stay in the 2015 Paris deal," Restuccia reports. "In the agreement, the U.S. and nearly 200 nations committed to take steps in the coming decades to sharply reduce their emissions of the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet."

Arch spokeswoman Logan Bonacorsi "praised the administration for reconsidering former President Barack Obama's climate change regulations for power plants and focusing instead on 'driving progress on advanced, low-emissions fossil fuel technologies that will provide far greater benefits over time,' but she did not directly address the company's position on the international deal," Restuccia writes. Peabody and Cloud Peak did not comment.

"Other coal companies remain deeply opposed to the U.S. remaining in the Paris deal, arguing that the global effort to crack down on emissions could further harm the ailing industry," Restuccia writes. Robert Murray "called the deal 'illegal' and a waste of taxpayer money in a February speech in Miami. He joined the president on Tuesday when Trump signed an executive order that took the first steps toward repealing key portions of Obama's climate agenda."

Stricter immigration laws, border wall threaten ag industries that rely on undocumented workers

Farm workers pick broccolini in King City, Calif.
(Associated Press photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Of the 1.5 to 2 million farm workers in the country, 46 percent are undocumented, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates in its National Agricultural Workers Survey. The United Fresh Produce Association, a produce industry trade group, estimates numbers are higher, anywhere from 50 to 70 percent, reports Tamar Haspel reports for The Washington Post.

Either way, the industry could take a tremendous hit under President Trump's increased immigration enforcement and his proposed border wall, Haspel writes. And it's not as if Americans are standing in line for farm jobs, which often require long hours of backbreaking work for low pay.

A study in North Carolina in 2011, a year in which almost 500,000 people in the state were unemployed, found that when the North Carolina Growers Association listed 6,500 available jobs, only 268 Americans applied, 245 were hired, 163 showed up to work and only seven finished the season. Haspel notes, "Of the mostly Mexican workers who took the rest of the jobs, 90 percent made it through to the end."

Haspel also reports the undocumented workforce is shrinking because of Trump administration policies, stricter enforcement under the Obama administration, better conditions in Mexico, and an aging immigrant workforce. These scenarios have put pressure on farmers to raise wages and improve conditions, which could lead to higher prices for consumers. "If wages increased 25 percent (from $12 to $15), and that cost were passed on to us, produce prices would rise 2 to 3 percent. The yearly impact would be in the range of $30 per household, certainly affordable for many but not for all," Haspel writes.

News series in South Dakota weekly is based on public notices, showing their value to the public

April 7 column. All eight columns can be found here.

South Dakota is one of several states where lawmakers are considering removing public notices from newspapers and placing them instead on government websites. The proposed law in South Dakota inspired Yankton County Register of Deeds Brian Hunhoff, a contributing editor of the weekly Yankton County Observer, to begin an ongoing column, "In a Minutes Notice," showing the importance of public notices being published in newspapers.

Hunhoff told The Rural Blog in an email: "It’s a news series I created by taking 90-plus percent of the content from local public notices. The idea is to remind people how much valuable info can be found in those legals and readers have really responded well." Hunoff has already written eight columns.

Hunhoff told the Public Notice Resource Center that the series is "based on news culled from meeting minutes and legal notices published in the Observer and other newspapers in the state," PNRC reports. He told the center, “I’ve been meaning to do this series for a long time, but could never seem to find the time. Then I read the [PNRC] story in the National Newspaper Association’s PubAux about all the public-notice battles taking place around the country and decided it would be a good year to finally make time and get it done.”

Hunhoff's columns "include deep dives on particular subjects, like the salaries of local public officials or the frequency and length of their executive sessions," reports PNRC. "He has also reviewed meeting minutes and budgets from 12 similar-size cities and counties to learn how Yankton County and City of Yankton rank in comparison."

DEA seizes billions from people never charged with crime; they must prove innocence to recoup assets

More than 80 percent—$3.2 billion—in assets seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration from 2007 to 2016 was taken from people who were never charged with criminal activity, says a report by the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general.

Cash seizures have dropped dramatically since then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in January 2015 "issued an order that eliminated most opportunities for state and local law enforcement to use adoptive seizure to avail themselves of federal forfeiture and related equitable sharing proceeds," the report found. (DOJ graphic: Cash seizures from 2007-16.)

"The seizures are all legal under the controversial practice of civil asset forfeiture, which allows authorities to take cash, contraband and property from people suspected of crime," Christopher Ingraham reports for The Washington Post. "The practice does not require authorities to obtain a criminal conviction and it allows departments to keep seized cash and property for themselves unless individuals successfully challenge the forfeiture in court." (Value of cash seizures by department)

Critics "say this creates a perverse profit motive, incentivizing police to seize goods not for the purpose of fighting crime, but for padding department budgets," Ingraham writes. "Law enforcement groups say the practice is a valuable tool for fighting criminal organizations, allowing them to seize drug profits and other ill-gotten goods." Ingraham notes that people who have had money seized often don't fight it, because of high court costs, which sometimes amount to more than the amount seized.

The report found that "the Department of Justice 'does not collect or evaluate the data necessary to know whether its seizures and forfeitures are effective, or the extent to which seizures present potential risks to civil liberties'," Ingraham writes. The report said: "When seizure and administrative forfeitures do not ultimately advance an investigation or prosecution, law enforcement creates the appearance, and risks the reality, that it is more interested in seizing and forfeiting cash than advancing an investigation or prosecution."

Rural jobs schemes not as successful as promised, but tax credits still flow to investors

Investment companies are cashing in on rural jobs bills that often fail to deliver on promises, Jen Fifield reports for Stateline in the first of a two-part series. "Under the bills, state tax credits are awarded to companies that agree to invest in or loan money to funds set up by investment firms or other brokers. The funds then invest the money in rural businesses. But states that have evaluated the multilayered subsidized lending programs—originally CAPCO (certified capital companies) programs and later New Markets Tax Credit programs—have found that they failed to deliver promised jobs and tax revenue."

This year 11 states have proposed rural jobs bills and Utah Republican Gov. Gary Herbert signed one into law last week, Fifield writes. "Three firms—Advantage Capital Partners, Enhanced Capital and Stonehenge Capital—have led the lobbying for the programs and have been the main participants in several states. The laws, through which states have awarded billions in tax credits, are generally structured in such a way that these and other firms that participate can profit from the deals even if the businesses they fund never create another job." (Stateline graphic: Rural jobs bills)

"The programs are so complex, and the promises so appealing, that states typically don’t take a close look at them until it’s too late, according to 10 economists and policy analysts who have studied them," Fifield writes. "Many critics, such as Steven Miller, senior vice president of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, call the programs 'schemes.' Miller says he expects a public backlash once they 'have gone belly up and taxpayer dollars have been used for private benefit.'"

"Under the new rural jobs bills—being considered in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, South Carolina and Washington state—investments would be made in small, rural businesses," Fifield writes. "The idea behind the programs is that they will generate economic activity that exceeds the cost of the tax credit. Unlike many other economic development programs, in which the state directs the flow of money, these programs rely on private firms or nonprofits—often investment firms or their affiliates—to act as brokers, directing the investments and loans made under the program."

State reports from Alabama, Colorado, Missouri and New York found that programs failed to create as many jobs or as much state revenue as promised and recommended they be shut down, Fifield writes. Only one state, Maine, "has concluded that the economic benefits of a program outweighed its costs." That study found "the state’s New Markets program would generate millions more in tax revenue than the state offered in tax credits. But some analysts cast doubt on its conclusions, arguing that the authors used methods for counting jobs, backed by the investment firms, that overestimate the number of jobs directly linked to the tax-credit program."

EPA, farm groups reach deal to release more info on concentrated animal feeding operations

The Environmental Protection Agency reached a deal this week with two farm groups "to make public the city, county, ZIP code and permit status—but no more—of certain big livestock farms," Marc Heller reports for Greenwire. The deal reached with the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council "averts the need for a court order, after the groups successfully sued the agency for releasing names, addresses and phone numbers connected to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in 29 states."

"EPA had released the information, which sometimes included names of family members as well as GPS coordinates for farms, in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from the Pew Charitable Trusts and two environmental groups, Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council," Heller writes. "The groups were looking to assess the agency's implementation of the Clean Water Act, which calls for permits for CAFOs."

"At the time, the NRDC said little information was known about CAFOs, despite the threats from animal waste that they can pose to waterways," Heller writes. The groups said "more disclosure would 'provide a greater understanding of what is known about industrial livestock facilities and help identify ways that safeguards against CAFO pollution can be improved to protect human health and the environment.'"

Farm groups cited invasion of privacy concerns for not wanting to release information, Heller writes. Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a statement: "Farm families usually live on the farm and releasing this type of information was a clear violation of their personal privacy. The information could easily be used to encourage harassment or even violence against farmers and ranchers."

NPR tests Trump's budget cuts with his rural supporters, a story that can be done many places

Chase County, Kansas
(Kansas Historical Society map)

President Trump's proposed budget cuts would eliminate or slash many programs that help rural areas, such as Chase County, Kansas, where more than $2.7 million in federal grants helped build a $6 million water treatment system that serves about 500 homes and businesses in Strong City and Cottonwood, Frank Morris reports for NPR. The water treatment system replaced an unstable 40-year-old water treatment plant located inside Strong City's abandoned high school.

Those are the kind of grants that would be eliminated by Trump's budget cuts, Morris writes. But in Chase County, where Trump earned more than 71 percent of the vote, "quite a few people actually embrace those cuts," Morris writes. Trump supporter Jim Fritch told Morris, "They've got to make cuts somewhere. Somebody's going to get cut, somebody's going to bleed a little bit. That's just a fact of life, but to get things back into balance." Jim Fink agrees, telling Morris, "If you ask me would I rather see the money go for our water plant, or to possibly try to control our borders and the security of our nation, the security of our nation is more important to me."

The NPR story is an example of how similar stories can be written about just about any rural area that would be impacted by cuts, especially areas where Trump was largely popular. Morris notes, "If passed as-is, the budget would kill programs that train workers, back small town startups and help pay for roads, sewers and broadband in some of the nation's poorest counties."

Bill Minor, 'conscience of Mississippi,' dies at 94; covered the state and civil rights for 70 years

Bill Minor in 1956

Bill Minor, known as the “the conscience of Mississippi" and for being a "champion for the little guy" during his seven decades of community journalism, died on Tuesday at 94, Jerry Mitchell reports for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. After returning from World War II, Minor "worked for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans and began covering Mississippi in 1947."

"Minor began working out of an office in the state Capitol along with other reporters," Mitchell writes. "Unlike some of those reporters, he wasn’t content to rewrite press releases that came from politicians. Instead, he did his own reporting, exposing the dark deeds he witnessed to the light, which hardly made him popular beneath the Capitol dome. Some of the politicians he wrote about, including state Sen. Bill Burgin, went to prison."

Minor covered the trial of the white men accused of killing Emmett Till, an African American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, Mitchell writes. They were acquitted by a white jury, but later confessed to the murder. "In the years that followed, Minor covered the burgeoning civil rights movement" and was a mentor for many young reporters, including Pulitzer Prize winners Hank Klibanoff, David Halberstam and Jack Nelson. Halberstam told The Clarion-Ledger before his 2007 death, "People who are saying there aren't any heroes anymore just aren't looking in the right places. [Bill Minor is] an example of real conscience and integrity.”

Minor chose to stay in Mississippi but worked as a stringer for The New York Times. Claude Sitton, who covered the civil rights movement for the Times, once said of Roberts, “No Southern newspaperman has done more for civil rights and civil liberties than Bill Minor. Gene Roberts, who succeeded Sitton as the Times’s chief correspondent in the South, told the Times, “It would be hard to overestimate Bill’s importance to journalism and to keeping the country abreast of what was going on in Mississippi. When you had to barrel quickly into Mississippi, your first stop would be Bill Minor.”

Interior to restart coal leasing, ending Obama ban

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed an order Wednesday to restart coal leasing in the U.S. in response to President Trump's executive order this week "tasking him with taking 'all steps necessary and appropriate' to end the three-year ban on new coal leasing imposed by President Obama in January 2016," Dylan Brown reports for Greenwire.

Zinke "also declared that an Obama-ordered review of the federal coal program is dead," Brown writes. "But Zinke will re-establish a federal advisory committee made up of states, tribes and other advocacy groups to study whether Americans are getting a fair return on coal as well as oil and natural gas."

Zinke also scrapped the department's programmatic environmental impact statement studying the federal coal program, Brown writes. The document, which was released a few days before Trump's inauguration and was panned by industry and welcomed by environmentalists, "said royalty rates should be raised to generate more revenue and mitigate coal's climate impacts." Zinke called the report "costly and unnecessary." He also said a decision hasn't been made about whether royalties need to be raised." (Read more)

Many coal jobs have been replaced by automation

Self-driving Caterpillar truck 

President Trump's promise to bring back coal jobs can't be fulfilled largely because automation has replaced many jobs, Hiroko Tabuchi reports for The New York Times. "In 1980, the industry employed about 242,000 people. By 2015, that figure had plunged 60 percent, to fewer than 100,000, even as coal production edged up 8 percent. Helped by automation, worker productivity more than tripled over the same period, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration and the Brookings Institution."

While cheaper natural gas and Obama-administration regulations are blamed for a decline in coal jobs, another reason is "a shift from underground coal mines to surface mines—which involves opening mountains with controlled explosions, then using automated heavy machinery to mine the coal," Tabuchi writes.

A study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment "predicted that automation was likely to replace 40 to 80 percent of workers at mines," Tabuchi writes. Corrie Scott, a Caterpillar spokeswoman, told Tabuchi that "automation makes mines more 'safe, efficient and productive." She said, “While mines would not need as many drivers, they will need more people who use and understand the latest technology.”

Nicolas Maennling, senior economics and policy researcher at Columbia University and an author of the automation study, told Tabuchi, “However way you spin it, gas and renewables are going to continue to replace coal. And in order to stay competitive, coal will have to increase automation. What Mr. Trump does will make little difference.”

Oregon board refuses weekly's request for public records about release of a murder suspect

A memorial for the man killed in a crash
with the suspect. (Photo by Les Zaitz)

After a murder suspect confessed to feigning insanity for 20 years to avoid a prison cell, the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board is "defying a state order that it release public records to the Malheur Enterprise and intends to sue the weekly newspaper to keep the records secret," the Enterprise reports. "The state board wants to keep confidential certain records it used in deciding last December to discharge from state custody Anthony W. Montwheeler, 49."

Since 1996, Montwheeler has been under the Security Review Board's jurisdiction after being found guilty but insane in an earlier kidnapping case, the Enterprise reports. The board released him "after learning in December that he had been faking his mental illness for 20 years. The Enterprise sought access to 15 of the 227 documents admitted as exhibits. The records included recent risk assessments of Montwheeler by state hospital officials. Under the Oregon Public Records Law, government records generally are open to the public. Exceptions allow agencies to keep some records confidential."

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has ordered the board to turn over the records sought by the Enterprise, but Security Review Board Executive Director Juliet Britton said in a Feb. 6 letter to the newspaper that "state and federal law prohibited the agency from releasing the documents. She also said that disclosing two documents would 'be an unreasonable invasion of a private citizen’s personal privacy'."

The day Montwheeler was released, state psychologist Brian Hartman warned the state board what might happen, co-owner Les Zaitz reports for the weekly. Hartman testified in December, “His risk of violence would be high and it would be most likely to target his intimate partner or other family member." Hartman was right. Three weeks after his release, "police say Montwheeler kidnapped and killed his ex-wife and then killed a Vale man and injured his wife in a collision as he was eluding police."

"Montwheeler now sits in the Malheur County Jail, charged with aggravated murder, assault, and kidnapping. He may face the death penalty. He declined an interview," Zaitz reports.

EPA drops proposed ban on Lorsban, agricultural pesticide linked to developmental delays

New Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt on Wednesday refused to ban a pesticide widely used in agriculture that the agency had previously sought to ban, Brady Dennis reports for The Washington Post. Chlorpyrifos, also known as Lorsban, "has been used by farmers for more than a half-century to kill pests on crops including broccoli, strawberries and citrus. EPA banned its spraying indoors to combat household bugs more than a decade ago. But only in recent years did the agency seek to ban its use in agriculture, after mounting scientific evidence that prenatal exposure can pose risks to fetal brain and nervous system development."

Supporters of a ban wrote in a letter to the agency earlier this year, “With each year of delay in canceling food tolerances and agricultural and other uses of chlorpyrifos, more children are unnecessarily at elevated risk for problems in learning, social skills, motor function, and other developmental domains. We strongly urge EPA to finalize its assessment and cancel all remaining uses of chlorpyrifos as expeditiously as possible.”

In 2015, EPA proposed banning the insecticide, Dennis writes. A federal judge had given EPA until Friday to decide whether to go ahead with the ban. In denying it Pruitt said: “We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment. By reversing the previous administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making—rather than predetermined results.”

Annual County Health Rankings are released; can be a great starting point for local coverage

Alabama counties ranked by health factors

The University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute has released its annual County Health Rankings. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the rankings are a good resource for assessing a county's overall health status and for comparing counties within the same state. Counties are ranked within each state based on quality of life, length of life, health factors, clinical care, social and economic factors and physical environment.

This year's rankings found that rural counties by far had the highest rates of premature deaths, continuing if not accelerating a recent trend. Nearly one-fifth of rural counties have experienced worsening premature death rates over the past decade, while nearly all large urban areas have seen declines. One reason for the higher rates in rural areas could be an increase in drug use. Drug-overdose deaths have increased 79 percent overall since 2002, but are highest in rural counties, especially Appalachia, the study found.

Rural areas generally rank poorly in adult obesity, adult smoking, teen births, uninsured, preventable hospital stays, childhood poverty, injury deaths and college education. Favorable rankings for rural areas included the lowest amount of violent crime and shortest commutes to work.

Some places have seen big declines in their health status. For example, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania (Wikipedia map), an Appalachian coal community, dropped over the past year from 26th to 40th in health behaviors and from 20th to 34th in physical environment. (The state has 67 counties.) One key may have been physical inactivity, with 28 percent of adults reporting living inactive lifestyles, the sixth worst total in the state, Mark Guydish reports for the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre.

Dr. Tina George, a local family practice doctor who thinks the county's poverty and excessive drinking levels were under-reported for the rankings, "said part of the problem is simply the physical environment of municipalities built before urban design was a thing," Guydish writes. She told him, “We don’t have cities like they do out west, where communities were planned and laid out to be walkable, to have places for exercise, to have food markets. We didn’t have the advantages of making a community that promotes a healthy lifestyle."

In Iowa, rural Black Hawk County was ranked 85th of 99 counties in health, its lowest spot since the rankings were started in 2010, Christina Crippes reports for The Courier in Cedar Valley. The county ranked low for obesity, lack of physical activity, high rate of sexually transmitted diseases and a rise in violent crime.

Despite Trump's promises, market conditions that favor gas keep working against coal

While President Trump on Tuesday promised to "put our miners back to work" and Vice President Mike Pence declared "the war on coal is over," market prices that favor natural gas won't help revitalize coal, Naureen Malik and Tim Loh report for Bloomberg News. For example, "at least six gas-fired plants are planned in the Ohio River valley over the next four years. That’s enough to supply more than 4 million homes and topple coal as the state’s main source of electricity. That’s what makes it so hard for Trump to bring back mining jobs in states like Ohio where the coal vote helped put him in the White House."

In 2016 "coal’s share of power generation in the state fell to about 58 percent, from 86 percent in 2006," reports Bloomberg. John Bartlett, who helps manage about $2.5 billion of energy and utility stocks at W.H. Reaves & Co. Inc. in Jersey City, "estimates that by 2021, gas-fired stations in Ohio will be able to produce 20.4 gigawatts—almost double their current capacity—while coal will hold steady at 15.4 gigawatts." (Bloomberg graphic: Six new gas-fired plants are planned in Ohio)

"Competition from gas was one reason that AES Corp.’s Dayton Power & Light announced in November it will shut two coal plants in Adams County on the Ohio River. With a combined capacity of 3,000 megawatts, they’ve operated for 40 years and employ hundreds of people," Blomberg reports. About 250 miles east, in the heart of shale country near the Pennsylvania border, in Wellsville, Ohio, a gas-fired plant is being considered, putting two coal-fired plants in the area owned by FirstEnergy Corp. at risk.

Toby Shea, senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service Inc., "said that coal closures in places like Ohio will have a 'rippling effect' across markets, pushing already-low electricity prices even lower," reports Bloomberg. "It could turn the world’s single biggest competitive power market—the one operated by PJM Interconnection LLC across 13 states from the mid-Atlantic to the Midwest—into a 'distressed market' where generators struggle to turn a profit."

"Historically, gas prices have been volatile," Bloomberg reports. "The risk is that by the time they swing up again, other producers—nuclear, as well as coal—could have been driven out of business."

North Dakota Senate passes bill to reduce spill reporting by oil and gas industry

The North Dakota Senate passed a bill Monday that would reduce reporting of oil-industry spills, Amy Dalrymple reports for the Fargo Forum. Under the bill, which House leaders say they expect to pass, "The oil industry will no longer have to report spills of oil, produced water or natural-gas liquids that are less than 10 barrels, or 420 gallons, if the spills stay on the well site or facility location."

"The reporting exemption only applies to oil wells and facilities constructed after Sept. 1, 2000, under the version approved by the Senate," Dalrymple writes. "The bill does not eliminate the requirement to clean up all spills. Department of Mineral Resources rules that took effect on Sept. 1, 2000, require well sites to be constructed with dikes that are 'sufficiently impermeable' to provide emergency containment in the event of a spill."

Advocates of the bill, which passed 31-14, say "North Dakota has more stringent spill reporting requirements than the federal government and most other oil-producing states, which can make it appear that North Dakota has more spills than other states," Dalrymple writes. Critics of the bill argue that it's good that North Dakota's rules are more transparent than other states and it would hurt landowners to reduce reporting of spills. (Energywire map: reported oil spills from 2011-14)

Illinois study predicts climate change will cut number of farm field work days by mid-century

Climate change is reducing the time farmers have for field work, says a study by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign published in the academic journal PLOS One. (U of I graphic: Drought risk odds)

In a previous study, the researchers "developed models that reliably translated past climate data into field working days for Illinois," Lauren Quinn reports for U of I. For the new study "they coupled those models with climate-change scenarios to forecast field working days into the future. The group ran the models for nine crop districts in Illinois for two time periods, mid-century (2046 to 2065) and late-century (2080 to 2099), using three climate scenarios ranging from mild to extreme. The models suggest that the typical planting window for corn will no longer be workable; April and May will be far too wet to work the fields in most parts of Illinois."

Adam Davis, an ecologist for U of I and U.S. Department of Agriculture, told Quinn, “We’re predicting warmer and wetter springs, and drier, hotter summers. The season fragments, and we start to see an early-early season, so that March starts looking like a good target for planting in the future. In the past, March has been the bleeding edge; nobody in their right mind would have planted then. But we’ve already seen the trend for early planting. It’s going to keep trending in that direction for summer annuals.”

"Drought periods will intensify in mid- to late summer under all the climate scenarios," Davis said. "If farmers decide to plant later to avoid the wet period in April and May, they’re going to run into drought," which will thwart the development of corn kernels at a critical time. "That second planting window is probably pretty risky. It will come down to whether crop insurers will move planting dates earlier in the spring. They’re going to need enough years of empirical evidence that this early window exists before they are likely to make that change."

Kansas legislature votes to expand Medicaid, but governor may issue a veto and make it stick

The Kansas Senate on Tuesday passed a bill to expand Medicaid expansion in the state, Hunter Woodall reports for The Kansas City Star. By a vote of 25-14 the Senate passed "a bill that would expand coverage of KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program, to roughly 150,000 people in the state," most of them rural residents. The bill now goes to the desk of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who is against expansion, but "has not said whether he will veto the legislation."

Lawmakers already are preparing for a possible veto override, Woodall writes. "Brownback will have 10 days from the time he gets the bill to decide whether to veto it, sign it or let it become law without his signature. If Brownback does veto the bill, it will take 84 votes in the House and 27 votes in the Senate to override his veto."

"The bill was supported by a majority of Republicans in the Senate, though by a narrow margin," Woodall writes. "Sixteen Senate Republicans voted for the bill, while 14 voted it down. Many conservative Republicans strongly opposed the legislation, though that opposition wasn’t enough to defeat the bill. Expansion proponents will need to flip at least two of the 14 conservatives in the Senate to a yes vote to override a veto. That may be a tough task, as conservative lawmakers were already saying after the vote that they would not be flipped and were hopeful the Senate, or even the House, could defeat a veto-override effort."

Trump reversing Obama's course on climate to help coal, contrary to public and expert opinion

UPDATE: In an afternoon speech at EPA headquarters, Trump said, "We will put our miners back to work . . . My administration is putting an end to the war on coal." Referring to regulations, he said, "We're going to have safety; we're going to have clean water and we're going to have clean air, but so many of them were unnecessary." He said the nation would "continue to expand energy production."

President Trump is taking "the most significant step yet in obliterating his predecessor’s environmental record," today "instructing federal regulators to rewrite key rules curbing U.S. carbon emissions," Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis report for The Washington Post. The executive order also lifts a moratorium on federal coal leasing and removes the requirement for federal officials to consider the impact of climate change when making decisions.

The Trump administration also sees the move as a way to restore thousands of lost coal-mining jobs, which the industry and Republicans blamed on President Obama. "But energy economists say the expected order falls short of both of those goals — in part because the United States already largely relies on domestic sources for the coal and natural gas that fires most of the nation’s power plants," Coral Davenport reports for the New York Times. Robert Stavins, an energy economist at Harvard University, told Davenport, “We don’t import coal. So in terms of the Clean Power Plan, this has nothing to do with so-called energy independence whatsoever.”

Trump's order directs the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rewriting Obama's 2015 Clean Power Plan. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in an interview on ABC Sunday that the order will help the U.S. “be both pro-jobs and pro-environment” and described it as the “energy independence executive order.”

The public does not appear to agree with Trump. According to a Pew Research Center survey, Americans support environmental regulation more than regulation of business. "More Americans continue to say stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost (59%) than to say they cost too many jobs and hurt the economy (34%)," the Times reports. Here's a map showing support, by congressional district, for restricting carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. The map is one of six in the Times that show how Americans think about climate change. (Data from the Yale Program on Climate Communication)

"The order sends an unmistakable signal that just as President Barack Obama sought to weave climate considerations into every aspect of the federal government, Trump is hoping to rip that approach out by its roots," Eilperin and Dennis write for the Post.

"Some of the measures could take years to implement and are unlikely to alter broader economic trends that are shifting the nation’s electricity mix from coal-fired generation to natural gas and renewables," they write. "The order is silent on whether the United States should withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, under which it has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 percent by 2025 compared to 2005 levels, because the administration remains divided on that question."