LMD Apr 2017

Riding Herd

“The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.”

by LEE PITTS

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

April 15, 2017 • www.aaalivestock.com

Volume 59 • No. 4

Big, Bad Behavior

BY LEE PITTS

T

here are many problems with putting all your proverbial eggs in one basket. The most obvious is that the person responsible for the eggs might fall and all your eggs would break.

Or, by keeping all your eggs in one place you just made it easier for someone to steal them all in one heist. Even worse, people could simply stop eating eggs.

In any of these instances there wouldn’t be any need for egg producers to keep producing eggs.

Hopefully you’ve figured out by now that we aren’t talking about just eggs here in a beef publication. Well, in a way we are because I was going to write this month’s missive entirely about Tyson, the beef packer and well known monopolizer of the chicken industry. Then a Brazilian bombshell went off that made Tyson look like a choir boy.

Mr. BIG Shot

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

For awhile it seemed that Tyson couldn’t keep out of the news. First it was a strain of bird flu being found at one of Tyson’s Tennessee contracted chicken farms. Tyson’s fairly new CEO, Tom Hayes, seemed to have blamed Tyson’s bigness for the problem, and he should know a lot about BIGness. Previously, Hayes was a big shot at Hillshire Brands, a company

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

Tyson gobbled up. He was also an executive for Sara Lee, US Foodservice, Inc., ConAgra Foods, Stella Foods and Kraft Foods. That’s a BIG pedigree.

In referring to the company he now leads Hayes said, “We do a lot. We have 114,000 people and we have 100 plants and we have 11,000 family farms that we work with, so there is a lot that can go wrong.”

Next, Tyson made news when an undercover video depicted inhumane abuse at a chicken facility in Texas. A member of The Animal Legal Defense

Fund went undercover at Tyson for three weeks to document the cruelty and they are now asking the Attorney General of the State of Delaware, where Tyson Foods is incorporated, to punish the company.

As if animal abuse and a disease outbreak weren’t enough, last year Tyson was subpoenaed by the SEC to testify in a civil case that alleges Tyson and other industry behemoths were engaged in a conspiracy to reduce production and drive up prices at the supermarket. Tyson denied the allegations that since

2008 they routinely engaged in price fixing and colluded with other corporate officials to manipulate the prices they paid.

The growers say Tyson kept consumer prices high while the prices paid to them were, well, they were for the birds. Chicken feed, you could say.

In trying to defend Tyson their President may have let the cat out of the bag, or the chickens out of the coop in this instance, when he said the company had not changed pricing practices. This could be interpreted to mean that they were also price fixing and manipulating contract grower’s prices prior to 2008.

Whatever they did must have worked because recently the $41 billion per year in receipts company told their stockholders that due to “outstanding performance in beef and pork we’re on continued on page two

Environmental Groups Say More Research is Needed on Reintroducing Jaguars to Southwest

BY TONY DAVIS ARIZONA DAILY STAR

R

eintroducing the jaguar into the United States is an idea whose time has come, says a Tucson-based environmental group.

A national conservation group says it’s at least an idea worthy of more analysis than the federal government has given it.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), which manages endangered species, doesn’t agree. It says the best use of its resources is to focus on what it sees as the jaguar’s core areas in Mexico, not on “secondary” jaguar habitat in the southwestern U.S. The debate over bringing jaguars from Mexico to the Southwest comes as part of a larger discussion of the federal government’s draft jaguar recovery plan. That plan, released in December, advocates putting the most energy toward jaguar recovery in Mexico, where most borderlands jaguars live.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Defenders of Wildlife (DOF) said in their written comments on the plan, and in a separate report by DOF, that more attention needs to be paid to bringing back jaguars in the Southwest, including possible reproduction.

Reintroduction of predators has always been a hot-button issue here. It took more than a

decade for environmentalists and federal biologists to get a Mexican wolf reintroduction program started because of controversy over the wolf’s impacts on livestock. It remains controversial today although wolf populations are slowly recovering.

Jaguars are in better shape in the U.S. today than wolves were before reintroduction started.

Only seven Mexican wolves remained in 1980 when the last five were pulled out of the wild to be put in captive breeding facilities. About 4,000 jaguars are known to live in Mexico today, but only seven, all males, have been confirmed to be living in Arizona and New Mexico since 1996.

Defenders doesn’t advocate reintroduction now, but “we are calling on (Fish and Wildlife) to do a scientific, objective analysis and we’d like to see their work reviewed by an independent, scientific body,” said Rob Peters, Defenders’ Southwestern representative. The 508-page jaguar recovery plan didn’t discuss reintroduction, he noted.

The seven known Southwestern male jaguars are believed to have come from northern Mexico. But “I think it’s very unlikely” that natural jaguar migration from Mexico alone will bring continued on page five

Ask The StyleMaster

I

t’s been awhile (30 years) since I, the god of good taste, answered your many questions regarding what’s in style. It’s quite natural that you’d seek guidance from such a fashion forward expert as myself. By the way, I learned that term, “fashion forward”, the last time I was stuck in a “semi-private” room in the hospital and there were three beds, five generations of family belonging to one of the other inmates, and ONLY ONE REMOTE CONTROL! I was forced to watch a marathon of Project Runway reruns. I told the Doc if he didn’t let me go home I was going to kill myself because I couldn’t take one one more minute of Iron Chef or the Property Brothers.

While my good friends may NOT be surprised to learn that I’m still wearing the same Pendleton wool shirts I was wearing three decades ago, there have been many changes in the fashion world since last time we visited. So, once again its time to “Ask The StyleMaster.”

Dear StyleMaster, Are laceup cowboy boots in fashion or not? Signed, Conflicted.

Dear Conflicted, I’m glad you asked because this is something I have strong feelings about. While it’s okay for a cowboy to wear laceups while he’s fixing fence, washing dishes, or feeding cows, a real cowboy never wears lace-ups while riding a horse. I know from personal experience that as you’re being drug over rocks, tumbleweeds and cactus because one of your lace ups is stuck in the stirrup of a runaway horse, you don’t really have time to untie your shoes.

Yo, what’s up? I was trippin’ on a rodeo on my iPhone and saw one of the saddle bronc dudes was wearing a necktie.

What’s up with that? It makes as much sense as surfers wearing ties. Signed, Strangled in Santa Monica Dear Strangled, I feel your pain. While it’s true that many years ago some cowboys actually wore neckties to work and at rodeos instead of wild rags, it is NOT a fashion trend we need to revisit or encourage. After all, we

continued on page four

www.LeePittsbooks.com

Page 2

Livestock Market Digest

April 15, 2017

BEHAVIOR a path toward what we expect to be our fifth straight year of record results.”

What Do They Need You For?

CAREN COWAN............Publisher LEE PITTS.......................Executive Editor CHUCK STOCKS............Publisher Emeritus RANDY SUMMERS.........Sales Rep RON ARCHER................Sales Rep

MARGUERITE VENSEL..Office Manager JESSICA DECKER..........Special Assistance CHRISTINE CARTER......Graphic Designer

That wasn’t even the worst of Tyson’s bad behavior. I can see how a company that big might have a few corporate crooks, abusers and other bad apples, but I cannot abide what they did next. The country’s largest chicken processor, and one of the top two beef processors, went over to the dark side. They joined the enemy.

You may remember a story I wrote awhile back about small companies who were trying to turn America into a nation of vegetarians by creating new imitation meat products. One of those fledgling companies was Beyond Meat, an El Segundo, California, corporation. My mouth fell to the floor when I recently read that Tyson had acquired a 5% stake in Beyond Meat. That’s right, the biggest seller of chicken in the country bought part off a vegan startup that sells plant protein made to taste like chicken. (Doesn’t everything?) Their food labels proudly state that they sell plant protein that “looks, feels, tastes and acts like chicken without the cluck.”

According to the company’s founder and chief executive, Ethan Brown, what Beyond Meat hopes to get out of the deal with Tyson is more product in more stores through Tyson’s highly developed distribution chain. Their current fake meat product is already on the shelves in 11,000 stores and they’re hoping Tyson’s involvement and fresh capital will up that significantly. “I’m pleased to welcome Tyson as an investor and look forward to leveraging this support to broaden availability of plant protein choices to consumers,” Brown said. Other investors in Beyond Meat have included The Humane Society of the United States and Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates.

In investing in Beyond Meat, Tyson’s CEO implied that the future of food might not include meat. That might not be any skin off the nose of Tyson’s CEO but it would be for America’s rancher’s, poultry producers, and factory farm hog producers with operations that are only fit for one thing: making meat.

Hayes sounds like a a vegan activist when he starts talking about turning Tyson into “a sustainable, plant-based corporation.” He said, “Plant-based protein is growing almost, at this point, a little faster than animal-based, so I think the migration may continue in that direction.” In addition to their investment in Beyond Meat Tyson also launched a $150 million venture capital fund to invest in startups that develop meat substitutes.

If you’re a Tyson contract grower that should make you pause before you build another chicken shed for Tyson. Following their lead perhaps you’d be

continued from page one

better off investing in soybeans.

But it gets worse. Hayes also said Tyson was investigating the possibilities of “a vertical farming approach that uses 60% less land and provides a healthier environment for the birds.

It’s a lower stress environment because there’s not interaction with humans … it’s been greatly reduced.”

In other words, what do they need you for? People just cause headaches; they abuse animals and fix prices. Tyson’s answer?

Get rid of the people and let robots raise the chicks.

Problems In Packerville If we stopped now I’d think you have enough material to DIGEST for one month, but an even bigger bombshell dropped in packer-ville that made price-fixing seem like a misdemeanor. On March 17 Brazilian officials announced the results of a two year investigation.

They found the world’s biggest meat packer, JBS, allegedly added acid to rancid meat bound for the EU to cover up its bad odor. They found inspectors who failed to inspect plants, falsified shipping documents, routine bribery, and in general, widespread corruption in the Brazilian meatpacking industry.

All this came on top of JBS top executives being ordered to step down temporarily last Fall amid a probe into fraudulent investments made by pension funds. Chief Executive Officer Wesley Batista was taken in for questioning. Last July, a JBS division known as J&F Investimentos was searched in another nationwide scandal and in January 2016, a public prosecutor accused JBS executives, including the CEO’s brother, of financial crimes.

The company and its executives have repeatedly denied wrongdoing in all the instances.

Those scandals pale in comparison to what investigators discovered in JBS packing plants the last two years. Brazilian police said meatpackers, including JBS, engaged in widespread fraud to cover-up selling dangerous products rife with bacteria and that had passed their forsale date.

The meatpacker investigation was the largest ever conducted of any kind in Brazilian history and it alleges that JBS employees paid bribes to inspectors to keep processing plants open after salmonella had been been discovered. They also said the tainted meat was exported to Europe and other countries.

Reuters reported that Brazilian federal police looking into the bribery of food inspectors raided three JBS plants. The investigation was called “Operation Weak Flesh” and it uncovered at least 40 instances where meat inspectors had been bribed so they would overlook unsanitary practices such as processing rotten meat.

Police investigator Mauricio Moscardi Grillo also said there continued on page three

April 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Page 3

BEHAVIOR was evidence of some companies manipulating certificates of meat for export to Spain and Italy.

According to Reuters, Brazilian police said more than 1,100 of their officers had been deployed in 194 raids in the largest-ever search and seizure operation by the Brazilian government.

For the NCBA and others who claim that foreign beef is just as heavily inspected as U.S. meat it may come as a shock to learn that Brazilian meatpackers were caught bribing state food safety auditors to issue fake sanitary permits for exported beef.

Some of their other findings included: • Allegedly some Brazilian meat, including sausages and cold cuts, was adulterated with ingredients like pig heads.

• Brazilian police made public transcripts of recorded conversations showing how agricultural inspectors were bribed.

Sometimes all it took were a few cuts of prime cuts of beef. Those who refused to go along were reassigned elsewhere by the meat companies.

• Some of the tainted meat was sold for school meals and to retail chains like Wal-Mart.

• Of the 40 Brazilian meat packing companies that were investigated EVERY SINGLE ONE had issues.

• Two meatpackers, including JBS, used their influence to choose the inspectors working in their plants and paid bribes to get clearance for their products. Two executives at JBS are among those being investigated, along with 34 civil servants, All this news comes as Brazil had risen to become the world’s

continued from page two

largest beef and chicken exporter, exporting 20% of all global meat exports.

JBS said they “vehemently repudiate” the claims it sold spoiled food.

Does The Name Ring A Bell?

Braziilan Police Chief, Mauricio Moscardi, said at a press conference that if he were a country buying meat from Brazil... “I think long and hard before buying meat now.”

That comment should be as chilling to U.S. consumers as the Brazilian beef now finding its way to America. You may recall, we reopened our beef market to fresh Braizlian beef in October of last year, despite the fact that the country of Brazil is not free of foot and mouth disease.

At the time I’m writing this at least 10 countries have stopped taking Brazilian meat, including Japan, South Korea, Chile, China and Mexico. The European Union has also stopped imports of Brazilian beef. When China, the world’s fastest growing market for beef, also suspended all imports of meat from Brazil that left a big hole to fill because one third of the beef China imports came from Brazil.

As for the U.S.? At the time I write this our borders our still open to fresh and frozen beef from Brazil and the Senior Senator from Kansas, the unofficial spokesmen for multinational meatpackers, Pat Roberts, is still telling his buddies in the back rooms of Congress that we still don’t need country of origin labeling. But if you asked the American consumer I’m sure she’d say that she would much rather decide for herself if she

wanted to feed her family beef that may have been sprayed with acid so it didn’t stink too much.

Going forward, JBS will have another important ally in Congress to dodge the latest bullet.

At the same time the Brazilian meatpacker bombshell exploded there came this under-reported tidbit. JBS announced a new member of the Board for JBS Foods International, none other than “the honorable” John Boehner. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, you may know him as the 53rd Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. After more than 30 years as a politician he went through the swinging door to become a Senior Strategic Advisor at Squire Patton Boggs, a self-described “full-service global law and public policy firm” where Boehner will provide “strategic advice and counsel to clients on all aspects of domestic and international policy.”

JBS can only hope he’s more successful as a Director than he was as Speaker.

Just Think!

R CALF and Senator Jon Tester from Montana seemed to be

Mexican Cattle Services Offered: • Buying • Custom Budgets • Market Condition Report • Transportation • Livestock Placement

the only voices of reason during this Weak Flesh fandango. Tester proposed a bill to close our border to Braizlian beef for at least 120 days R-CALF was very vocal in calling on consumers and producers to contact their Congresspersons to close the border to Brazilian beef. R CALF CEO Bill Bullard issued a call to arms while standing in front of his horse and said USDA’s proposed response would not prevent Brazilian Foot and Mouth disease from infecting the U.S. cattle herd.

More than anything we can imagine, the latest Brazilian beef scandal highlights the need for Congress and the Administration to immediately reinstate COOL. Just think of the cattle prices you might be enjoying now if the US could participate in the beef bonanza resulting from the shortage of Brazilian beef in the international marketplace.

Instead, the shortage is expected to benefit cattlemen in Australia, Argentina and Canada.

American ranchers could get in on the party if we only had COOL and could assure our foreign customers they wouldn’t

Order Buyer Jonas Moya (505) 803-4955 *Bonded “I strive to purchase the best Cattle at the lowest cost” - Jonas Moya

be getting any tainted Brazilian beef in the process of buying beef from your friendly multinational monopolist meatpacker in the U.S. Rubbing more salt in the wound, earlier this year the USDA reapportioned the Beef Board that doles out your checkoff dollars by reducing the number of board seats for the domestic cattle industry by two, and increasing the number of importer’s seats by one.

Something definitely stinks in this mashed-up meat mess and it’s not just the beef JBS is sending to its foreign customers, including US.

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RIDING HERD are cowboys, not accountants.

What’s next, Ralph Lauren sheets in the bunkhouse?

Dear Fashionista Friend, Do the old rules still apply as to when to wear your felt and when to switch to a straw? Joe Stetson Dear Joe, are you any relation to John B.? If so, do you have any free samples? I’m size 7 1/4.

Anyway, back to your question. Have you seen the prices for felt hats lately? I don’t care what month it is you should never wear a $400 hat to work if it’s going to get dusty, sweaty, squirted with blood or manure. Or stolen. As Lyle Lovett says, “You can have my girl but don’t touch my hat.”

Of far more importance than when to wear a hat is the width of its brim. As a general rule, the uglier the face, the bigger the brim in order to hide the face. I myself wear a Mexican sombrero big enough to shade me and my ugly horse.

Dear StyleMaster, I notice that names on the back of cowboy belts are out of fashion while bling is in. Will names ever come back on the back of belts? If not,

Livestock Market Digest continued from page one

do you know any leatherworker who wants to buy a thousand dollars worth of alphabet stamps? Signed, Belt Maker in Billings Dear Belted, The first thing I think when I see a cowboy wearing lots of bling is the guy is a little light in the loafers. Save those letter stamps because names on belts will definitely come back because there was a darn good reason we put names on the back of cowboy belts.

Being a cowboy means you ride a lot of horses, not all of them broke. This means a cowboy will invariably become a sky pilot, being bucked to the moon and back. Nine times out of ten he’ll land on a big pile of rocks and his body will be misshapen, blood oozing from every orifice, arms and legs snapped in two, and nose, lips and ears found in locations on the face where they shouldn’t be. In many cases the cowboy is unrecognizable.

So you roll him over, look at the back of his belt and proclaim, “Yup, I thought so. It’s Roy.”. wwwLeePittsbooks.com

April 15, 2017

Is Your Local Government Prepared?

BY KAREN BUDD-FALEN, BUDD-FALEN LAW OFFICES CHEYENNE, WYOMING

P

resident Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke have made promises about moving federal agency decision making back to the local level, putting Americans back to work and ensuring that the public lands are managed for “multiple use.”

While that sounds wonderful, making those promises means more than a directive from Washington D.C., it means that your local governments have to take the lead in dealing with the federal agencies. Local decision making is not just for counties with federal lands, but federal decisions can impact the use of private property as well.

There are three major ways that a local government can influence federal agency decisions; the type of process used by a local government will depend on the type of decision to be made and the time constraints of the local government. One type of local participation is not “better” or “worse” than another type, again, it depends on the type of decision to be influenced and the preference of the local government.

So, again, I would pose the question, is your local government prepared for local decision making? The following should help: I. CONSISTENCY REVIEW The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) mandate that federal agency actions be as consistent as possible with local land use policies or plans (LUP) and that the federal government must attempt to reconcile its federal decisions with the local LUP. Those provisions are key in implementing the President’s promises, but there is a catch. In order to require this “consistency review,” a local government has to have a written local LUP, otherwise there is nothing for the federal agencies to be consistent with.

In my view, first, a local government should start with a review of the federal actions that the local government thinks will happen within the area. For example, are there threatened or endangered species or species of concern that will impact your constituents’ private property; is the BLM or Forest Service revising its land use plans or implementing their land use plans; was a local area included within a National Monument meaning that a management plan will have to be prepared; are there any special designation lands that have been proposed like wild

and scenic rivers, wilderness or conservation areas; or are there other federal decisions that may impact the private property of your constituents and/or the public lands?

Second, the local government should determine its processes for dealing with the federal agencies.

When do you want to update the federal agencies regarding the local government’s activities and when does the local government want updates from the federal agencies? How do you propose transmitting the local LUP to the federal agencies and offices? What is the local government’s view of “early consultation?” How does the local government want “coordination” to occur? These processes should be carefully articulated in the local LUP. Third, the local LUP should discuss the “custom and culture” of the citizens, the history of the area, and the environmental features important to the local government. This information can come from historical accounts, personal stories, and environmental descriptions such as state wildlife habitat maps, National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) soil descriptions, forage surveys, and other data. I do not believe that a local government has to gather new data or participate in new studies, but it is important to compile existing data from as many sources as possible to support your policies.

Fourth, your local LUP should include economic data and analysis. This should be more than just gathering employment statistics, rather, the economic data included in the local LUP should support the local governments’ policies.

For example, if agriculture is important to the local economy, the local LUP should describe the economic detriment of a federal decision that would reduce Animal Unit Month (AUMs) on public land or restrict grazing on private land.

Most land grant universities have good statistical data that can assist you with this analysis.

You should also include information like circulating dollars, job numbers for the various economic segments, etc.

Finally, once the data is gathered, the local LUP should include the policies that the federal agencies should use for consistency review purposes. I believe that these policies are always stronger and provide a good basis from which the local government can work, if they are based on the data described above regarding custom and culture, economic stability and environmental protection. I do

not believe a simple “wish list” from the local government is a strong basis for protecting your constituents. Additionally, in making decisions in compliance with NEPA, the federal government must use the “best data and information available.” The best available information about the local effects of a federal decision on the local custom, culture, economy and environment should come from the local government itself.

Note that your local LUP has to be compliance with federal statutes and regulations with the “full force and effect of law.” However most federal statutes are very broadly written and allow for the survival of the local citizens, businesses and economies; the local government just has to assert those requirements.

II. COORDINATION FLPMA and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) also require “coordination.” Coordination is a process; not a result. Additionally, while your local government should “coordinate” with the federal agencies to protect their constituents and influence federal decisions, there is no statute dictating the specifics of the coordination process. Because the elements or steps of coordination are not statutorily defined, local governments should use their local LUP to define what coordination means and how it should work.

III. COOPERATING AGENCY STATUS NEPA also allows local governments to participate in agency decision making process as “cooperating agencies.”

An applicant for cooperating agency status must both (1) be a locally elected body such as a conservation district board of supervisors or a county commission; and (2) possess “special expertise.” A local government’s special expertise is defined as the authority granted to a local governing body by state statute. Being a cooperating agency allows the local government to participate in the “identification team” with a federal agency. It is just another tool that a local government should consider when dealing with federal agencies.

IV. FINAL THOUGHTS Local governments can have a major impact on federal agency decisions if they are prepared and willing to take on the challenge. There are over 1000 counties in the U.S. with a population less than 10,000 citizens. Each one of these rural counties should have a voice in federal decisions that impact it. Is your county prepared?

April 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Advocates Worry Success Could Be Latest Threat For Gray Wolves

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opulations of endangered Mexican gray wolves have reached their highest numbers since reintroduction efforts began nearly 20 years ago, but rather than cheer the success, environmentalists are worried it could backfire on the struggling animals.

With wolf numbers – and wolf predation – on the rise, state, local and cattle industry officials have renewed their push to have a greater say in controlling its population.

Senator Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, reintroduced a bill last month to require that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) work with states, counties, and local stakeholders to sustain wolf populations without adversely impacting livestock, wild game or recreation.

Fish and Wildlife is required to finalize a recovery plan for the wolves by November. If the agency does not comply with Arizona and New Mexico in the design of the plan, the states would be able to dictate the terms of the recovery process under the bill, which was co-sponsored by Senator John McCain, R-Arizona.

“This legislation doesn’t just let the fox guard the henhouse – it gives the fox title and deed,” said Michael J. Robinson with the Center for Biological Diversity. He said decisions on managing the animal need to be based on science and not politics.

But Flake said the current system isn’t working.

“The federal government’s outdated management of Mexican gray wolf populations is harming ranchers and our state’s rural communities,” he said in a statement released by his office. “This bill will ease the burdens on rural Arizonans by enhancing local stakeholder participation and state involvement in the recovery process.”

Mexican gray wolves are a subspecies of wolf in Arizona and New Mexico that was almost killed off in the 1970s because of the damage they did to cattle. The government began reintroducing the wolves into the Southwest in 1998 but conservationists say recovery has been slow due to inbreeding and poaching.

The FWS said last month that there were 113 Mexican gray wolves throughout Arizona and New Mexico in 2016, an increase from the 97 counted a year earlier. But Robinson said that although the species’ growth last year is encouraging, there need to be more in the

wild to ensure genetic diversity and the animal’s survival.

“Scientists have been saying there is a real genetic problem here,” Robinson said. “They have pointed to studies that have shown there are fewer wolf pups being born and of the ones that are born, fewer of those are surviving to maturity as a result of genetic factors.”

But Patrick Bray, executive vice president of the Arizona Cattleman’s Association, said no recovery plan will be successful if the federal government leaves local authorities out of the loop.

“You need cattleman, sportsman and others at the table, because at the end of the day, the government still gets a paycontinued on page eight

Page 5

JAGUARS this country a breeding population soon, Peters said.

Younger female jaguars “set up their home ranges next to mom,” and don’t disperse at anywhere near the rate of young males, Peters said. In a paper, the late Peter Warshall, a longtime Tucson scientist, calculated that it would take 44 to 200 years for females to migrate north to the U.S., Peters noted. Warshall was science coordinator for the Northern Jaguar Project, which runs a major jaguar preserve in northern Sonora.

Bringing jaguars into Arizona could help the northern Sonora population, which faces threats from poaching, said Michael Robinson, a conservation advocate for the center.

Assuming the animals can travel back and forth between the two countries, having a U.S. breeding population could improve the Mexican population’s genetic diversity, he said.

The jaguar’s increased presence here at the top of the food chain could also benefit the overall ecosystem, Robinson said.

“They evolved in the United States with all other animals

continued from page one

and plants, over many thousands of years and the ecosystem adapted to their presence over that time,” he said.

When the recovery team conducted rigorous jaguar population and habitat studies, it concluded resources are best spent in core areas in Mexico, “and not to the translocation of jaguars in secondary areas and certainly not in areas outside of where they can most meaningfully contribute to recovery of the species,” service spokesman Jeff Humphrey said Tuesday.

The recovery team, including U.S. and Mexican biologists, focused their strategy on sustaining habitat, eliminate poaching and improve social acceptance of the jaguar in Mexico, Humphrey said.

“Their rationale is that our limited dollars are best spent on making those populations as robust as possible rather than manufacturing new populations in a range that may no longer be appropriate,” Humphrey said.

With the Mexican jaguar population in some jeopardy, “it seems like we ought to take care of what’s already here

first,” agreed Bill McDonald, executive director of the Malpais Borderlands Group, which seeks to promote open space conservation and “working landscapes” for ranchers and others along the border.

The group has no position on reintroduction, “but I think you should stabilize the population that gets the occasional male up here,” he said. “It’s ridiculous to hopscotch jaguars hundreds of miles north to try to make that work. It’s putting the cart way before the horse.”

But Sergio Avila, a longtime jaguar biologist, said while more specific analysis of jaguar behavior is needed for reintroduction to be seriously considered, it’s one of many “tools in the toolbox” worth considering.

“Because we have open space where they can set up territories, protected areas and environmental laws here, because we have healthy populations of wild prey here, and because we have connections to the south and we have habitat,” reintroduction could be worth it ecologically, said Avila, an Arizona Sonora Desert Museum research scientist.

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Livestock Market Digest

Budgets, Bureaucracies, Bundys and biased reports Budget blues On his first full day as Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke rode a horse to work. That was promising, even though it was an ugly Park Service horse. Not so promising was his remarks to an audience of Interior employees.

In an apparent attempt to curry favor Zinke told the gathering he had seen the President’s proposed budget cut of 10 percent and he was “not happy.”

“I’m going to fight for the budget,” Zinke told his employees.

“I looked at the budget. I’m not happy. But we’re going to fight about it, and I think I’m going to win at the end of the day and make sure that our values are articulated, too.” In retrospect, Zinke should realize how inappropriate, indeed how stupid, it was for him to say this.

President Trump has released his budget blueprint, and what a dandy it is, proposing to decrease federal spending in many of the agencies. Here are the top ten agencies based on the size of their cuts:

EPA -31% State -29% Ag -21% Labor -21% HHS -18% Commerce -16% Edu -14% HUD -13% Transp. -13% Interior -12% That’s right sports fans. After “fighting” with the President Interior’s cut went from 10 percent to 12 percent! And what does Zinke say now? “America’s public lands are our national treasures and the President’s budget sends a strong signal that we will protect and responsibly manage these vast areas of our country ‘for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,’” he said in a statement, quoting President Theodore Roosevelt, of whom Zinke is an “unapologetic admirer and disciple.”

We would have loved to witness the meeting between Zinke and the President. In my imagination it probably went something like this:

ZINKE: Mr President, thanks for seeing me today, but I must object to your proposed budget for Interior. A 10 percent cut is politically unacceptable and is, quite frankly Sir, unfair to me and my agency.

TRUMP: Unfair? Mr. Secretary, do you know that EPA is being cut by 31%, State by 29%, Ag 21%, Labor by 21%, and that a total of 9 departments received a larger cut than yours?

ZINKE: Well, uh, no Sir, I wasn’t aware...

TRUMP: And isn’t the first item in the SEAL CODE, “Loyalty to Country, Team and Teammate,” ZINKE: That’s correct.

TRUMP: Then I strongly suggest that you and Teddy’s ghost march right back to Interior and be thankful that certain members of my family intervened or you really would have received your “fair” share of the cuts!

ZINKE: Yes, Sir. The budget blueprint doesn’t have specifics yet, so we don’t know how it will affect the BLM, USFWS, Forest Service and other land management agencies. The blueprint did, however include this language: The Budget requests an increase in funding for core energy development programs while supporting DOI’s priority agency mission and trust responsibilities, including public safety, land conservation and revenue management. It eliminates funding for unnecessary or duplicative programs while reducing funds for lower priority activities, such as acquiring new lands.

That means the Land and Water Conservation Fund is a “low priority” for the President and would decrease by $120 million.

And the President wasn’t done.

E.O. on Reorganization On March 13 the President issued an Executive Order requiring a comprehensive plan to reorganize the executive branch of the federal government. Announcing the order in the Oval Office and surrounded by his Cabinet members, the President said, “there is duplication

April 15, 2017 and redundancy everywhere.”

Agency heads will have 180 days to submit efficiency plans and reorganization proposals to OMB. The public will also have the opportunity to suggest improvements to the executive branch. After the public comment period, OMB will have 180 days to submit a document to the president. “The proposed plan shall include, as appropriate, recommendations to eliminate unnecessary agencies, components of agencies, and agency programs, and to merge functions,” the order reads. The order also says the proposed plan “shall include recommendations for any legislation or administrative measures necessary to achieve the proposed reorganization.”

The White House statement also included the following information about previous attempts on this type of effort: The Executive Branch has failed to fully follow through 53% of the time, failing to act on 243 of the 459 GAO recommended actions to reduce bureaucratic duplication and waste.

Congress has failed to fully follow through 62% of the time, failing to act on 53 of the 85 GAO recommended actions to reduce bureaucratic duplication and waste.

In 2016, the GAO identified 92 additional actions to reduce duplication and waste.

The implication being that this time, by golly, there would be follow through. Best watch for the dates when the public will have the opportunity to comment.

Bundys Last month I wrote there were three Bundy-related trials happening. I forgot about the bench trial of the four Oregon defendants on the misdemeanor charges, so there are a total of four trials to be watching.

Here is the status of those trials as I write this column.

• On the felony charges against the remaining four defendants in the Oregon standoff, the jury found two guilty of conspiracy and two were found not guilty.

One was found

Letter to the Editor

Advertise to Cattleman in the Livestock Market Digest!

In reading Scott Streater’s article in the March 2017 issue of the Livestock Market Digest, I was shocked at the assumption that Wyoming has a great sage grouse plan. Established by executive order of the governor, Wyoming has forced millions of acres of private land into core areas. All without any due process of law.

The Governors team that manages the program is made up primarily of federal employees, state bureaucrats and environmentalists. Only one rancher and one land owner representative are on the team. I

had them put 24,000 acres of my private land into core without any notice to me, or any opportunity for me to speak against the proposal.

The hype is that Wyoming has its own plan but few notice that everything the Governor is doing is unconstitutional. This effort allows the Governor to create rules and enforce them all from the executive branch without a law being passed. That is the definition of tyranny.

Doug Cooper 7L Livestock Co. Casper, Wyoming

guilty of carrying a firearm in a federal facility and two were found not guilty, and two were found guilty of depredation of government property.

• On the misdemeanor charges against the four Oregon defendants, the judge, after denying them a jury trial, found all four defendants guilty of trespass and tampering with vehicles and equipment.

• On the charges against the attorney, the prosecution has recommended all charges be dropped, and the judge has so ordered.

• In the trial against the initial “lesser” defendants in the Nevada standoff trial, the prosecution has just rested and the defense has begun to make their case. We may have a verdict before this column is published.

On law enforcement and biased reports Some things just stick in my craw.

Recently, a group of sportsmen’s organizations has initiated a high-level campaign against H.R. 622, which would transfer police authority from the BLM and Forest Service to local law enforcement. The group, which includes such entities as the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and the Back Country Hunters & Anglers, is opposed to turning over what they say is this “difficult job” to local authorities, and say it will result in more abuse of the federal lands.

Now think about that. Their position is local law enforcement is competent to investigate murder and rape, but not recreation or wildlife infractions? They are capable of policing neighborhoods and areas where you and I live and work but not the areas where these guys hunt? How ridiculous. The position they are taking is really anti-law enforcement, as it is a slap in the face to the 765,000 state and local officers in the U.S. Then along comes the Wilderness Society with a report titled “New Mexico Lands and Outdoor Opportunities Lost To The Highest Bidder”, which says we have a history of selling state lands and that’s why Federal lands should never be transferred. I could make the same claim about the feds - that they have a history of disposing of the federal estate – even though everyone knows the current policy is retention. According to the State Land Office, in the last 25 years, 1991-2016, the state has sold 3,998 acres. That computes to 160 acres per year, or 0.00177 percent of the surface acres controlled by the state. At that rate, it will take 56,250 years to sell off the 9 million acres of state trust land. What a distorted picture they paint.

Until next time, be a nuisance to the devil and don’t forget to check that cinch.

Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner. blogspot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship and The DuBois Western Heritage Foundation

Livestock Market Digest

It’s Ranchers vs. the BLM in Grazing Allotment Squeeze SOURCE: HTTP://WWW.THEFENCEPOST.COM

G

arfield County, Colorado, ranchers are fighting a proposed Bureau of Land Management (BLM) order that would cut a cattle grazing allotment on federal lands in half.

They say it would kill their family businesses.

Jack Farris, a rancher near Parachute, approached the Garfield County commissioners March 20 for support against the order, which he said will cut his family’s income by 50 percent, putting them and many others for whom they run cattle out of business.

Farris said he knows of about 10 other ranching families around the Roan Plateau that will face the same fate if this order is successful. The permitees have submitted a protest to the local field office’s proposal.

“If this in fact is put through, we’re out of business,” Farris, a third-generation Garfield County resident, told the commissioners.

The BLM’s proposed order is for the re-issue of six different allotments in the western part of the county. But the big change would be cutting use of the East Fork Common Allotment in half.

The BLM’s proposal focuses on reducing the environmental impact, especially to riparian areas, of cattle grazing.

In the order, Shonna Dooman, acting field manager at BLM’s Colorado River Valley Field Office, called the allotment reduction a “practical decision that balances the various environmental, social and economic issues and concerns.”

“Many of the riparian areas in the East Fork Common Allotment are functioning at risk with no upward trend and not currently meeting land health standards due to current livestock grazing. Current management to mitigate impacts to riparian areas unfortunately has had little success,” she wrote.

“Implementing the proposed changes in grazing management will improve upland and riparian conditions on the East Fork Common Allotment. It will also maintain livestock-based family businesses that support local economic sustainability in rural western Colorado communities.”

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES Cattle grazing on public lands has serious impacts to wildlife habitats, said Katie Fite, of WildLands Defense, a Boise, Idaho-based conservation group that’s been providing the BLM comments in support of restricted grazing.

Livestock over-grazing worsens the impacts of climate change, reduces food and cover for wildlife, pushes out nesting migratory birds and sage grouse and deals a big blow to native

vegetation communities, she said.

Meanwhile predators are often scapegoats for lower wildlife populations, and wildlife management agencies come up with predator control plans, Fite said.

Headwaters and riparian areas are especially vulnerable to trampling, causing damage to the stream banks and putting excess silt in the water, she said.

There are other effects, such as those from recreation, but grazing impacts are far more severe, since cows and sheep are out there 24/7, she said.

With livestock you have a large number of animals confined to a relatively small area for an unnatural period of time, Fite said.

“We believe BLM needs to take a harder look at grazing impacts on public lands and think about what it will be like in 10 or 20 years if all these pressures remain,” she said. “It’s very important what goes on in the arid West and the stresses livestock grazing has on the land.”

To really gauge the stress to the wildlife, you also have to consider all the other impacts, including from energy development, Fite said. “You have a limited amount of land, and all areas in the West are experiencing increased stress from the climate, energy development, extreme weather events — something has to give.”

“If objectives are not achieved after five years, and livestock grazing is determined to be the (causal) factor for not achieving objectives, other grazing management actions will be implemented,” Dooman wrote in the proposal. “If land health standards and objectives are achieved due to improved livestock grazing management, (grazing use) may also be increased.”

LEGAL ARGUMENTS Among several legal arguments in protest, the ranchers’ attorney, Korry Lewis, wrote that the BLM exceeded its authority under the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act and that reducing the grazing use was “not supported by property monitoring data.”

“The (grazing reduction) fails to analyze socioeconomic impacts and contradicts the express objective of the BLM to sustain the western livestock industry,” he wrote.

Garfield County commissioners unanimously agreed to send a letter to the BLM opposing the order and requesting more scientific review.

The Colorado Independent CattleGrowers Association, too, wrote in a protest to the BLM proposal.

“A (50-percent) cut of any individual’s paycheck will not only destroy the economic viability of those ranching families but will also drastically effect their communities and surrounding businesses,” wrote Lorene Bonds,

president of CICA. “The BLM must consider the fact that farmers and ranchers are the longest standing group of citizens concerned about the health and productivity of the land. The term ‘health’ can be defined in many ways, but healthy habitats can and have been achieved for centuries with livestock grazing as a central management objective,” she wrote.

Bonds said that “historical and scientific data (show) that rangeland ecosystems that include livestock grazing have been proven to be healthy and sustainable.”

CICA added that if the BLM decision is approved, the BLM should give permittees two years’ notice and pay reasonable compensation.

Commissioners Tom Jankovsky and Mike Samson wanted to take the county’s involvement to the next level, and the board directed the county attorney to explore legal options.

The commissioners passionately opposed the BLM’s proposal. Jankovsky called it an attack on grazing on public lands in the county.

“I’m outraged by the idea of putting cattlemen out of business in Garfield County,” he said.

Commissioner John Martin focused on the economic and social impact he saw in the BLM’s move. “It changes a lifestyle that we’re trying to hang onto, that we have promoted, an agricultural heritage that is impacted drastically.”

Jankovsky reiterated the board’s strong support of BLM’s mandate to manage federal public lands for multiple uses.

“I don’t believe our current BLM people are following

Page 7

JBS, Brasil Foods Investigated for Selling Meat Unfit for Consumption 40 companies, according to information by federal police representatives during a press conference.

Public sanitary inspectors “acted to facilitate production of adulterated foods, issuing sanitary certificates without any effective inspection,” the federal police said in a note to the press.

JBS confirmed that three of its production units were targeted, two in Paraná and one in Goiás states, but that its executives and headquarters were not targets of the operation. The detained employee was a veterinarian at the unit in Lapa, Paraná state, assigned by the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture.

“The company strongly condemns any adoption of practices related to product adulteration — whether in production and/or marketing — and remains at the disposal of the authorities with the best interest in contributing to the clarification of the facts,” JBS said in a statement sent to investors.

BRF said in a statement that it is collaborating with the authorities to “clarify the facts,” and that “it complies with the norms and regulations regarding the production and commercialization of its products,” and that it has “rigorous processes and controls and does not agree with illegal practices.”

BY ANNA FLÁVIA ROCHAS, MEATINGPLACE.COM

U

nits of Brazilian meat processors JBS and BRF are among food companies being investigated by Brazil’s Federal Police, to dismantle an illegal scheme involving payment of bribes to federal inspectors and selling meat unfit for consumption, according to the Federal Police.

A federal court in Curitiba, Paraná state, issued a preventive detention order for 27 people, including BRF’s institutional relations manager Roney Nogueira dos Santos, BRF director Andre Luis Baldissera, and JBS employee Flavio Cassou, according to the order published online

by Brazilian newspaper Valor Econômico.

BRF’s vice president José Roberto Pernomian Rodrigues was also taken by the police to testify.

The operation, named “Weak Flesh,” is the largest ever set off by Brazil’s Federal Police. There are 1,100 officers working to serve 309 court orders, including 194 search orders for homes and offices of executives and companies allegedly linked to the criminal group.

The corruption scheme was headed by federal agricultural inspectors and business owners. Sanitary irregularities were found in about

through with multiple use,” said Farris, who added that he strongly supports the concept.

“I’m amazed sometimes at the ignorance of people … who want to tell us in the West, who have no background, who have no knowledge, who have no frame of reference … how we should

ELM

do things in the West,” Samson said.

“I’m hoping with the new administration in Washington, we have a favorable ear listening to us and will understand and put people in key positions … that understand our situations,” he said.

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Page 8

Livestock Market Digest

April 15, 2017

Judge Dismisses Suit Against Grazing on Eight Oregon Allotments

BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI / CAPITAL PRESS

A

federal judge has rejected environmentalist arguments that cattle grazing has unlawfully harmed endangered sucker fish in Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke has thrown out a lawsuit by three environmental groups — Oregon Wild, Friends of Living Oregon Waters and the Western Watersheds Project — which claimed that grazing was unlawfully authorized on eight allotments in the Lost River watershed.

The plaintiffs accused the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) of “ignoring widespread evidence

of riparian problems” that adversely affected the Lost River sucker and shortnose sucker, which are federally protected under the Endangered Species Act ESA).

However, the judge has ruled that plaintiffs failed to prove that grazing degraded streams in violation of the National Forest Management Act. Conditions have improved in many riparians areas despite continued grazing while recovery trends are “not significantly different” among sites that are grazed and those that are not, Clarke said.

“This would tend to indicate grazing is not the reason for any failure to attain (riparian management objectives)

in streams found on the challenged allotments,” he said.

While the environmental groups have pointed to evidence of deterioration along portions of some creeks, they haven’t shown “watershed level” and “landscape-scale” failures to live up to fish-recovery objectives, Clarke said.

The “creek-specific observations” by environmental groups aren’t enough to “successfully rebut” the USFS’s interpretation of the data, he said.

“Finally, many of the creek assessments plaintiffs point to as evidence of a failure to attain (riparian management objectives) actually show improving or stable trends,” the judge said.

The USFS’s decision to au-

thorize grazing on the eight allotments was based on “reasonably gathered and evaluated data” related to fish recovery strategies mandated under the National Forest Management Act, he said.

Clarke also dismissed the plaintiffs’ ESA arguments, ruling they were moot because future grazing approvals will rely on a new consultation among federal agencies on the two fish species.

The environmental groups’ claims of National Environmental Policy Act violations were likewise dismissed because the plaintiffs hadn’t fully “exhausted” administrative challenges against grazing plans, the ruling said.

New information that’s

emerged about threats to the fish and their critical habitat doesn’t rise to the level of requiring additional environmental analysis of grazing, Clarke said.

For example, although the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has reached the “alarming” conclusion that shortnose suckers face a “high degree of threat of extinction,” this finding doesn’t influence the USFS’s assessment of grazing, he said.

“While FWS concluded that significant threats to shortnose suckers’ viability remain and thus that their chance of extinction is high, it did not identify grazing as one of those threats; in fact, it made no mention of grazing at all,” the judge said.

Supreme Court to hear WOTUS litigation AMANDA REILLY, E&E NEWS REPORTER, GREENWIRE

I

n a rebuke to the Trump administration, the Supreme Court decided on April 3, 2017 to continue hearing litigation over the Obama administration’s Clean Water Rule.

The high court rejected the Justice Department’s motion to halt the case while the Trump administration reconsiders and changes or rescinds the rule.

The Clean Water Rule, though, remains stayed nationwide.

The Obama administration’s rule clarified which streams and wetlands receive automatic protection under the Clean Water Act. The Supreme Court case centered on whether legal challenges belong in federal district or appeals courts.

Petitioners filed 18 lawsuits in district courts and 22 petitions for review in federal appeals courts over the rule, which

is also known as Waters of the U.S., or WOTUS. In February 2016, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that it had jurisdiction to hear challenges.

The National Association of Manufacturers wanted to keep the case in local district courts and asked the Supreme Court to review the 6th Circuit’s decision.

The Supreme Court decided to take up the case in January shortly before Inauguration

Day, but the Trump administration this month asked the court to pause the case following an executive order compelling U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to take another look at the joint rule (Greenwire, March 9).

State supporters of the rule, trade groups and environmental organizations had urged justices to continue hearing the case.

Environmentalists argued that the questions over the cor-

WOLVES check and the rest of us on the other side of the table have to live and deal with their messes,” Bray said.

He said ranchers have firsthand experience with the messes caused by the wolves.

“Even though the area is a small geographical area when you look at the U.S., it is devastating when in one year alone there has been one individual

rect legal venue would continue to be relevant given that they would likely sue over whatever replacement rule the Trump administration issues (Greenwire, March 16).

The choice of court affects the resources needed to litigate the merits of challenges, sets the statute of limitations for filing lawsuits, and helps determine whether actions can be challenged in subsequent civil or criminal proceedings. continued from page five

who has lost 18 head of cattle” to wolves, Bray said. “You do that times $1,000 and that’s $18,000 the federal government has deliberately ripped out of your pocket.”

Cassie Lyman, a sixth-generation Gila County cattle rancher, supports the call for local input, saying wolves are being released without a plan or any government compensation for

depredation.

“We have a lot of predators and we live in harmony with them, but we also have a plan,” Lyman said. “If numbers (of animals) are increasing and causing negative effects to the habitat, then we can increase tag numbers and hunt them.”

But that is not the case with endangered animals like the gray wolf, she said.

“If there are animals having negative effects on cattle we can remove them, but when we have an environmentally protected

species, those things don’t apply,” Lyman said.

She said there should be a cap on the size of the population to establish when the wolves can be removed from the endangered species list, a provision in Flake’s bill.

But Robinson said the idea of putting a cap on the species runs counter to the concept of recovery. With Flake’s legislation, he said, the states would have control over when the wolf could be taken off the endangered species list, even if scien-

tists determined the animal is still in trouble.

“This is really a wolf extinction bill that Senator Flake has introduced. It’s very worrisome and it’s exactly the kind of political interference that the endangered species act was supposed to counter,” Robinson said.

Flake’s bill, introduced on February 14, has been referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works but has yet to get a hearing. A similar bill died in that committee in the last Congress.

April 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Page 9

Quality beef grade, dressing percentage and grids

T

he average cattle feeder wants to be rewarded for above-average beef quality, and many have turned to some type of value-based “grid” marketing to earn premiums. After selling a few pens on a packer grid, some feeders lament it’s less about quality and more about dressing percent, the whole-carcass yield of beef, including bones in those cuts.

Taking a closer look, Paul Dykstra, beef cattle specialist with the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand, admits that

number is important.

“Falling below the industry standard of 63.5 percent dressed weight means we start out on the grid several dollars behind the alternative live-weight sale price,” he says “Cattle that hang more pounds of saleable carcass weight as a percentage of live weight obviously put us at an advantage.”

The rest of the grid proposition plays out through premiums and discounts based on carcass quality grade, including CAB brand premiums, along

Livestock

with yield grade (lean-to-fat ratio) and “outs” due to nonconformance.

Quality and yield grades drive dollars, and the illustrations show how those numbers add up ($/hundredweight/head), comparing industry-average cattle to those of high quality grade.

“The tables apply a fairly representative set of grid premiums and discounts to the two pens of steers,” Dykstra says. “We can banter about what the grade percentages should be on high-marbling cattle, but these figures

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age pen.

“In contrast, if we focus strictly on dressing percent, a fairly common 1-point difference above or below industry average creates a $27.30/head impact with a base price of $195/cwt. and live weight of 1,400 lb.,” Dykstra notes. “Ideally, we’d own multi-faceted cattle that give up nothing in dressing percent and simply capture further premiums. This example just shows quality drivers can overcome the dressed-yield driver in some pens.”

Market Digest

REAL ESTATE GUIDE Bar M Real Estate

are well below the extremes we’ve seen. Our math includes the 2016 average Choice-Select spread of $9.37/cwt., much wider than the current spread.

As some cattle of higher quality grade tend toward higher yield grade as well, the high-marbling pen shows the disadvantage of more Yield Grade 4 discounts, for argument’s sake.”

Results for this comparison show a $6.79/cwt. premium for the high-marbling pen over the cash market, a $44.05/head advantage over the industry aver-

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Two Great Rural Properties - these places are nice clean properties kept up in good shape and NO JUNK. 1482 S Roosevelt Rd 6 - rural 5 acres on blacktop- shed for hay, storage - barn for horses- well for irrigation if needed-- pipe suckerod fence, great RV shed. Oh yes, there is also a nice 3 bedroom, 1 full bath and also a 3/4 bath, fireplace in a large open living area - also 2 car carport that has storage rooms built in it. This place is on rural co-op water system for the house - only those folks who want a wonderful rural living style with great neighbors close to Portales - Priced to sell at $189,000 See pictures and read more about the GREAT little place on www.buenavista-nm.com or call Koletta, listing agent or any of our agents on webpage.

Another sure’nuff nice place in a small rural subdivision, 2540 sq. ft home, 3 bdrm brick, 2 full baths, fireplace in living room, large den/game room. Tile floors throughout. House has very nice attached 2 car garage and also a cinderblock w/metal roof shop approx 24 by 30, nice enough to live in. Small area with horse shed and storage. This place is also on the co-op water system with approved septic - lots of concrete driveway- this place & yard all PET friendly. JUST SO NICE -- close to 3 miles east of Portales off NM 88. Lots of pictures on www.buenavista-nm.com Koletta Hays listing agent or call any other agent.

Page 10

Livestock Market Digest

HEREFORD

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April 15, 2017

Brahman Leadership Elected

T

he American Brahman Breeders Association (ABBA) elected new leadership roles for its executive committee and officers at its 93rd Annual Membership Meeting held at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo in Houston on March 8th.

The ABBA Annual Membership Meeting was held at the NRC Center during the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo in conjunction with the ABBA International Brahman Show.

George Kempfer was installed as the new ABBA president on March 8, along with a new executive committee and officers. Kempfer lives in St. Cloud, Florida, with his family where they run a Registered Brahman and large commercial cattle operation. This way of life seems to run in his blood as he is a descendant of the Partin family, who was one of the founding breeders of the ABBA and played an influential role in Florida’s agriculture.

“We will work hard to move this great breed forward,” Kempfer said. “I’m huge on quality and performance. I think it’s extremely important and something we’ll continue to put a lot of effort towards. I think it’s huge for our domestic and international markets.”

Kempfer said he is looking forward to his year in office and especially the opportunity to collaborate with the members of the breed.

“It’s an honor to be asked to represent such a great breed and such a great group of people,” he said, “So we look forwarding to working with you down the road.”

The following is a list of the new ABBA officers: • President: George Kempfer of St. Cloud, Florida • Vice President: Loren Pratt of Maricopa, Arizona • Secretary/Treasurer: Jim Bob Trant of Anderson, Texas The following is a list of the new Executive Committee: • J.D. Sartwelle of Sealy, Texas (the retiring president) • Larry Ford of Greenwood, Florida • Dr. Scott Satterfield of Palestine, Texas • Rick Butler of Mt. Vernon, Texas • Craig Fontenot of Ville Platte, Louisiana • Joe Ward of George West, Texas • Larry Barthle of San Antonio, Florida

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Gelbvieh Association Welcomes Tom Strahm as Commercial Marketing Director

T

he American Gelbvieh Association (AGA) welcomes Tom Strahm to the staff as commercial marketing director.

Strahm is from Sabetha, Kansas, where he lives with his wife, Carrie, and three children, Payton, Elliott, and Vivian.

Strahm has a wealth of beef industry experience, having spent time in several sectors of the industry including cattle procurement and cattle sales as well as in the cow-calf sector. In addition, Strahm also has experience in lending and finance after working as a loan officer for many years.

“I’m looking forward to meeting and supporting the members of the AGA,” says Strahm.

The principle goals of the AGA’s new Meeting Modern Industry Demands long-range strategic plan directly focus on building demand for Gelbvieh and Balancer® cattle. Strahm’s responsibilities will include those principles goals of feeder and commercial female marketing avenues, as well as serving cow-calf producers and the entire beef industry. Strahm will also work with AGA members to assist them in building demand for Gelbvieh and Balancer genetics.

“The Meeting Modern In-

dustry Demands strategic plan is focused on the success of the commercial beef industry. We will need just the right team members to meet the goals of the strategic plan. Tom brings that industry experience we were looking for, with experience in purchasing both feeder and market-ready cattle.

He will be able to put this experience to work for our cowcalf producers as well as the feedyards that are feeding Gelbvieh and Balancer cattle,” says Myron Edelman, AGA executive director.

Strahm will be based out of his home in Kansas and began his role on March 1, 2017.

Ramirez & Murdoch Join IBBA Team

T

he International Brangus Breeders Association (IBBA) has announced the hiring of Assistant to the Executive Vice President Yvonne “Bonnie” Ramirez and Field Service Representative Matt Murdoch Originally from the small south Texas town of Encino, Ramirez now resides in La Vernia, Texas. She joins the IBBA team after most recently working for Producers CO OP Association La Vernia Country Store. Prior to co-managing and marketing for the COOP, she served as director of communications for the Texas Animal Health Commission. Her other work experience is comprised from the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, D&D Farm and Ranch, Wilson County News, and Ultimate Genetics Sire Services. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture, with an emphasis in animal science and a minor in communications, from Sam Houston State University.

Ramirez’s experience is accompanied by much non-profit volunteer service and extracurricular involvement. She is a committee member for the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo Ranch Rodeo Finals, social media coordinator for La Vernia CrossFit, founder and president of Forget Me Not Benefit Alzheimer’s Team Roping Fundraiser, member of the Texas Beef Team, and a freelance writer for The Ag Mag. Ramirez’ past involvement includes public relations and marketing for CrossFit Orion, judging multiple public speaking and skill contests at Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo and San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, member of the State Agency Council, partner in South Texas Women’s Ranch Rodeo Association, freelance and feature writer for Texas High School Rodeo Association, communications committee member for San Antonio American Marketing Association, advertising, pro-

motions, and public relations committee member for the International Association of Fairs & Expos, and director on the South Central Texas ICA Chapter of the Independent Cattlemen’s Association.

She has also attended and participated in several career building trainings and conferences such as Executive Women in Texas Conferences, LBJ School of Public Affairs’ Write to the Point Course, Governors Center for Management Development Program, Communication Officers of State Departments of Agriculture Conference, Incident Command Stimulation Training for Public Information Officers, and other media and crisis trainings.

From Marion, Texas, Murdoch joined the IBBA after earning his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Science with a minor in animal science from Angelo State University (ASU) in San Angelo, Texas. continued on page eleven

April 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Page 11

Angus Foundation Introduces New Scholarship The Pat Goggins Memorial Angus Scholarship Endowment Fund will source a $750 undergraduate scholarship.

T

he Angus Foundation is pleased to announce that the family of Pat Goggins has provided a $11,750 gift, creating the Pat Goggins Memorial Angus Scholarship Endowment Fund.

Goggins was a publisher, columnist, auctioneer, livestock market owner, real estate broker and longtime Angus breeder from Billings, Mont. He gained great prestige in the Angus industry working as a fieldman and ringman for Western Livestock Journal, the Montana Farmer

Stockman and Western Livestock Reporter.

A self-taught auctioneer, Goggins became one of the leading purebred livestock auctioneers in the U.S. Over the years, Goggins’ keen business sense led him to acquire three auction markets, numerous ranches and feedlots, the first livestock video auction, a real estate company and other business ventures.

“Pat spent a lifetime working in the livestock industry,” says Babe Goggins, his wife. “We started the Vermilion Ranch more than 50 years ago with registered Angus cattle, and our six children, 16 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren have all been involved in the Angus industry. We’ve seen

Mesalands Rodeo Student Recognized for Academic Achievement

M

esalands Community College,Tucumcari, New Mexico, is pleased to announce that Rebecca Darrup, from Mifflinburg, Pennsylvia, and a member of the Mesalands Rodeo Team, has been selected to the 2017 All-State New Mexico Academic Team. Darrup was recently recognized for this honor during a special awards ceremony, at the State Capitol Building in Santa Fe. As a member of the AllState Academic Team, Darrup will receive renewable full-tuition scholarships for up to four consecutive semesters, towards a bachelor’s degree at a participating New Mexico public university or college. This scholarship program is provided by the Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Honor Society that recognizes and encourages the academic achievement of two-year college students. According to the website, PTK also provides opportunities for individual growth and development though participation in honors, leadership, service and fellowship programming.

Darrup is a sophomore at Mesalands Community College, pursuing an Associate of Arts Degree in Liberal Arts with an option in Communications. She is also working on an Applied Science Certificate in Artistic Silversmithing. Darrup is currently an intern with the Public Relations Department at Mesalands.

This is her second year on the Mesalands Rodeo Team and she competes in barrel racing, breakaway roping, and goat tying. She is also the Vice President of the

Mesalands Rodeo Club, the Treasurer for PTK, and the Secretary/Treasurer for the Student Horseshoers Organization for Excellence (S.H.O.E) Club).

Darrup says balancing academics and athletics can be challenging at times.

She attributes her success to the support she receives from the faculty and staff at Mesalands Community College and from her family.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t change anything.

I wouldn’t go anywhere else.

I wouldn’t do anything else.

Everyone at Mesalands has always been there when I needed them and has brought me really far as a person; and I’m really thankful for that,” said Darrup. “My family also pushes me and tells me this is what I’ve always wanted to do for so long, and now go do it!”

Darrup will graduate next year from Mesalands and she is thinking about continuing her education at Eastern New Mexico University, to major in Communications or Journalism.

“Rebecca Darrup exemplifies what it means to be an excellent student athlete at Mesalands Community College. She is committed to achieving academic success and is highly involved in extracurricular activities,” Dr. Thomas W. Newsom, President of Mesalands Community College. “On behalf Mesalands, I want to congratulate Rebecca for being selecting to this year’s All-State Academic Team, and we are proud to have her represent our institution. We wish her well as she continues to reach her goals.”

how the Angus Foundation has benefitted so many youth, and we felt it was a wonderful place to create a memorial for Pat.” Goggins served as part of the Angus Foundation’s $11 million Vision of Value: Campaign for Angus Leadership Cabinet from 2006-2008, helping to raise funds for education, youth and research.

Showing their respect and admiration for Goggins, numerous Angus breeders and friends have made memorial gifts to the fund that now surpasses $15,000.

The endowment will generate a $750 scholarship, which will be presented to an undergraduate student each summer at the National Junior Angus Show

(NJAS) as part of the many scholarships that the Angus Foundation awards.

Selection criteria for the Pat Goggins Memorial Scholarship include first preference being given to Angus youth from Montana.

“Pat’s impact on the Angus industry was profound,” says Milford Jenkins, Angus Foundation president. “The Angus Foundation is honored to have the opportunity to continue his legacy by endowing this scholarship to support the educational goals of deserving Angus youth.”

Angus Foundation scholarship applications are now available online and are due May 1.

National Western Scholarship Trust Awards $500,000 to Agriculture Students

T

he National Western Scholarship Trust is excited to announce a $100,000 annual increase to its scholarship fund, expanding the value to $500,000 and more than 100 recipients studying throughout Colorado and Wyoming.

Four major National Western Stock Show events contribute to the trust each year. These events include the Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale, the Citizen of the West dinner, the Auction of Junior Livestock Champions and the Boots ‘n Business luncheon.

“Through the dedication and hard work of our Board, committees, staff and volunteers at the National Western Stock Show as well as the supporters of

our event, we are able to provide even greater impact to students studying agriculture throughout the region,” said Paul Andrews, President and CEO of the National Western Stock Show.

“This is a great day for educating more youth in area colleges and as we continue to grow in the future, we plan to increase the scholarship support even more.”

“As a Trustee for over 20 years, I am amazed at the level of support we have received over the years which has allowed us to make this announcement today,” said Steve Bangert, Chairman of the National Western Scholarship Trust. “I am truly honored that we are able to support the education of students that otherwise could not attend-

IBBA TEAM Prior to joining the IBBA, Murdoch’s experience comes from working as a meat and food development technician at ASU, working as a skinning and cleaning specialist at J’s Wild Game Processing in San Angelo, and working as a farm management assistant at Connors State College in Warner, Oklahoma. During his time as a student, Murdoch was involved in multiple endeav-

ed college. These students will help preserve agriculture in society.”

Established in 1983, the NWST was formed to provide scholarships to students studying agriculture, rural medicine and veterinary sciences. Since its inception, the trust has awarded more than 2,000 scholarships and has grown to more than $8 million dollars.

To support the National Western Scholarship Trust, or to get involved with the scholarship events at the National Western Stock Show, please contact the following: Morgan Topolnicki, 303-299-5560 or mtopolnicki@ nationalwestern.com http:// www.nationalwestern.com/educational-support/ continued from page ten

ors. His involvement includes membership in the Meat & Food Science Association of ASU. He, also, participated on ASU’s Meat Science Quiz Bowl and Meats Judging teams.

His collegiate activities began at Connors State College on the Livestock Judging Team and in the Aggie Club, for which he served as president.

Page 12

Livestock Market Digest

April 15, 2017

Secretary Ryan Zinke Ready to Restore Trust in the Interior Department

BY CHARLIE SPIERING / WWW.BREITBART.COM

M

ontana Congressman and former Navy SEAL Ryan Zinke did not know what job his newly elected commander-in-chief had for him when he first visited Trump Tower in December with his wife, Lola, for an interview.

“It was 200 shotgun questions,” he said, recalling the moment with the president in an interview with Breitbart News. Trump grilled Zinke on a wide variety of topics such as women in combat, Syrian policy, the rise of China, Indian affairs, pipelines, and energy policies. “It spread the spectrum of subjects,” he said.

Trump raised the possibility of his serving as the secretary of Veterans Affairs, but Zinke declined. But as he left the building, he still did not know what Trump wanted him to do.

“Two days later, I was flying back to Montana and Vice President Pence calls and says, ‘Congratulations.’ The first thing I asked him was, ‘What job?’” Zinke chuckled. He was delighted to hear that he had been selected to serve as the secretary of the Interior.

A New Multiple-Use 100-Year Plan As a former Navy SEAL, Zinke views himself as the commander of an operation where he is ultimately responsible and wants to make sure that the employees on the ground are empowered.

“This is like assuming a giant command, where my focus up front is the field. My focus is the rangers and the land managers that are on the front line,” he said. “There’s a lot of frustration and dissatisfaction on the front line because they feel like they’re being micromanaged by Washington. They’re feeling like they have a lot of resources pulled back. From a military point of view, it’s the sergeant and the chief on the front line that win wars.”

Zinke outlined plans of a reorganization of the department to shift resourc-

es out of Washington, DC, to the front lines, looking forward to the next century of land management. He added that Trump asked him to think big.

“We’re going to reorganize the Department of the Interior for the next 100 years,” he said, citing Theodore Roosevelt’s lofty ambitions.

Zinke has a bust of Roosevelt in his office and an assortment of artifacts from the Department of the Interior’s massive collection. Two paintings feature Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden’s geological survey expedition of 1871.

He also keeps a dinosaur skull cast of a Lythronax arrestees (king of gore), a famous modern paleontology discovery in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Mounted on the wall is Zinke’s personally owned head of a buffalo from “the last herd” in 1906 and an elk head killed by former Montana Congressman Ron Marlenee, as well as memorabilia from his life as a Navy SEAL and football souvenirs. Zinke played college football for University of Oregon, where he got his degree in geology. In the corner, Zinke has a massive grizzly bear displayed.

Zinke spoke to Breitbart News in his office at the Interior after attending a bill signing in the Oval Office with President Trump, which rolled back the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Planning 2.0 rule. For Zinke, it was one more sign that the president would deliver on his campaign promises.

“We’re going to do exactly what the president has promised the American people he would do,” he said. Zinke is tackling the idea of restoring power to local officials and shifting more power out of Washington. He explained that key component of that mission was restoring trust with the citizens of the United States.

“There is a lot of distrust with some of the heavy-handedness of the government; I would say arrogance,” he said.

Former President Obama designated more than 550 million additional acres of land and water under federal protection and created or expanded 34 national monuments during his administration.

Days before he left office, Obama created the Bear Ears monument in Utah, ignoring state and local lawmakers who opposed the decision. He also included millions of marine acres by designating monuments in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and removed offshore resources from development.

Zinke said President Trump would likely focus on managing existing resources before considering his own preservation legacy. In the modern presidency, only Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Richard Nixon chose not to increase the amount of land protected by the federal government. The last president to decrease the amount of acreage was President Dwight Eisenhower.

Trump, Zinke said, was already looking at ways to roll back Obama’s last-minute land grabs.

“I don’t think it’s in dispute whether he can modify a monument,” Zinke said, referring to the president. “The dispute is whether or not he can nullify it — still untested and unclear in the law.”

Zinke also wants to streamline the regulation of federal lands, working to put the Department of the Interior back in partnership with businesses seeking to develop natural resources responsibly. He cited situations where industry “invested in good faith” but had the rules changed at the last minute.

“We’re not going to change the rules midstream to be punitive on your project,” he said.

Making National Parks Great Again Zinke wants to improve the public image of the Interior by improving the character of the National Parks.

“Our face of the Interior is our parks, and we want to make sure that the park experience this summer is noticeably improved,” he said.

Park superintendents, he explained, would be judged on the cleanliness of the bathrooms in the park, their physical presentation and appearance in uniform, and their friendliness and helpfulness to visitors of the parks.

The parks experienced a record number of visits in 2016, more than 330 million, as the National Park Service celebrated its 100th anniversary.

“It’s all for the benefit and the enjoyment of the people,” Zinke said, citing

the engraved slogan in the Roosevelt arch outside the gate of the first national park in Yellowstone.

“We have deviated from that,” he said. “It means that we can protect the environment, but we can’t lose the focus on why the parks were established.”

Many Americans were enraged after they found their parks closed in the wake of the government shutdown of 2015, as the Obama administration physically blockaded the entryways to National Parks and important historical monuments in Washington, DC. Zinke said he was determined to keep that from happening again.

“Not on my watch,” he said.

Restoring Trust During the Obama administration, local conflicts over the use of public lands fueled public frustration in Western states. The Bundy clan took up arms against the government on two different occasions, making headlines as they protested an overbearing government bureaucracy.

But Zinke thinks a different attitude from Washington, DC, might prevent that from happening in the first place.

“I would say the war is over with the new president and the administration,” he said. “We want to be the good neighbors.”

He cited the conclusion of the Dakota Access Pipeline protest in February as an example of how the federal government could work together with local officials to enforce the law and diffuse the situation before it got out of control.

“We want to see when we have a law enforcement problem, our first line of defense is the local sheriff,” he said, suggesting that a BLM truck would not be as effective in thwarting people upset with the government.

According to Zinke, local Interior officials should be embedded in the local communities, serving as advocates for the people, rather than just the enforcers on the ground.

“That’s a cultural shift, which I think is absolutely critical to the success of this organization long term,” he said.

Getting Trump Outdoors Zinke’s biggest challenge might be getting President Trump out to a national park to experience the outdoors. The president, who prefers to spend his time indoors working or meetings on the golf course, has not spent much time experiencing many of the natural beauties of the country.

“We’re going to get him out,” Zinke laughed, when asked about the challenge.

“Roosevelt was from New York,” he added optimistically. Zinke cited Donald Trump Jr.’s love of the outdoors as a positive sign that the members of the family raised in New York City could appreciate the outdoors.

“He’s in good shape. He’s tough.

Hopefully, we’ll get him on a horse,” Zinke, with a grin, said about the president.

“Give him a Teddy Roosevelt rough rider hat because it fits his personality.”

April 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

The View FROM THE BACK SIDE

ACCU-RATE

BY BARRY DENTON

O

ur German cowboy girls here on the ranch are very sharp and nothing gets by them. They have quickly accepted cowboy humor as well.

In other words, if you get bucked off, it is always funny. If you get bucked off and get hurt, then it will be funny a couple of days later. If you get bucked off and killed, then wait until after the funeral, and then it will be funny.

The other game they like to play is “gotcha”. For instance, if you make a mistake and one of them catches it, they will just keep making fun of it for days or even months. While some may view cowboy humor as strange, the truth is that, it is sick. It does not take much to entertain

cowboys or cowboy girls.

Since I am the boss, they are always waiting for me to mess up, so they keep an eye on me at all times. Of course, I never make a mistake, ha! If I do make a mistake then I make certain that I cover it up before they find out.

However, last week things did not go my way. It seems like everything that I did went wrong, even things that I have done right several times before.

The first retort you here from the cowboy girls are that you failed because you were not ACCU-RATE. They cannot pronounce “accurate” as we do and it’s funny how they sound, but you do know what they are saying. Germans tend to be very mechanical minded and being accurate

is bred into them.

I wish we Americans could be like that when it comes to our horses. I’ll bet that the majority of readers of this magazine own American Quarter Horses for use on their ranch. Those that own American Quarter Horses usually love them as they can do the work and serve as friends.

The American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) was founded in 1940 by influential ranchers who wanted to preserve the short, stocky, and nice minded horses that they like to use for their cattle work. At the time they were known as Steeldust horses and they became known later as the American Quarter Horse.

After the registry was formed they set up a breed standard for their type of horse. In 1941 artist Orren Mixer was commissioned to paint the perfect American Quarter Horse. His painting was adopted as the breed standard. At the AQHA Convention in 1968 they commissioned Mixer to paint the ideal American Quarter Horse for promotional purposes.

For several years if you owned an American Quarter Horse you did not have to guess what breed it was, as the standards were closely adhered to. I think in its quest to grow the registry and their purse, the AQHA de-

Page 13 cided to relax the standards they had adhered to for so long. This should be a concern of all lovers of the American Quarter Horse.

Today, you will see quarter horses of various body types, colors, and uses. I attended the Arizona Sun Country Circuit Quarter Horse Show in Scottsdale, Arizona recently. Present at the show were horses from 14 hands to 17 hands tall. There was an array of colors from the familiar sorrel to the former cull color of cremello and paints.

The uses were just as varied starting with the traditional working cow horse to the hunter under saddle horse. Of course, the working cow horse would be 14 hands and the hunter under saddle horse was 17 hands.

What is also amazing are the various gaits of today’s American Quarter Horses.

Once again the working cow horse travels traditionally with quick smooth movement. The western pleasure horse has a sideways gait because that is the only way those horses can travel that slowly without falling down.

I also got to watch a halter class full of unsound horses that were being led around in a variety of corrective horseshoes. Another item that amazed me was the participants; they were as varied as the horses themselves.

You had ranch folks around

the working cow horses and city slickers around the western pleasure horses.

I am only to assume that the goal of the AQHA is to reach as many people as they can with their horse. If it means throwing out the breed standards, they are more than willing to do that so more horses can be registered and they can remain the largest registry. While I like to see lots of people enjoying the American Quarter Horse I am sorry to see the mediocrity that occurs from eliminating the standards.

I will also say that the good horses are truly incredible performers, but then the volume of undesirable horses casts a pall over the entire breed. Maybe it is time to bring back the standards and cull a few from the registry. I will just bet that American Quarter Horses on your ranch look and travel nothing like the show ring western pleasure horse. If your horses did travel like that your roundups would be impossible.

While I enjoy being a member of the AQHA and its many good programs I think someone needs to make them aware that they may want to change direction on a few things. The way things are now my German cowboy girls would tell the AQHA that they are not ACCU-RATE!

Is Everything a Crime Under the Endangered Species Act?

BY JONATHAN WOOD / LIBERTARIANENVIRONMENTALISM.COM

O

n PLF’s Liberty Blog, I have an update on the case pushing back against an effort to radically expand overcriminalization under the Endangered Species Act. The case concerns the meaning of the statute’s provision making it a crime, punishable by a $100,000 fine and a year in prison, to “knowingly” take a protected species. The environmental groups who brought the suit want to read knowingly out of the statute while we argue it requires knowledge of every element of the offense, including that an activity will cause take and the species that will be taken.

This is no theoretical dispute. If the environmentalists are right, you could be thrown in jail if you can’t identify every

one of the more than 1,500 listed species. So, for instance, if you were a sheep herder stirred from your sleep by an attack on your flock, you better be able to tell which of the animals on the right is a coyote and which is a Mexican wolf, no matter how much your adrenaline is racing. If you don’t know or guess wrong, you risk being put in a federal prison if you try to protect your flock.

The environmentalists’ theory goes much further than that.

Since the statute defines “take” broadly to include essentially anything you do that has any affect on a member of a protected species or its habitat, the environmentalists’ argument would make it a crime to accidentally hit a protected species that darts in front of your car, build a home if it disturbs insects or spiders living below the surface, or going for a jog if you acciden-

tally step on a protected bug or spook a protected animal.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this case is that federal prosecutors agree with us, not the environmentalists. The Department of Justice concedes that Supreme Court precedent bars prosecution in cases where a person accidentally causes take, without knowing that take would result or the species affected. Historically, DOJ has been an opponent to criminal justice reform, including mens rea reform, earning it criticism from the New York Times.

Does DOJ’s reasonable position in this case suggest it has suddenly embraced the libertarian position on overcriminalization? No. Instead, I think it highlights the disciplining effect that several anti-overcriminalization Supreme Court decisions have had on federal prosecutors. DOJ doesn’t like losing

USDA Announces $56 Million to Aid Fire-Affected Farmers & Ranchers SOURCE: USDA

T

he U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced the availability of more than $6 million in funding to implement practices that will help private farmers, ranchers and forest landowners affected by the March 2017 wildfires blazing in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

“We have seen the devastat-

ing effects of these wildfires on agricultural operations and the funding announced today can help communities of farmers and ranchers start the process of recovery,” said Acting Deputy Agriculture Secretary Michael Young. “USDA is here to offer assistance, and I encourage producers who experienced losses to take full advantage of our financial and technical assistance to aid in

their recovery efforts and alleviate part of the financial burden caused by these tragic events.”

The funding, made available by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), will assist local producers as they continued on page fourteen

cases, of course, and they have to be concerned about their reputation at the court if they keep bringing prosecutions that it can easily shoot down. As an example of the reputational impact, during the oral argument in a case in which DOJ prosecuted a fishermen for throwing a few fish overboard under the federal anti-shredding law enacted in the wake of Enron, the late Justice Scalia asked if this case was brought by the same prosecutor responsible for other recent cases in which DOJ had gone too far.

In its brief in this case, DOJ explains its position by citing this concern, stating:

It would be an unwise and potentially unfair exercise of discretion for DOJ to subject citizens to prosecution based on a legal theory that the Supreme Court is likely to reject.

This shows that successful cases pushing back against overcriminalization have repercussions far beyond the individual case. Perhaps their biggest impact is creating a disincentive against federal prosecutors pursuing aggressive and novel theories expanding the reach of the criminal law. Beyond just being a waste of resources, it is extremely unfair for the government to abuse the criminal law in this way.

Page 14

Livestock Market Digest

Baxter BLACK ON THE EDGE OF COMMON SENSE www.baxterblack.com

Grandpa’s Time

A

friend and I were reminiscing about our old folks.

Simple farmers. Life today is more complicated today, we observed, more stressful.

He talked about his Grandma keepin’ house in the hill country of Texas. Simple, he said. No electricity, no phone,

a hand pump outside for water.

Saturday was wash day. A big kettle over an open fire, the men sliverin’ homemade lye soap for the kettle. Washin’ clothes in the boiling water and ringin’em out in the gas powered Maytag. Goin’ to church on Sunday. Grandpa

choppin’ wood, doin’ chores, whackin’ cedar for spendin’ money.

I remember my Dad’s family. Milkin’, cannin’, choppin’ cotton. Grandma lived for 85 years in a house with no runnin’ water. Killin’ a chicken for Sunday dinner. Musicals anytime a fiddler rosined up. Plowin’ with a span of mules. Sellin’ eggs in town for pocket money.

Yeah, the good life.

I look around at the pressures of farming today and on the surface, it does seem more demanding. Government programs, environmental considerations, public land use, the EPA, unwanted horses. and the I.R.S. Commitments to home, church, county and country, the Soil Conservation Service, the P.C.A., school board, Stockgrowers Assn.,

April 15, 2017

and the Fair Board. Kids with band practice, basketball practice, 4-H meetings, car payments and peer pressure. The constant barrage of national issues that the television insists we be concerned about!

But, do we really work harder and worry more than Grandpa did?

I ascribe to the Coyote Cowboy Proverb: “Be it work or worry, people expand to fill the vacuum.”

Does a family tryin’ to make a livin’ on 180 acres, work or worry less than the C.E.O. of General Motors? Does a migrant worker sleep any easier than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? Does the editor/owner of a local newspaper put less effort into his job than the editor of the N.Y. Times?

I think it’s probably easier

to raise twenty acres of corn today than it was in the old days. Just the hand labor alone would support my statement.

But no modern farmer would raise only twenty acres of corn!

He expands to fill the vacuum!

Gotta justify the machinery!

But failure of the crop, regardless of size, kept Grandpa awake at night just like it does us.

So, was life less stressful in the good ol’ days? It’s hard to say.

Choppin’ wood to heat the house in 1935 required as many hours as it takes to raise the 100 extra acres we have to grow to pay the electric bill.

It’s just that a tractor, a plow, a planter, and a combine cost more than an axe. www.baxterblack.com

Trump’s Budget Targets Climate-Change Policies

BY DAVE BOYER / THE WASHINGTON TIMES

P

resident Trump’s first federal budget spells out his intention to end President Obama’s climate-change policies, including eliminating funding for the so-called Clean Power Plan.

The budget proposal submitted to Congress Thursday

would save $100 million in fiscal 2018 by discontinuing funding for climate-change research, international climate-change programs and the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which restricts carbon emissions from power plants.

Mr. Trump is expected to sign an executive order soon that would direct the EPA

USDA

to roll back provisions of the Clean Power Plan, issued in 2015 as one of the cornerstones of Mr. Obama’s climate-change strategy.

“Consistent with the president’s America First Energy Plan, the budget reorients EPA’s air program to protect the air we breathe without unduly burdening the American economy,” the White House continued from page thirteen

begin to restore scorched grazing land, rebuild fencing, protect damaged watersheds, and implement various conservation measures to mitigate losses.

EQIP is a voluntary program that provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers to help plan and implement conservation practices that address priority local and state resource concerns. Producers must submit

a complete program application, establish “farm records”, and other documentation to support eligibility to be considered for financial assistance through EQIP. Step-by-step assistance can be found at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/getstarted.

States will begin accepting applications in the near future. Producers in the affected counties are encouraged to check with their local NRCS service centers for additional information.

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Office of Management and Budget said in the 62-page spending plan.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is considering a legal challenge that argues the EPA exceeded its legal authority by imposing carbon emission limits on operators of existing plants. The regulation aims to cut carbon emissions by about one-third by 2030,

based on 2005 levels.

A study commissioned by the American Council for Capital Formation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for 21st Century Energy said Thursday that meeting Mr. Obama’s commitments as part of the Paris climate accord could cost the U.S. economy $3 trillion and 6.5 million industrial sector jobs by 2040.

China Temporarily Bans Meat Imports From Brazil

BY ANNA FLÁVIA ROCHAS / MEATINGPLACE.COM

C

hina informed the Brazilian government that it would not allow meat from the South American country to enter its territory until it receives more information about investigation on the bribery scheme to release sanitary licenses for meat products, according to Brazil’s Ministry Agriculture on March 20, 2017.

China was the only country to officially communicate with the Brazilian government about the investigations, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Agriculture on Monday afternoon.

China has been one of the most important importers of Brazilian meat since the Asian market was opened to Brazilian beef sales in 2015.

Volumes of poultry and pork meat sent from Brazil to China have also been increasing since 2015, with China increasing the number of Brazilian meat production facilities authorized to export.

The temporary blockade of shipments from Brazil may favor the United States,

according to analysis by the North American consulting firm Steiner Consulting Group, presented in the Daily Livestock Report (DLR).

China does not allow beef imports from the United States but almost a third of all Chinese beef imports in 2016 came from Australia and New Zealand, two countries competing with the United States to sell beef to the Japanese and South Korean markets.

“As Chinese buyers start to compete more aggressively for Australian beef, this will make life more difficult for Japanese and S. Korean buyers and shift more of that demand towards U.S. products,” the DLR analysts wrote.

The Brazilian government and representatives of the meat industry in Brazil have said the processing facilities investigated by the Federal Police represent only a very small part of the country’s meat industry. Only 21 meat processing plants out of 4,837 units subjected to federal inspection in Brazil have been cited in the investigation, according to the federal government.

April 15, 2017

Livestock Market Digest

Page 15

Here’s What Donald Trump & Congress Should Do About Regulatory Dark Matter

BY CLYDE WAYNE CREWS JR., CONTRIBUTOR, POLICY DIRECTOR AT COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

I

t’s becoming too easy for federal agencies to steer private activity without issuing “real” regulations anymore. Instead, we get regulatory dark matter — particularly as the economy becomes more technologically advanced.

Beyond the dozens of laws and thousands of federal rules and regulations that you can look up, agencies issue thousands of proclamations like memoranda, guidance documents, notices, circulars and administrative interpretations.

Recent notable examples of regulatory dark matter include: Obamacare statutory mandate waivers (extension of the employer mandate deadline, and continuation of non-compliant policies); HUD guidance insinuating refusal to rent or sell to an ex-con may violate the Fair Housing Act; the notorious Department of Justice/Education Department “Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students”; driverless car guidance from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; “commonsense guidelines” on a “Driver Mode” for smartphones (also NHTSA); Labor Department “administrator’s interpretations” on whether you are an independent contractor or an employee, and on franchising/ joint employer rules.

The list goes on. Unless addressed, expect plenty future guidance from new regulatory launchpads like the DoddFrank financial law, the Federal Aviation Administration’s 2016 drone rule, and online “net neutrality” (depending upon whatever as-yet-unknown form it and the Federal Communications Commission survive).

If this kind of thing continues, the federal government may regulate remotely by issuing software patches “updating” driverless cars and drones in the future.

No need to write real rules.

Too much trouble; even boring.

The Trump administration has invoked “deconstruction of the administrative state”; if that’s the plan, dark matter should be the main target.

One welcome development is a brand new executive order establishing a “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch,” including the call to, “as Appropriate”...”Eliminate or Reorganize Unnecessary or Redundant Federal Agencies.”

There’s a 180-day deadline to report back to the White House.

While the new order is more of a streamlining to improve “services,” it should have heft for cutting agency regulatory inva-

siveness, too.

Beyond talk, there’s been action; along with a recent executive order, President Donald Trump has issued aggressive ones requiring deregulation task forces at agencies; eliminating two rules to offset burdens of each new one; and a temporary regulatory moratorium.

The Federal Register reflects it; apart from FAA airworthiness directives and Coast Guard drawbridge proclamations and fishery designations, new regulation has essentially stopped under Trump.

Congress already passed several reform bills that await Senate action; and over a dozen nullifications of individual rules are in play.

But agency creativity in skirting oversight and using even “darker” dark matter, like threats and warnings, will be their adaptation to regulatory reform.

Therefore, early on in the Trump administration, I hope we can establish the principle that all executive orders and all legislative overhauls aimed at “deconstructing the regulatory state” need to explicitly incorporate regulatory dark matter.

There has been some recognition of this by the administration and Congress.

Trump’s order temporarily freezing regulation also applies to guidance, which bears close watching. The same goes for his one-in, two-out policy (not particularly radical, Canada and Great Britain have both implemented rule-in, rule-out requirements with some success).

Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R-Alaska) Regulations Endanger Democracy (RED) Tape Act, if enacted, would codify Trump’s executive order policy, and extend it to guidance and memoranda besides.

The Regulatory Accountability Act, which passed the House early in the 115th Congress, boosts early public notice, formal hearings on regulations, and Office of Management and Budget oversight of regulation — and also addresses guidance.

Other efforts to address dark matter include the Regulatory Predictability for Business Growth Act. It would require interpretive rules and guidance altering previously issued guidance (whew) to undergo public notice and comment. The Reforming Executive Guidance (REG) Act of 2017, sponsored

by Rep. Jason Lewis (R-Minn.), would subject significant guidance to notice and comment, and clarify its coverage under the Congressional Review Act (the CRA requires reporting to Congress on regulation and guidance, and implements a disapproval mechanism).

The Article I Regulatory Budget Act, sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee in the 114thCon-

gress, would provide for notice and comment for significant guidance, and for a private right of civil action in district court when one is affected by significant guidance not so labeled.

The bill’s summary sheet explains that the Act will “Eliminate the abuse of regulatory ‘dark matter.’”

Several congressional regulatory liberalization threads came together in the 2016 “Better Way” task force report series covering regulatory and Administrative Procedure Act overhauls. The reports asserted that Congress will “Rein in the use of ‘guidance’ to advance significant regulatory changes, (p. 48)” and “tighten submission requirements so that no regulations or covered guidance escape Congress’s review and will authorize courts to find invalid and unenforceable rules that have not been submitted to Congress under the CRA (p.

14).”

Past attempts at serious government downsizing in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s brought partial liberalization of some regulated sectors, but downsizing fell short when it came to shutting down agencies and increasing agency and congressional accountability. Congress now has no clue of what today’s thousands of agency proclamations consist.

Regulation and guidance cannot be controlled without reining in the colossal bureaucracies that embody rule by unelected experts (so professed).

That’s what makes the new Trump executive order so appealing — almost a prerequisite.

Stopping agency pre-emptive regulation of new technologies, business models, and contractual arrangements happening without congressional authorization is particularly important. If government oversight is warranted in new areas, like “vehicle to infrastructure” communications, or Federal Aviation Administration oversight of commercial space activity, Congress should legislate directly rather than allow for open-ended agency regulation and guidance.

Toward that end, to authoritatively address regulatory dark matter, Congress should: • Repeal or amend enabling statutes that sustain regulatory authority. If Trump and Congress don’t do it, states — which created the federal government — may take matters into their own hands eventually.

• Abolish, downsize, cut the budgets of, and deny appropriations to aggressive agencies, sub-agencies, and programs that routinely pursue actions not authorized by Congress. Such ends should be the aim of the recent executive orders on downsizing; careerists have too much power and too much at stake, truly, to

ever allow the APA notice and comment process to seriously jeopardize anything they do (see EPA’s underhanded lobbying for its own Waters of the United States rule). It’ll take a Congress tougher than anything seen recently.

• Require congressional affirmation for guidance and other agency dark matter proclamations likely to have significant economic impact. This could be done, for example, with a modification of the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. • Repeal specific guidance documents when warranted.

• Regularly apply the Congressional Review Act’s 60-day resolution of disapproval process to guidance and make sure existing guidance was properly reported in the first place. This has been neglected: a new RedTapeRollback site (my organization, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is an affiliate) lets you check and see if guidance you deal with may in fact be illegal. The books still need to be combed.

• Apply the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment requirement to guidance, as some legislation already noted proposes.

• Subject regulatory dark matter to more intense OMB review. While regulatory costs can never be accurately tabulated, better exposure of the costs of guidance still can help develop a public record for future reform endeavors. Along with Trump’s new executive orders, President Reagan’s Executive Order 12291 put the burden of proof on agencies to assess burdens and demonstrate need for a more rules. Guidance doc-

uments should be held to the same standard.

• Require agencies to present quantitative and qualitative regulation and guidance data to Congress (perhaps like the federal budget’s Historical Tables).

Reinstating a version of the Reagan and first Bush administrations’ Regulatory Program of the United States Government, which included a lengthy tabular appendix (“Annual Report on Executive Order 12291”) could help.

• Guidance should appear the Federal Register in an accessible, predetermined way (rules themselves weren’t even broken out into “final” and “proposed” until the 1970s, the Federal Register office tells me).

Other disclosures needed are as follows.

Economically significant guidance. Require streamlined, one-location online disclosure of economically significant guidance, augmenting what a few executive agencies voluntarily already publish based on the 2007 OMB memorandum to agencies (I tabulate those I find in one table right here, but no one should need to do this).

Secondary guidance and notices. Require centralized disclosure of these hundreds of thousands of proclamations, now scattered under numerous monikers and across various websites, if publicized at all.

It has been a generation since Congress last proposed major downsizing of the federal bureaucracy. “Deconstructing” it is a much bigger job, given the vast special interests entrenched to defend it. So, the public should understand that agencies exceed bounds largely because Congress enabled it.

Page 16

Livestock Market Digest

April 15, 2017

USDA-APHIS Announces the Successful Eradication of New World Screwworm from Florida

T

he United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced in late March the successful eradication of the New World screwworm from Florida.

On October 3, 2016, New World screwworm was confirmed in Key deer from the National Key Deer Refuge in Big Pine Key, Florida. New World screwworm had been eradicated from the United States more than three

decades previously. An aggressive eradication effort against screwworms was undertaken by USDA-APHIS in collaboration with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and other local partners.

Animal health checkpoints, or interdiction stations, were closed in late March. The last sterile fly releases in Homestead, Florida took place and fly releases are scheduled to end on April 25 in

the Florida Keys. USDA-APHIS considers an area to be screwworm-free through surveillance which includes trapping flies and visually inspecting animals for signs and symptoms of screwworm infestation. No new cases of New World screwworm have been reported in Florida since January 10. Science shows that, when sterile flies are released, elimination of screwworm is achieved three life cycles after the last detection. The flies have

on average, a 21-day life cycle, and they continue to circulate in the area for three weeks beyond each release. In the Keys, USDA-APHIS will complete five life cycles beyond the last positive screwworm detection.

USDA-APHIS and Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services will continue passive surveillance to ensure any new findings are quickly identified. This surveillance includes veterinarians reporting

any suspicious cases, wildlife surveillance, concerned citizens that see suspicious wounds on animals or even on a person, and continued communication with the parks and the National Key Deer Refuge.

More information on the screwworm response can be found at: https://www.aphis. usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/animal-disease-information/cattle-disease-information/ nws

Ag Groups, EPA Settle CAFO Lawsuit on Personal Data Access

G N I S I T R E V D A T S E B THE UE IN WESTERN VAL CK INDUSTRY! A O T S E V LI

BY TOM JOHNSTON / MEATINGPLACE.COM

Call Ron Archer today at 505/865-6011 or email archerron@aol.com

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Livestock M space now in arket Digest ’s

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ADVERTISING DEADLINE: August 1

federal district court in Minnesota has approved the dismissal and settlement of a lawsuit that agricultural groups filed to limit the amount of data that the Environmental Protection Agency can release on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), according to court documents.

The National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) sued in 2013 after the EPA released extensive personal information on more than 100,000 CAFO operators in 29 states and was prepared to release the same on farmers in six other states. The groups argued that such information is exempted from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

A U.S. District judge in Minnesota had ruled the plaintiffs did not demonstrate standing on behalf of their members, but an appeals court in St. Louis reversed that decision last September.

EPA “abused its discretion in deciding that the information at issue was not exempt from mandatory disclosure under Exemption 6 [personal privacy interests] of FOIA,” ruled the appeals court, which sent the case back to the federal district court in Minnesota to decide whether to issue an injunction ordering EPA not to release the personal information.

“Farm families usually live on the farm and releasing this type of information was a clear violation of their personal privacy,” AFBF President Zippy Duvall said in a statement. “The information could easily be used to encourage harassment or even violence against farmers and ranchers.”

As part of the settlement finalized Monday, EPA agreed to only disclose a CAFO’s permit status, city, county and zip code.

The settlement stipulates that FOIA requesters that received the original sensitive information return it to EPA, destroy all copies of it and cease any further dissemination of it.

Meanwhile, EPA is to conduct training on FOIA and personal information handling.

The stipulation does not constitute EPA’s admission of liability or fault.

Each party will pay its own fees and costs.