Riding Herd
“The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.”
by LEE PITTS
– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The Hypocrats June 15, 2016 • www.aaalivestock.com
Volume 58 • No. 6
What Have They Got To Hide? BY LEE PITTS
Education is what you get when you read fine print. Experience is what you get when you don’t.
I
was so naive. I was raised to believe that in all the history of the world my country was unique. That because of our Constitution and Bill of Rights ours was a country where justice prevailed, where our leaders were supposed to be honorable people in service to their country based on a patriotic calling. I thought the innocent would be protected and the guilty punished. Like I said, I was s-o-o-o naive. Watch the evening news and you realize that we can match Venezuela crook for crook. Corruption starts at the top and has pervaded every segment of our society. Even the cow business, for gosh sakes. Nothing has done more to sour me on the state of my country than to watch what has, and is, happening with the beef checkoff and the actions of the NCBA.
John’s Story
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
There are times when I feel like I’m not doing my job. I read something somewhere and say to myself, “I should have written that. What was I doing, did I have my head in the sand?” This is one of those times. I admit it, I’m envious of John O’Connell of the Capital Press, an outstanding newspaper that serves the ag interests of the Pacific Northwest. In the April 28, 2016 issue of the Capital Press John authored an article called, “Commodity groups seek freedom of information exemption
for checkoff boards.” Since it was John’s story I’ll let him tell it in his own words: “Several agricultural organizations have gotten language included in the pending fiscal year 2017 House Agricultural Appropriations Bill asking USDA to exempt research and promotion boards funded by grower checkoff fees from federal public records law.” The impact to writers like myself is huge. In the past there were only two ways to find out if your checkoff dollars were being misspent. One was by
buddying up to a “deep throat” willing to spill the beans. The other was through Freedom of Information requests. Believe me, finding insiders willing to tell the truth is getting harder to do as the NCBA screens its leaders and employees very carefully. That only leaves FOI requests that force government entities to come clean when a request for information is made. Or should I say, “was made?” If 14 checkoff organizations get there way it will be written into law that checkoffs be exempt from having to pro-
vide information due to Freedom of Information requests. According to John’s article, the 14 groups included the National Milk Producers Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Council. In a letter to a letter to a Appropriations subcommittee they attempted to justify their exemption by writing, “The funding used to operate and carry out the activities of the various research and promotion programs is provided by producers and industry stakeholders, and employees on the boards are not federal employees. Therefore, the committee urges USDA to recognize that such boards are not subject to the provisions of 5 U.S.C. Section 552 (the Freedom of Information Act).” In John’s article Bill Bullard, the CEO of R CALF was quoted as saying, “I guess they want it both ways. They defend the programs on the basis that it continued on page two
EPA’s Astounding Take-Over of State Water Law Comment Period Ends June 17, 2016 BY KAREN BUDD-FALEN, CHEYENNE, WYOMING
I
n a stunning display of federal over-reach, on March 1, 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Geological Service (collectively “EPA”) issued a “Scientific Investigations Report” arguing that the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) can also be used to regulate the quantity (amount) of water in the Nation’s rivers and streams. According to the federal government’s logic, because stream flows can potentially effect aquatic life and because the Clean Water Act requires the protection of the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of our Nation’s waters, “National Pollution Discharge Elimination System” (“NPDES”) permits or CWA Section 401 certifications should be required when an individual, community or municipality alters the quantity or amount of water available in rivers and streams. In an area that has ALWAYS been left to the purview of the individual states based upon state Constitutional mandates and since a water right is a private property right, I believe that this amounts to an outright attack on state sovereignty and private property rights. The comment period on the Draft EPA-
USGS Technical Report: Protecting Aquatic Life From Effects of Hydrologic Alteration, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2015-0335 ends June 17, 2016.
I.
EPA’s Draft Report Arguments
According to the EPA, more needs to be done to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” Human alteration of the natural flow regime can change a stream’s physical and chemical properties, “leading to a loss of aquatic life and reduced biodiversity.” The EPA goes on to state that the human activities that can alter a stream’s characteristics include impoundments, channelization, diversions, agricultural practices, groundwater pumping, urban development, thermoelectric power generation and others. Climate change, the agency claims, exacerbates these harms. Because the CWA requires the EPA to protect the “nation’s waters,” the Report urges: First, states (or the federal government) should do more to quantify water quality standards for water flow to “protect aquatic life designated uses.” “Doing more” should include using numeric standards to quantify continued on page four
T
he political asylum that passes for our democracy these days consists of two parties, left wing Democrats and right wing Republicans, and the schism between the two is wider than the gap between Michael Strahan’s front teeth. In actuality there is a third, stealth party, I call the Hypocrats, who, more and more, seem to swing every election in this country. The Hypocrats, (or Hypocrits) include old and burnt out hippies of the 60’s, flat broke, jobless and in-debt millenials, greenies, the gay, lesbian, and transvestite community, African Americans, Latino Americans, liberal conservatives and conservative liberals. Like the Democrats and Republicans, the Hypocrats should have their own mascot: the Hippo, one of nature’s most unpredictable and aggressive creatures. The Hippo is a perfect fit because it’s a thin skinned mammal that never works and can barely keep its head above water. It mostly lays around all day in the swamp. Once the male of the species fathers a child it’s byebye baby. It communicates through its huge mouth with loud grunts. Hippos can cause extensive environmental damage and marks its territory in an amusing way. When it defecates it rapidly spins its tail in order to spread its manure over a wide area, reminiscent of a manure spreader. This is accompanied by an extended loud release of greenhouse gases that produces a sound similar to a chainsaw. Once you see this on YouTube you’ll agree that no party has a more representative mascot. Here’s the Hypocratic platform: “We, the Hypocratic Party, believe that soccer moms have the right to burn gas and oil in their large SUV’s and to wear bumper stickers calling for the shutdown of all frackers and crackers (refineries). Hypocrats want to tear down dams and nukes and then sue utility companies for blackouts. We want to wear jewelry but put miners out of work. We don’t want continued on page four
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