LMD Nov 2015

Riding Herd

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

by LEE PITTS

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Don’t Pet The Spider

I What Were We Thinking?

November 15, 2015 • www.aaalivestock.com

By Lee Pitts

Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.

T

he other day I came across an old FFA speech I gave 47 years ago. At the time I remember being proud of the speech. I won the state of California FFA public speaking contest and my Grandpa thought I should have won the nation, although he may have been a bit biased. Now I’m embarrassed by what I wrote.

What a bunch of malarkey I was peddling back then. My theme was that the world was exploding and as a result America had to feed the world. I never would have imagined that nearly 50 years later the world would be feeding us.

Offshoring Our Food

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

Sadly, the U.S. is no longer self sufficient in food. Not by a long shot. Nearly half of the fresh fruit consumed in this country is imported and the amount of imported fresh vegetables climbed from 17 percent to 31 percent since 2000.

Imports of food from Mexico alone increased 20 percent PER YEAR from 1999 through 2012. To illustrate my point consider this: if you take a vitamin C pill and swallow it down with apple juice there is a 90 percent chance the pill came from China and a 70 percent chance the apple juice did too.

And 98 percent of all those veggies and fruits were NEVER inspected by the USDA!

Volume 57 • No. 11

Lest you think beef has escaped this offshoring consider that 14 percent of the beef consumed in our country is not raised here. And with beef imports increasing 30 percent recently that number will rise rapidly.

Pardon my being so blunt but, have we lost our minds?

We’ve seen how well it works buying our oil from countries whose terrorists want to fly crowded jetliners into our tall buildings, or cut off our heads, and now we evidently want to depend on others to provide the most basic necessity of life. Most Americans don’t know what it is to go hungry

but thanks to globalization some day they might get their chance.

Globaloney It’s no coincidence that many recent college graduates are waiting tables at Olive Garden or still living at home with their parents because we shipped all their jobs overseas.

As we were going broke as a result of globalization we sold a heap of our debt to communist China and now they are buying up our real estate too. We’ve killed off most of our manufacturing jobs under the guise of “free trade” or “fair trade” only to later learn it was neither.

What were we thinking?

According to the economists who wrote best selling books about the wonders of globalization, Americans would no longer have to slave away in factories because we were going to get rich in our “service economy”. We were supposed to pay the bills by waiting on one another. Turns out it was all about multinational corporations finding the cheapest source of labor. If you did want a new factory built in your American town you had to woo the multinationals with a heaping basket of tax breaks, like Reno just did with Tesla Motors. A cynic might say it was corporate blackmail.

What did we get in return for doing the bidding of the multinationals? It sure wasn’t tax dollars. From 2008 through 2013 GE made over $33.9 billion in U.S. profits yet it paid no income tax. In fact, they got a refund of $2.9 billion. It’s effective U.S. corporate tax rate continued on page two

EPA’s lower Ozone standard will disproportionately impact the Intermountain West

O

n October 1, 2015, EPA finalized the new primary National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for Ozone at 70 parts per billion (ppb), which is more stringent than the current 2008 Ozone NAAQS of 75 ppb. At 70 ppb, approximately 32 of 63 counties in the Intermountain West would currently fail to meet the new standard, including counties in Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada. The lower Ozone NAAQS is of particular concern to western states, communities, and businesses because of the difficulty in attaining the standard due to high levels of “background ozone,” which in some places has been monitored at, or near, the 70 ppb standard.

Background ozone can be caused by elevation, types of vegetation, wildfire, international transport, or atmospheric intrusion. The Intermountain West is also home to large, sparsely populated counties with few sources of emissions that can be controlled through state permits or rules. EPA acknowledges that high background levels of ozone in the Intermountain West will pose unique problems for compliance, but the final rule offers few meaningful options to address the impacts of background ozone on attainment of a standard set near those levels.

The states have one year to recommend to EPA those counties, or partial counties, that should be designated as not attaining the new standard. EPA expects to finalize nonattain-

ment designations in 2017 or, at the latest, 2018.

Once an area is designated as nonattainment, it means additional emission restrictions for new and expanding businesses will be required, as well as the likelihood of additional control technology for existing sources. For example, in August of 2015, EPA proposed emission controls that could be required for existing oil and gas operations in ozone nonattainment areas, depending upon their classification.

States will begin the implementation planning process immediately. The states have three years from issuance of the standard to develop and submit to EPA their State Implementation Plans (SIPs), which are a set of rules designed to assure maintenance of the standard, and 36 months after a nonattainment designation to develop and submit a nonattainment SIP designed to bring an area back into attainment with the standard. One difficulty for developing a nonattainment SIP in many areas of the rural Intermountain West is that there are few emission sources that can be controlled and regulated through permits or rules. High ozone may be due largely to factors outside of local control.

EPA promises to address these issues through implementation guidance and a white paper with stakeholder input. Acting EPA Air Chief Janet McCabe asserts that EPA will continued on page five

n 20 million American homes man’s best friend isn’t a dog, it’s a legally owned python, chimp, Madagascar hissing cockroach or other exotic pet. It occurs to me that we could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by turning endangered and threatened species into house pets. Who wouldn’t want a poison dart frog, mountain gorilla, sumatran orangutan, Slevin’s skink (a lizard), Oliver Ridley Turtle or Hector’s dolphin in their home? Why should Hector, Slevin or Oliver get to have all the fun? An Ozark hellbender would make a perfect pet, which I admit, sounds more like my college roommate than it does an endangered amphibian.

It’s time to think “outside the cage” and adopt an endangered clam, fern, lichen, snail, arachnid or invertebrate as your pet. Here are my top ten prospects. #1 Black Rhino- Be the first on your block to own this endangered living fossil.

Mostly outside pets, after a brief period of socialization you and your rhino will be curled up on the couch watching Dancing With the Stars in no time. Set aside two hours daily for play and dust baths. #2 Goliath Bird Eating Spider- A member of the tarantula family, they can be as big as a dinner plate. They DO NOT like to be petted. I repeat, DO NOT PET THE SPIDER! Their venom is not lethal but they do flick tiny hairs at people that hurt like heck and can be dangerous if swallowed. It has a reputation for stealing birds out of nests so keep it separated at all times from your endangered Golden cheeked warbler. #3 Howell’s spectacular thelypody- Listen up guys.

Since their habitat is being threatened by the mowing of grass, you’ll have the perfect excuse not to mow the lawn on Sunday when you’re trying to watch the game.

Just tell your wife, “I can’t because I don’t want to mow a thelypody, and not just a good thelypoy but a spectacular one. #4 Rafflesia- This is the biggest flower on the planet, continued on page eleven

www.LeePittsbooks.com

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Livestock Market Digest

November 15, 2015

What Were We Thinking? was minus nine percent! And after the 2008 financial crises we gave GE another $16 billion in stimulus cash.

From 2010 through 2012 Pfizer paid no federal income tax at the same time it was making $43 billion in profits.

In 2009 Merck did the same thing, in fact they got a $55 million tax refund after making more than $5.7 billion in profit. By using “tax inversions” and other financial trickery the multinationals are getting a free ride on your nickel.

Our government is basically in Chapter 11 and mortgaged to the hilt while central bankers and traders print money, invent new cash casinos and keep interest rates at near zero so the stock market won’t crash. All while lobbyists write checks to reelection campaigns. Our strong dollar is making foreign goods cheaper and there’s a growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots who are seriously considering electing an avowed socialist as President. And our President thinks the answer is more trade deals!

Want to see how well past trade deals have worked? In August the U.S. recorded a trade deficit of $48.3 BILLION. At the same time exports fell nearly 2 percent to their lowest level since October of 2012, dragged down by a strong dollar and weak external demand. Imports rose another 1.2 percent in August alone. The Economic Policy Institute says, “Growing trade deficits in manufactured products have been a primary driver in the displacement of U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2000. Trade deficits in manufactured products, which have increased over the past five years, remain a substantial threat to the recovery of U.S. manufacturing employment and production.”

And we want more of this?

WHO, The Not-So-Wise Owl WHO knew that under ObamaCare your physician would be replaced by a United Nations witch doctor going under the name of The World Health Organization. WHO is an agency of the UN dedicated to improving the status of third world countries and making the U.S. pay for it. WHO’s proclamations are always driven more by politics than they are good medicine, for example, in October WHO proclaimed that hot dogs, ham, processed meat and beef “probably” can cause colorectal cancer.”

Probably?

The WHO report was written by researchers at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). They concluded that for every 100 grams of red meat consumed per day, there is a 17 percent increase in the risk of colorectal cancer.

IARC’s Kurt Straif admits, “The risk of developing colorectal cancer from eating processed meat remains small,” and he also admits, “the link was not as strong” with beef.

continued from page one

The IARC report labeled processed meat a carcinogen saying that red meat is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” lumping it in the same category as cigarettes.

WHO’s verdict on beef sounds bad until you consider what Betsy Booren of the North American Meat Institute discovered. “Red and processed meat are among 940 agents reviewed by IARC and found to pose some level of theoretical hazard. Only one substance,” said Booren, “a chemical in yoga pants, has been declared

by IARC not to cause cancer.”

Yoga pants for dinner anyone?

Don’t be surprised that there’s a label reading, “WARNING! The WHO has determined that beef can, maybe, probably, perhaps, theoretically, could cause cancer.”

Maybe, Probably Don’t get your WHO’s confused with your WTO’s. The WHO is the World Health Organization and the WTO is the World Trade Organization. The WTO is the intergovernmental organization which recently told Americans they could not label their meat with country of origin labels because it might decrease the value of Canadian and Mexican beef imports.

According to R-CALF, because the U.S. is a member of the WTO we were expected to abide by their COOL verdict “which was arrived at by a three-person panel of unelected and unappointed international jurists — including the blatantly conflicted Mexican-national jurist whose country to which he was a loyal citizen was a party to the complaint — empower the governments of Canada and Mexico to undermine, negate and otherwise overturn the decision by our U.S. Constitution-based court system.”

Because we have joined all these global clubs American consumers no longer have the right to know where their food comes from and we are expected to sacrifice our nation’s sovereignty and disregard U.S. Constitution-based law. As a result, in the future don’t expect a label on your beef saying where it came from, instead, don’t be surprised that there’s a label reading, “WARNING! The WHO has determined that beef can, maybe, probably, perhaps, theoretically, could cause cancer.”

The Canary In The Coal Mine As if our trade imbalance isn’t high enough President Obama has pushed yet another trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This continued on page three

November 15, 2015

Livestock Market Digest

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What Were We Thinking? continued from page two will make it easier for countries like Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Vietnam to flood the U.S. market with even more imported meat.

If you want to see what the global future for beef might look like we suggest reading an R-CALF study that came to the conclusion that “the principal cause for the commercial sheep industry’s demise was imported lamb that was entering the U.S. at low prices. Soon after the U.S. entered a free trade agreement with Australia, the U.S. sheep industry began importing more lamb and mutton than the domestic sheep industry could produce.”

Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF said, “Our sheep industry is now the first U.S. livestock industry to be outsourced and the only reason for that is because the President uses Fast Track authority to pass free trade agreements that benefit multinational corporations while harming specific industries in the U.S., like the sheep industry. Because the sheep industry is the cattle industry’s canary in the coal mine, our cattle industry is certain to follow.”

Continued Bullard, “There is nothing novel about this TPP agreement. It follows the same blueprint as the free trade agreements we already have and those agreements resulted in a $2.3 billion deficit in the trade of cattle, beef, beef variety meats and processed beef last year alone. This TPP is a NAFTA and CAFTA look-alike

and will most likely worsen the $28 billion deficit we accumulated over the past 25 years with those and the other free trade-agreement countries.”

The TPP trade deal is similar to the one we signed with South Korea and since it was implemented in 2012 the U.S. trade deficit with them worsened by 70 percent. One wonders, how many times do we have to get out-traded before we realize that sending all our jobs and production capacity to other countries is not a good thing? To paraphrase Will Rogers, “The United States has never lost a war or won a trade negotiation.”

We sign these trade compacts knowing that even before the ink is dry the countries we are dealing will cheat. According to Michael Stumo, CEO for the Coalition for a Prosperous America, Japan devalued its yen by over 55 percent in three years which in effect was a tariff on incoming goods and a subsidy for Japanese farmers.

They also increased their value-added-tax from 5 percent to 10 percent which must be paid on imported beef.

According to Stumo the U.S. dollar gained 13.3 percent against other major currencies between December 2013 and January 2014 as a result of currency manipulation by Japan and the slowdown in Europe.

“Dollar appreciation reduces the competitiveness of U.S. exports and increases the U.S. goods trade deficit. Several members of the proposed TPP are well known currency ma-

nipulators. In fact, Japan is the world’s second largest currency manipulator, behind China.”

America is looked upon as a big dummy and a dumping ground by our trade partners.

“The TPP will likely cause the U.S. to continue lowering its food safety standards and its livestock health standards for the purpose of facilitating more imports into the U.S. from developing countries.”

According to Stumo, “to accommodate preexisting Free Trade Agreements (FTA’s), the U.S. already has stopped requiring foreign countries to have food safety inspections that are at least equal to U.S. inspections; the U.S. no longer performs monthly inspections of foreign packing plants; the U.S. no longer requires countries to eradicate dangerous diseases within their borders prior to allowing exports of disease-susceptible products; and, the U.S. has lifted long-standing import restrictions against certain countries that continue to detect pernicious diseases in their livestock herds. The lower food safety standards and livestock health standards caused by FTAs now require the U.S. to accept higher rates of disease introduction, disease incidence, food contamination, and human illnesses and deaths.”

Richard Oswald, President of Missouri Farmer’s Union writes, “One of the biggest costs to one efficient branch of U.S. agriculture has been a virus called PED, short for porcine epidemic diarrhea. First

discovered in Europe, PED spread through Asia mysteriously finding its way to America and Canada. After years of searching for the source, USDA now attributes PED’s origins, responsible for killing 8 million baby pigs in the U.S., to contaminated shipping bags used to deliver bulk commodities to the U.S. from – take a wild guess – our trading partners in Asia. That’s also where avian flu originated, resulting in the destruction of close to 50 million U.S. chickens and turkeys this year costing close to $1 billion and driving up the price of eggs.

“Now USDA has approved chicken imports from China.

And beef from South America, even though parts of countries there still harbor the scourge of cattlemen everywhere, hoof and mouth disease. That one microscopic bug can wipe out an American beef herd faster than you can say “shipping container.” But, we’re told, it will be good for agriculture.”

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association led the cheers for the TTP along with the Brazilian meat packer JBS and the largest pork packer in the world, Smithfield, which is Chinese owned. The NCBA just keeps repeating, “beef exports currently add over $350 to each head of cattle sold in the U.S.” Ah, but they never mention the $2.3 billion yearly DEFICIT in beef imports and exports.

WHO, WTO, TTP... put them all together and what does it spell? Trouble ahead for beef. Big trouble.

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Livestock Market Digest

November 15, 2015

Thugs Posing as “Partners”

BY JIM BEERS

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he following link from a trusted source is a page and a half letter from the Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to the Director of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently applied for a New Mexico State Permit to release more wolves in expanded areas in New Mexico.

The initial wolf releases in Yellowstone National Park were unique since no State Government has authority over Yellowstone since it was never conveyed to a State and is therefore under what is termed “EXCLUSIVE” (i.e. federal) JURISDICTION. Ninety-nine percent of all other federal lands (Refuges, Forests, Parks, BLM lands, Reclamation lands, Army Corps of Engineer lands, etc.) are under State authority, the same as all the private land ownerships in the State. While the federal trick (the correct word) of releasing wolves on “their” land

was unstoppable, the inevitable and planned spread to lands controlled by States was never challenged. Imagine if I moved into your community and released “on my land” large dangerous dogs or wolves or grizzly bears that spread far and wide and created mayhem, death and destruction: would everyone just turn the other way and talk about my sterling character or my high motives?

The federal government cannot, as they do in this letter, say that they will release wolves on “federal” lands as if those lands are on Mars. All those lands ARE IN NEW MEXICO and as such are subject to the authority and jurisdiction of the duly-elected government of New Mexico and their appointed officials such as Director Sandoval!

When the State of New Mexico, at the behest of the thousands of rural New Mexicans from parents and ranchers to dog owners and hunters that have been forced to live with wolves to date and all those targeted for these future

wolves, denied the Permit Request to put more wolves in New Mexico – The USFWS simply, “concluded it has independent legal authority to engage in all activities regarding the reintroduction of the Mexican wolf in New Mexico.” They go on, “We will conduct these actions”. n So much for State authority and jurisdiction over resident wildlife (and fish) in the State. n So much for this “Partnership” of “State” governments with the federal government (and all those radical organizations) behind all this stuff from wolves and grizzly bears to windmill farms and global warming fiascoes. n So much for any hope for protection from increasingly rogue actions and claims by a totally out-of-control federal bureaucracy. n So much for all those “promises” of “turning over ‘management’” of (wolves, grizzlies, cougars, etc., etc.) to the States. n So much for all those

Nebraska Game & Parks takes step toward new Niobrara River protections

BY DAVID HENDEE, OMAHA.COM

N

early a decade after initially dipping its toe into the issue, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission is on the verge of seeking protection for water in the Niobrara River.

Meeting in late October in Fairbury, commissioners unanimously approved an application to the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources for a permit to set aside water in the river for fish, wildlife and recreation.

“This all about protecting the Niobrara as it flows now,” said Tim McCoy, the commission’s deputy director.

The so-called instream flow right would protect river water downstream from Spencer Dam to the Niobrara’s confluence with the Missouri River. The dam is north of O’Neill in north-central Nebraska.

The stretch of river under the application is not part of the popular canoeing stream designated a national scenic river and managed by the National Park Service. That stretch is upriver at Valentine.

The application is the first step in a series of regulatory and legislative actions called for under an agreement recently approved by the commission and five natural resources districts in the river basin.

It is part of a larger deal in which Nebraska Public Power District will shut down its small hydropower plant at Spencer Dam and give up its water rights. NPPD’s water rights are valuable because they are senior to about 440 others upstream from the dam to the Wyoming border.

Instream flow appropriations essentially protect specific flows in a stream or river according to the first

in time, first in right doctrine. They do not affect existing water rights. This instream flow right would have a priority date of 2015, if the application is filed this year.

The application calls for maintaining about 2,000 cubic-feet per second of water to maintain the fish community throughout the year. Species include paddlefish, pallid sturgeon, shovelnose sturgeon, sauger and adult channel catfish.

The request also seeks flows to maintain whooping crane migration habitat in spring and fall, and piping plover and least tern nesting habitat in spring and summer.

The appropriation would be only the third since the Legislature passed instream flow legislation in 1984.

Between 1984 and 2013, an eightmile stretch of Long Pine Creek (a tributary to the Niobrara) and 277 miles of the central and lower Platte River have received instream flow protection. They amount to 2.3 percent of the state’s fishable streams and rivers. More than 12,000 miles of streams and rivers have no instream flow protection.

The commission directed its staff in 2006 to conduct a series of scientific studies to determine the Niobrara’s flow necessary to maintain healthy fish and wildlife populations, as well as to offer recreational floating opportunities.

Natural resources districts involved in the application are the Lower Niobrara in Butte, Middle Niobrara in Valentine, Upper Elkhorn in O’Neill, Upper Niobrara White in Chadron and Upper Loup in Thedford.

Once filed, the Natural Resources Department will review the application and determine if a public hearing is necessary. That process could take until spring or later.

readers that have called me every name in the book for questioning the honor and claims of federal bureaucrats regarding what they claim about “endangered” wildlife and native ecosystems and disease and the chaos they are wreaking over a growing segment of rural America.

State bureaucrats for too long have treated the US Fish and Wildlife Service and these harmful programs like things worthy of respect when in fact they have been increasingly destructive to rural America.

They have been like young girls dating a rapist. Whatever their motives in the past and truth be told for many of them it was simply their own careers and welfare, some are finally being forced by united and powerful public opinion to stand up against the federal behemoth.

What is resulting is this “peek behind the curtain” (like in the Wizard of OZ) letter that exposes the true nature of these THUGS and their real “partners”, i.e. radical environmen-

talists with socialist goals for America.

Please read the letter at: http://www.veritasresearchcon sulting.com/Wolf/Sandoval_Let ter-Mexican_Wolves-20151014. pdf and consider what is in store if we do not stop this federal abuse. Our forefathers went to War with Britain, arguably over less. Do not be polite and seek “compromise”; do not continue to tolerate the lies about what they are doing to rural America and indeed all of America. Do whatever you can to: n Replace the %#&^ politicians that condone these travesties. n Replace the judges that look the other way. n Repeal these un-American radical “environmental”/animal “rights laws and all the abuses they are spawning. n Reduce the size and authority, and refocus USFWS, US Forest Service, BLM, EPA, et al or combine or eliminate them. n Reduce the size of the federal lands estate dramatically.

Agency won’t give GOP internal docs on climate research

BY TIMOTHY CAMA, THEHILL.COM

T

he federal government’s chief climate research agency is refusing to give House Republicans the detailed information they want on a controversial study on climate change.

Citing confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said it won’t give Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) the research documents he subpoenaed.

At the center of the controversy is a study that concluded there has not been a 15-year “pause” in global warming. Some NOAA scientists contributed to the report.

Skeptics of climate change, including Smith, have cited the pause to insist that increased greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels, are not heating up the globe.

Smith, the chairman of the House Science Committee, vehemently disagreed with the study’s findings. He issued a subpoena for communications among the scientists and some data, leading to charges from Democrats that he was trying to intimidate the researchers.

In late October, NOAA provided Smith with some more information about its methods and data but refused to give Smith everything he wanted.

NOAA spokeswoman Ciaran Clayton said the internal communications are confidential and not related to what Smith is trying to find out.

“We have provided data, all of which is publicly available online, supporting scientific research, and multiple in-person briefings,” she said.

“We stand behind our scientists who conduct their work in an objective manner.

It is the end product of exchanges between

scientists — the detailed publication of scientific work and the data that underpins the authors’ findings — that are key to understanding the conclusions reached.

Clayton also refuted Smith’s implication that the study was political.

“There is no truth to the claim that the study was politically motivated or conducted to advance an agenda,” she said. “The published findings are the result of scientists simply doing their job, ensuring the best possible representation of historical global temperature trends is available to inform decisionmakers, including the U.S. Congress.”

Smith defended his investigation, saying NOAA’s work is clearly political.

“It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades,” he said in a statement. “The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made.”

Smith also said NOAA’s assertion of confidentiality is incorrect.

“The agency has yet to identify any legal basis for withholding these documents,” he said, adding that his panel would use “all tools at its disposal” to continue investigating.

Smith has been communicating with NOAA about the research since it was published in the summer, and their exchanges have grown increasingly hostile.

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Texas), the committee’s ranking Democrat, has sharply criticized Smith’s requests.

“By issuing this subpoena, you have instigated a constitutional conflict with an inquiry that seems more designed to harass climate scientists than to further any legitimate legislative purpose,” she wrote last week. “This is a serious misuse of congressional oversight powers.”

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Does EPA Need Guns, Ammo and Armor to Protect the Environment?

BY STEPHEN MOORE, NEWS.INVESTORS.COM

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he Environmental Protection Agency spent millions of dollars over the last decade on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books.

The report raises questions about why EPA’s enforcement division employs wellarmed “special agents” who appear to be conducting SWAT-type operations on American businesses and households it suspects of wrongdoing.

Illinois-based Open the Books scanned tens of thousands of checks written by the EPA and totaling more than $93 billion from 2000 to 2014.

The audit discovered hundreds of millions of dollars of questionable expenses, including high-end luxury furnishings, sports equipment and “environmental justice” grants to raise awareness of global warming.

It also revealed that seven of 10 EPA workers make more than $100,000 a year and that more than 12,000 of its nearly 16,000 employees were given bonuses last year despite agency budgets that were supposed to be constrained by budget caps and sequester cuts.

EPA’s $8 billion budget also found room for more than 1,000 attorneys, which would make the agency one of the largest law firms in the nation.

And more than $50 million of EPA funds since 2000 went to internation-

al organizations — dollars that flowed to countries such as China and Mexico.

These activities appear to have little or no connection to the EPA mandate of safeguarding the air and water here in the U.S. But the eye-grabber in the report is the agency’s ongoing military-type purchases. Some $75 million is authorized each year for criminal enforcement, including money for a small militia of 200 “special agents” that appear to be snooping on industry and preparing to use deadly force to enforce EPA edicts.

“We were shocked ourselves to find these kind of pervasive expenditures at an agency that is supposed to be involved in clean air and clean water,” said Open the Books’ founder, Adam Andrzejewski.

“Some of these weapons are for full-scale military operations.”

Those who keep an eye on the agency have also been stunned by such outlays.

“EPA has always been primarily an agency that is involved in analysis and regulation. Even its enforcement arm is mainly involved in litigation,” notes Marlo Lewis, who covers environmental issues for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

“Since when did we start going down this road of allowing agencies of government to engage in military-style operations?”

In 2013, the EPA was involved in what many residents called an armed raid at a small town in Alaska where local miners were accused of polluting local waters.

Fox News reported that EPA “armed agents in full body armor participated.”

The Justice Department has reported that there are now 40 federal agencies

with more than 100,000 officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests. They include the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Park Service.

EPA has numerous joint projects with the Homeland Security Department. In 1988 the agency’s criminal enforcement division was granted police powers.

The EPA website describes the activities and mission of the criminal enforcement division as “investigating cases, collecting evidence, conducting forensic analyses and providing legal guidance to assist in the prosecution of criminal conduct that threatens people’s health and the environment.” But nothing about the use of lethal force.

Asked for comment on the Open the Books findings, EPA said purchases of armaments are necessary for “environmental crime-fighting.”

“For more than 30 years,” it said, “there has been broad, bipartisan agreement about the importance of an armed, fully-equipped team of EPA agents working with state and federal partners to uphold the law and protect Americans.”

The equipment is needed to “access potential crime scenes as quickly as possible,” it added.

One former EPA administrator with more than 30 years at the agency says of the Open the Books report: “EPA has been increasingly captured by the environmental left, and the purchases of military-style armaments has increased accordingly.”

The new report comes at a time when the EPA is under fire over a new regula-

tion approved by the agency to tighten ozone emission rules. The National Association of Manufacturers calls it one of the most expensive EPA rules ever.

There’s also a fight in Washington over whether federal agencies can withstand another sequester spending reduction without jeopardizing vital services. The White House says further agency cuts would be disastrous.

But reports such as the latest by Open the Books are sure to be promoted by Republicans as evidence of rampant waste and misspending.

Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

EPA’s lower Ozone standard tions are vetted through public comment. For counties already designated as nonattainment for other pollutants such as PM 2.5 or PM 10, the state will evaluate the current rule structure and modeling to determine if additional emission control rules are necessary to bring ozone levels down.

State plans will rely heavily on a state’s ability to show appropriate local measures. Aside from that, states will use exclusions such as “exceptional events” or demonstrations that pollution has been transported into the area. While the Clean Air Act provides for these exclusions, states have had difficulty in the past with EPA approving these exclusions in a timely manner.

Additionally, these exclusions are not beneficial for areas with high levels of background pol-

lution because they have to be applied or “proven” after an area is designated as nonattainment based on monitoring values.

Therefore, businesses located in nonattainment areas are subject to the restrictions of a nonattainment designation unless and until the exclusions are accepted by EPA, or the area goes

ed in an ozone nonattainment area with few opportunities for emission controls, industry stakeholders should plan to participate in the EPA stakeholder process on background ozone and in the state SIP development processes.

through the long and difficult process of being redesignated as in attainment with the standard.

This means a business might have to implement an air quality reduction mechanism that may later be deemed unnecessary if the EPA accepts the exclusions.

In light of the potential implications for businesses locat-

ELM

Source: Holland & Hart LLP

FARMINGTON

work with states “to carry out the duties of ozone air quality management in a manner that maximizes common sense, flexibility and cost-effectiveness while achieving improved public health expeditiously and abiding by the legal requirements [of the Clean Air Act].” See more at: http://www.natlawreview.com/ article/epa-lowers-ozone-amb i e n t - a i r- s t a n d a r d # s t h a s h . ldX6zAnu.dpuf. The timing of nonattainment designations and SIP development, however, will make practical solutions difficult.

The implementation process of the new rule at the state level relies on stakeholder participation. For example, the state develops the SIP through modeling of emission sources and analyzing the cost of reduction per ton of pollution. Proposed solu-

continued from page one

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Page 6

Livestock Market Digest

November 15, 2015

Growing Together through Genetics

T

he American Sheep Industry says “Let’s Grow.” The campaign is designed to lead the industry into the future through innovation and sustainability.

But how does a seedstock or commercial producer get from point A to point B? One of the answers, according to the Let’s Grow initiative and the Sheep Industry Roadmap is: genetic improvement.

That’s where the National Sheep Improvement Program comes in.

“Quantitative genetics has the most potential to get us where we need to go,” says Mike Corn of Roswell Wool in Roswell, New Mexico. Corn is chairman of the Let’s Grow committee. “The genetics are out there. We have to make the best use of them.

Producing more with less is key to any industry these days, and utilizing our genetics to their full potential is how we will grow.”

It’s all about the EBV “NSIP is the vehicle, but it’s the estimated breeding values that are the tool for growth,” explains Reid Redden, PhD, sheep and goat specialist with Texas A&M Agrilife Extension and chairman of the NSIP board of directors.

Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) are a science-based, industry-tested measurements of heritable traits that predict genetic performance. An animal’s value is assessed based on its performance data and pedigree.

And breeding decisions can be targeted to highlight specific needs and goals.

Used in other forms of livestock production for decades (EPDs, or Expected Progeny Differences, in cattle for instance), EBVs allow producers to choose genetics that can best enhance their operations’ production goals.

“This technology has been out there for 25 years,” says Redden. “We’re behind the times on implementation. We have some catching up to do.” In fact, he

Buyers pour over EBVs at the Center of the Nation Sale in Spencer, Iowa. By using the data to make their selections, producers can identify the best breeding stock for their operation.

suggests sheep producers who would like to learn more ask their beef producer neighbors to explain.

Coming late in the game may have its advantages. “We can see the mistakes others have made,” says Corn. “It’s pretty clear now how to use this technology. We can just start in.”

“First,” says Redden, “seedstock producers need to commit to enrolling in the program.” Enrollment is followed by data collection and submission, then using that data to make breeding decisions that benefit customers and industry needs.

“Understand, simply enrolling in the program does not automatically mean you have better sheep,” he cautions. “You have to use that data to improve the next generation.”

Next, he says, the commercial producer needs to demand EBVs from seedstock operations that supply breeding animals. If the commercial producer con-

tinues to buy sheep without EBVs, the program will not be successful and improve the genetic potential of the U.S. sheep flock.

Corn says once commercial producers become familiar with the data, then start getting post-harvest feedback from the packers, there will be no turning back. “I’ve seen them at the sales with the data. Their papers are all colored and scratched up.

They’re hungry for that information.” Birth weights, weaning weights, lambing rates, loin eye size, wool characteristics – all are sifted through, contemplated, and judged for relevance in the commercial herd.

Leaving money on the table “It doesn’t take any more space or nutrients to raise sheep with superior genetics than those without,” says Corn, “but the benefits at the end pay off in a huge way.” Corn is in the wool game, and fine wool with a staple length of 3-plus inches compared to a medium grade with a 2.75-inch staple means more profit for the producer. And that can be accomplished through better genetics.

Likewise, producing more meat for hungry consumers can be accomplished though the use of EBVs. The U.S. imports nearly 50 percent of lamb consumed – a number that is simply not acceptable to those on industry planning committees.

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Mike Corn of Roswell Wool is chairman of the Let’s Grow committee. “It doesn’t take any more space or nutrients to raise sheep with superior genetics than those without,” says Corn.

Susan Shultz, of Bunker Hill Farm in DeGraff, Ohio, sits on the Let’s Grow committee as well as chairing the Roadmap Product Improvement committee; her husband, Bill, is on the NSIP board. “We need to increase productivity and profitability and one of the primary ways to do that is through genetic improvement,” says Shultz.

“Using NSIP EBVs can increase lambing rates. We can breed specifically for that.”

Redden says Montana producers have increased lambing rates in the Targhee breed by roughly 10 percent by using the top 25 percent of rams on the Western Range Index. An index is a calculated mix of trait data designed to simplify selection.

While Targhees are primarily focused on wool production, maternal farm flock breeds have seen similar results. Midwest Polypay breeders have seen a 20 percent increase in weaning rate by using the top 25 percent of rams on the U.S. Maternal Index.

Shultz is aware the American consumer expects a consistent, quality product – another goal that can be best met through the use of the right genetics. “We have a responsibility to provide an enjoyable eating experience each and every time. If we’re using the best genetics, we can produce lamb that we are proud to put on a plate.”

Redden says sheep bred for

steady, consistent growth can hit a target lamb meat market that suits consumers and brings the best prices for producers. “It’s not just about bigger is better.

In the Targhee breed they use an index that gives a positive value to weaning weight, and a negative value to yearling weight. It’s about controlling the growth.”

Learning a new way Shultz says the key to bringing producers – both seedstock and commercial – on board with industry goals and new technology is education. The Let’s Grow initiative is in the midst of its second round of grant funding, with many funded projects focused on spreading the word about the benefits of quantitative genetics.

Redden says the resources for producers wanting to learn more about genetic improvement are plentiful. “Contact NSIP, of course, or your local extension agent. If your local agent can’t answer your questions, they will find out or forward you to your regional or state specialist.” Or find any one of several upcoming webinars and seminars scheduled through Let’s Grow.

“I’m really impressed with the efforts we’ve seen and the cooperation from all aspects of the industry in trying to improve our product, and the interest in moving forward,” says Shultz. “Everyone’s working toward the same goal here – doing what needs to be done to grow the U.S. sheep industry.”

Redden says the need to embrace the new age simply cannot be overstated: “On both the individual producer and industry-wide levels we need this technology to be competitive and profitable – and sustainable for future generations.”

More information on NSIP can be found at nsip.org

November 15, 2015

Livestock Market Digest

Page 7

Homeowners in Ohio Town Had Their Front Yards Seized MAGGIE THURBER, DAILYSIGNAL.COM

F

ort Meigs Road in Perrysburg, Ohio, is too narrow and needs widening, as almost all would agree.

But homeowners along the road don’t agree with how it should be widened, nor do they agree with the “quick take” eminent domain process the city used to claim people’s front yards.

What these residents find even harder to stomach is the fact that their homes aren’t even in Perrysburg, but rather in Middleton Township.

Ohio law defines the process in eminent domain cases, which mirrors a traditional civil court case with a jury decision.

But if the public project is “making or repairing” a road, the government can take possession of the disputed property immediately upon filing for eminent domain—even before the case undergoes the normal court process—through a quick-take.

But the Fort Meigs plan also calls for an extra-wide multi-use path or sidewalk, which isn’t covered under the quick-take process, homeowners say.

“The Ohio constitution says local government can use ‘quicktake’ to make or repair roads,” said Maurice Thompson, attorney for the homeowners. “The scope of this project is definitely beyond that.”

Thompson, executive director of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, said the land

grab has two major problems.

First, Perrysburg lacks authority to seize property in Middleton Township. But even if it did have authority, because it’s a road project, it can’t take land for sidewalks. Further, Perrysburg has no authority to use the quick-take process in Middleton Township, and, regardless, quick-take doesn’t apply to sidewalks—either inside or outside the city limits.

“They can’t take land in the township for any reason,” Thompson said, “but particularly for amenities like a sidewalk and bike path,” citing several court cases in which quick-takes for drainage ditches and sewer lines were ruled illegal.

Recently the court granted a temporary order saying the city couldn’t take immediate possession of the properties or begin construction until certain other issues are determined.

But the land grab isn’t the only issue.

Homeowners wonder why the widening project is limited to their side of the street; the other side contains a man-made drainage ditch and farmland.

Todd Grayson, the lone Perrysburg City Council member to vote against the eminent domain proceedings, said it boils down to cost.

“There’s no debate about whether or not the road needs to be widened,” he said. “The question is: Do you pay a million dollars more to expand on the ditch/farm field side, or do you go to the property owners’ side

and expand on their property?”

The estimated project cost is $2.4 million, but it increases to around $3.4 million if the ditch side is widened.

“If you go the ditch side, you have to move the ditch, and that involves the Corps of Engineers and Ohio EPA,” Grayson said. “But instead of moving the ditch, we’re going to be hacking up the front yards, moving traffic closer to the front door, and tearing down the old trees” on the homeowner side.

“If it were exactly the same dollar amount to move that ditch, we’d be doing it,” Grayson said.

“We know across the street makes more sense for everybody, but that million-dollar price tag is too much for some,” he added. “We know what the right thing to do is. The city and (the Ohio Department of Transportation) are just choosing not to do it.

“And I disagree,” Grayson said. “When your justification is ‘it’s cheaper,’ that’s not a legal reason for taking people’s property.”

ODOT’s only role, says Mike Gramza, ODOT District 2 administrator, is to make sure all federal requirements are followed; 80 percent of the funding is from the federal government.

Perrysburg is handling all design work and paying the 20 percent local match.

Grayson said moving the ditch makes sense now and in the future.

“It wouldn’t shock me at all

if in 20 years there are houses across the street and we’ll have to take part of their front yard in order to further widen the street,” he said. “So why not do it now, when there are no houses in play and it’s a just a ditch and a cornfield?”

“The point is, this is doable,” Grayson said. “But we’re choosing not to do it because of money, the OEPA, and the Corps of Engineers. Which begs the question: Why do we need the EPA involved in moving a man-made run-off ditch 15 feet? We’re going to start with a ditch and end with a ditch. I can understand if you’re impacting a natural stream, but this is a man-made drainage ditch on a cornfield in Ohio.”

He said Matthew Beredo, the city attorney when the project began, downplayed the potential legal opposition from homeowners, calling eminent domain a “slam dunk” that wouldn’t cost much to defend. Those costs weren’t factored into the financial comparison. But Beredo resigned in April, and Karlene Henderson, the new city attorney, has yet to update the council on the case.

Grayson hopes the wrangling over eminent domain authority will delay the project long enough for the new council to take office in January.

“Maybe we’ll have the time to find out that it’s worth a little extra money to move the expansion to the other side of the road,” he said.

Originally published in Watchdog.org.

Veterinary Feed Directive Raises Concerns for Cattle Raisers BY: TY KEELING, VICE CHAIR, TSCRA ANIMAL HEALTH COMMITTEE

I

n 1996, the Animal Drug Availability Act (ADAA) was signed into law to provide flexibility for the way the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates animal drugs and medicated feeds. This was enacted to increase the number of approved animal drugs on the market, and it created a new category of drugs used in animal feed referred to as veterinary feed directive drugs (VFD drugs).

Under the 1996 ADAA, VFD drugs did not require a prescription from a licensed veterinarian for use. However, this recently changed on Oct. 1, 2015 when the FDA implemented a new rule that expands and further regulates the use of what they refer to as drugs that are “medically important” feed grade antibiotics.

This rule immediately takes effect for three VFD drugs: Avilamycin, Florfenicol and Tilmicosin. Only Tilmicosin is used as a feed-grade drug in cattle. By Jan. 1, 2017, the list of VFD drugs will expand to include all medically important antibiotics used in feed and water for disease prevention, control and treatment.

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TS-

CRA) believes this is another example of the federal government expanding their authority and attempting to regulate ranchers out of business. They are accomplishing this by requiring producers to receive a VFD form, similar to a prescription, from a licensed veterinarian before they can acquire and use antimicrobial drugs in feed or water.

A veterinarian must fill out the VFD form specifying the ranch, group of animals to be treated, drug to be used, feeding rate and the duration of the treatment for the cattle. Additional time and increased costs for cattlemen and women are the only result of these regulations.

Further, an unrealistic amount of detailed forms and records must be retained for a minimum of two years by the veterinarian, rancher and feed mill or distributor. This amount of paperwork is unnecessary and arduous just to receive a drug ranchers have used appropriately for years to care for their cattle.

The new VFD rule also requires veterinarians to follow what the FDA refers to as state defined veterinarian-client-patient relationships (VCPR). In states where the FDA determines no applicable or appropriate state VCPR requirements exist, veterinarians are required to issue VFDs in compliance with federally defined VCPR

requirements. Texas and Oklahoma already have state VCPR requirements in place; however, the FDA is overlooking the fact that ranchers already have good working relationships with their local veterinarians.

The VFD rule is part of FDA’s strategy to promote the judicious use of antimicrobials in food-producing animals. The Administration believes antibiotics are causing resistance in humans who consume beef products; however they have continuously failed to back this claim with proper peer-reviewed sound science.

While the rule is not expected to be in full effect until 2017, TSCRA recommends that cattle producers contact their veterinarians to discuss how it could affect them in their daily operations.

American ranchers have proved they are the best caretakers of their cattle, and they have continuously provided a safe, healthy and abundant supply of beef worldwide. They have been able to do this by working with their veterinarians and by using antibiotics judiciously to treat sick cattle and maintain healthy herds. The federal government needs to realize that at the end of the day these regulations are actually jeopardizing animal health.

TSCRA will continue to work

with industry organizations and government officials to ensure cattle raisers’ access and ability to use important animal drugs to care for their cattle are retained.

TSCRA will also keep its members informed as the VFD rule continues being implemented throughout the U.S. Ty Keeling is a Boerne, Texas cattle rancher, and he has been the vice chair of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association

Page 8

Livestock Market Digest

November 15, 2015

Control of federal lands emerges as an issue in the GOP presidential race

BY WILLIAM YARDLEY, LATIMES.COM

I

f Ken Ivory could ask the Republican presidential hopefuls a question at their debate in Colorado, the state lawmaker from Utah would raise a subject that might seem arcane to much of the nation but no doubt would stir strong responses from the event’s Western audience.

First, Ivory would hold up a color-coded map showing the huge amount of land in the West — about 50 percent of the entire region, compared with a fraction of that in the East — owned by the federal government.

Then Ivory would hit the candidates with his radical proposal: Why not transfer control of most of that land to the states, which could clear the way for more hunting and fishing, more oil wells and coal mines and tree harvests, with all the economic benefits that surely would follow?

“Why shouldn’t the federal government have to treat all the states equally?” said Ivory, himself a Republican, who has been pitching his plan around the country through an advocacy group he founded, the American Lands Council. “If they were really serious about a solution big enough to solve so many of the major issues that face our nation — economic, environmental, national security, energy — this

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is the only solution.”

Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are among those who have strongly endorsed the idea, but other Republican candidates also have signaled varying degrees of sympathy for conservative voters in Colorado and beyond who are frustrated by what many say are excessively restrictive federal policies on public lands in the West.

It is hardly a new cry — and experts widely dismiss the notion as economically and environmentally implausible — but it appears to be getting louder.

At least 10 states in recent years have approved legislation that tries to claim federal land or explore the possibility of doing so, helping prompt the Republican National Committee last year to draft a “resolution in support of Western states taking back public lands.” Some Western Republicans, facing battles with the federal government over mining and water quality controls, have called for abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency.

Jeb Bush, a relative moderate in the current Republican field, outlined a federal lands policy he said would direct federal agencies to allow states to determine, “consistent with law,” land uses that are sustainable and locally compatible.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) released an energy policy pledging that his administration would “work with Congress to

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ensure that states and tribes — not the federal government — have the primary role in oversight of energy development within their borders.”

And Donald Trump, one of the GOP front-runners, has called for dismantling the EPA. “What they do is a disgrace,” Trump told Fox News. “Every week they come out with new regulations. They’re making it impossible.”

A recent report from the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund found that seven GOP presidential candidates — Paul, Cruz, Rubio, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum — have expressed support for transferring or privatizing U.S. land and energy reserves.

In a campaign in which Nevada, Colorado, Utah and Arizona all hold early primaries, dropping such populist talking points into speeches to conservative audiences is not surprising. Whether the issue will endure is a different question.

“They may throw the red meat when they’re in the Western states, but you don’t see it resonate that often in the national elections,” said John Freemuth, a professor at Boise State University who specializes in public lands issues. Many people outside the region are unfamiliar with federal bureaucracies such as the Bureau of Land Management, a powerful

overseer of grazing lands and mining claims for those in the West, Freemuth said.

“The further we move east,” he said, “the more confused people get about public lands.”

Yet even with no branded Western candidate among the front-runners in either party, people on various sides of public lands issues say they believe this election could be different.

Broad questions over climate change, drought and domestic energy development — fossil fuels and renewables — connect directly to Western public lands policy, and they are likely to increase with a summit in Paris in December intended to establish international goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Specific battles continue as well, including the fate of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who came to an armed standoff against the government last year when the BLM tried to enforce grazing policies he has been defying for years.

Another point of contention: The refusal of Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican who leads the House Committee on Natural Resources, to allow a vote on renewal of the widely popular Land and Water Conservation Fund, which uses royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling to protect public land.

“I like lands, public lands that are actually controlled by people who live here,” Bishop told the Fox television affiliate in Salt

Lake City recently. “I don’t like our public lands, our federal lands, to be controlled by somebody who lives in Washington.”

There are also fights over rules limiting hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas production on public land, royalties paid to the government by coal mining companies, and hunting restrictions in Alaska.

A poll of likely voters in Colorado and Nevada this month conducted by a bipartisan team commissioned by the Outdoor Industry Assn. found that 62% of voters in Colorado, including 54% of Republicans, agreed with the idea that transferring federal lands to state ownership could leave the state with insufficient funds to fight wildfires and, if auctioned off to private owners, jeopardize the ability of future generations to enjoy them.

Matt Lee-Ashley, who works on public lands issues at the Center for American Progress, said the group’s report found that some Republican candidates appeared to be speaking in coded language to convey to conservative donors that the energy industry would find it easier to extract fossil fuels from public lands under their administrations because the candidates, if elected, would transfer control of those lands to states.

“We’re seeing some of the presidential primary contenders use that issue as a dog whistle to the far right.”

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November 15, 2015

Livestock Market Digest

Page 9

Devolution: A Canadian Solution to Excessive Federal Ownership of Public Lands KARLA JONES, AMERICANLEGISLATOR.ORG

O

n April 1, 2015, Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT) celebrated an important milestone – the first anniversary of devolution. Devolution is the transfer of jurisdiction over territorial lands from the Canadian federal government to the territorial governments. However, before devolution, the situation in the Canadian territories was strikingly similar to the one in the American West today. U.S. federal control of public lands in the states from Colorado westward ranges from more than 30 percent in Montana to more than 80 percent in Nevada. The U.S. government administers more than 50 percent of the land inside the borders of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, and only 4 percent of land in the East.

Environmental and Economic Stewardship

This disproportionate western federal land ownership has far-reaching effects on states’ ability to grow and diversify economically and to fund vital public services such as education, infrastructure maintenance and construction, law enforcement and social services. There is ample evidence that the states would serve as superior economic and environmental stewards of the public lands inside their borders. According to a recent study conducted by the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), Divided Lands: State vs. Federal Management in the West, “state trust agencies produce far greater financial returns from land management than federal land agencies.” State land trusts price land leases in response to market forces and are mandated to make more money on land leases than they spend.

Bureaucratic redundancy and a cumbersome regulatory system limit the federal government’s flexibility to price leases appropriately and Washington has no direct fiduciary responsibility or accountability to the residents of

the state where the land is located.

The federal government’s record on protecting the environment is also lacking. Large wildfires on federal lands increased by 75 percent from the years 1980-1989 to the years 20002009, and mismanagement of the federal estate is widely believed to be one of the driving factors behind the increase. A Congressional Research Service report, Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data, attributes the problem to “poor logging practices, overgrazing and [excessive] fire control” leading to more flammable biomass.

State lawmakers predict that the fuel loads on federally administered lands could lead to even greater numbers of catastrophic blazes and complain that federal policies have precluded roads in some forest regions that hinder firefighting efforts. The federal government’s own assessment is discouraging. The Department of the Interior estimates that deferred maintenance for the lands it administers runs into the billions of dollars and the National

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Park Service recently announced that it delayed $11.5 billion in maintenance in 2014 alone.[i] Particularly disheartening is that in administering the federal estate, the government fails to capitalize on those opportunities where economic and environmental interests dovetail.

According to Bureau of Land Management assessments, federal grazing lands do not meet the agency’s own standards for land health, which helps to explain why on average the state land trusts for Arizona, Idaho, Montana and New Mexico earn $4.89 for each dollar spent on grazing leases compared to the federal government which earns less than 15 cents for each dol-

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lar spent.[ii] In another stunning example of missed opportunity, the federal government is not permitted to lease lands to conservation groups for restoration.

The states have no such restrictions and are compelled to accept competitive offers whether they originate with mining companies or a group committed to restoring the land. Much state public land has been leased for just this purpose.

This experience is driving state and, more recently, federal initiatives to transfer control of federally administered lands to the states. Federal and state legislation exclude national parks, federally designated wilderness continued on page thirteen

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EQUINE HAVEN – Deaf Smith Co., TX. - 15 ac. +/- of choice property located adjacent to the city limits on Hereford’s north side. Homes, barns, saddle shop (no equipment or furnishings), numerous horse stalls w/runs, automatic waterers, 11 lots platted, property zoned for horses & livestock, round pen & large arena, on pvmt. & all-weather road. Owner motivated!

RAILROAD SPUR & GRAIN ELEVATOR – fully operational railroad spur & grain elevator in top condition w/recent renovation of leg.

Facility is located at cross roads of I20 & US 84, has great lease income! Sweetwater, TX area.

RANCHO PEQUENIO – ½ mile E. of Sudan, NM, 320 ac. +/-, all native grass, new fencing, domestic well w/sub, ½ mi. hwy. frontage, one mile of all-weather road.

MIAMI, TX. – Edge of town, 137 ac. +/- well improved w/home, barns, pens, etc., adj. 1,200 ac. of native grass & 1,089 ac. of native grass adjacent to Miami airport. Can sell tracts together or separately!

WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CASH BUYER for 200 - 3,000 acres of grassland, combination grass/cultivated land or straight cultivated land in the area between Dallas & Houston (or perhaps further East) with or without improvements. Brokers welcome!

UNION CO., NM – Pinabetes/Tramperos Creeks Ranch – super country w/super improvements & livestock watering facilities, 4,650 deeded, 3,357 State Lease, one irr. well with ¼ mi. pivot sprinkler for supplemental feed, excellent access via pvmt. & all weather roads.

QUAY CO., NM – Box Canyon Ranch – well improved & watered, 2,400 ac. deeded, 80 ac. State Lease, excellent access from I40.

CONCHOS LAKE AREA – well improved 11 section ranch +/-, mostly deeded w/small amt. of BLM & State, homes, barns, pens, watered by subs & mills at shallow depth just off pvmt., on co. road.

STATE OF THE ART – Clayton, NM area, 1,600 deeded ac. +/-, plus 80 ac. +/- State lease, home, barn & pens in excellent condition, all weather CR road.

CAPITAN GAP 80 ACRES - NE of Capitan, NM, south of the Capitan Gap & joins the Forest w/the village of Lincoln being just a few miles away. One elk permit is allowed. Good access & electricity close. Scenic!

BEAUTIFUL AREA, DEV. POTENTIAL - Alto/Capitan, NM – 8,060 ac. +/- (deeded, Forest & State Lease) super location w/pvmt. on two sides in close proximity to the Capitan/Alto 15.6434 ac. property w/ tremendous pens & improvements.

CUCHARAS RIVER RANCH – Huerfano Co.,CO - buy this well located, choice, grama/western wheat grass ranch & develop the really scenic parts of the ranch for residential subdivisions w/10, 20, 40, 100 acre tracts. 12, 088 deeded ac. +/- w/an addtl. 33,000 deeded ac. +/- available for sale across the hwy., addtl. perks, hunting, fishing, recreation w/a large lake on the ranch together w/the Cucharas River, Santa Clara & Sand Creeks.

HARDING CO. – starter ranch, 1,875 deeded ac. +/-, 901.9 ac. +/CRP, well-watered w/subs, mills & pipeline, 3 bdrm./2 bath brick home, garage, shop/ livestock, metal barn & pens, 7 miles fr. town, co. road.

PICK THE SIZE OF RANCH YOU WANT – let’s divide this 10,432 ac. +/- ranch in the Matador Texas area, large lake w/permits for dam & right-to-impound in place to add tremendous aesthetic value to the ranch together w/hunting, boating, fishing, commercial & residential development potential. Can be bought by the pasture or in multiple pastures.

PRICE REDUCED! TRIPLE DRAW RANCH – Crockett, Co. - 1,458 +/- ac. high-fence ranch, well improved w/hunting lodge, good hunting including axis. Good access w/hwy. frontage.

HIGH RAINFALL! ADA, OK. AREA -3,120 ac. +/- of choice grassland w/houses, barns & steel pens, lays in 3 tracts, will divide!

UNION CO., NM – Amistad area, 976.42 ac. w/612 ac. formerly under pivot irr., presently enrolled in CRP @ $45.60 per acre, per year, irr. wells & pivot points all connected w/UG pipe.

Please view our websites for details on these properties, choice TX, NM & CO ranches (large & small), choice ranches in the high rainfall areas of OK, irr./dryland/CRP & commercial properties. We need your listings on any types of ag properties in TX., NM, OK & CO.

Page 10

Livestock Market Digest

November 15, 2015

FDA revises the definition of “farm”

BY A. BRYAN ENDRES & LISA SCHLESSINGER, FARMDOC DAILY, CATTLENETWORK.COM

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a foodborne illness each year.

Moreover, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 people die from this largely preventable public health issue. [1] In an effort to minimize foodborne illnesses, the FSMA directs the FDA to implement comprehensive, prevention-based controls throughout the food supply chain—a new legislative mandate that expands FDA jurisdiction beyond its traditional post-farm gate areas of responsibility. In September 2015, the agency released its final Current Good Manufacturing Practice, Hazard Analysis, and Risk-Based Preventative Controls for both Human and Animal Food. Embedded within these new regulations is a revised definition of what constitutes a “farm”—an important definition for not only compliance with the Preventative Control rules, but also facility registration requirements under the 2002 Bioterrorism Act. Most commercial grain and livestock operations will qualify under the FDA’s expanded “farm” definition, and thus remain exempted from both the Bioterrorism Act facility registration requirement and the new Preventative Control rules. Under the new rules, non-exempt registered food facilities must maintain a written food safety plan, conduct a hazard analysis to identify and evaluate known or reasonably foreseeable hazards for each type of food manufactured, processed, packed or held at the facility, institute specific preventative controls for the mitigation of the identified hazards, monitor and verify the effectiveness of the control measures, and maintain records documenting these activities.

Regulatory Definition of a Farm The revised regulations distinguish between Primary Pro-

duction Farms and a Secondary Activity Farm. Title 21, Section 1.227 of the Code of Federal Regulations (21 C.F.R. § 1.227) defines a Primary Production Farm as “an operation under one management in one general (but not necessarily contiguous) physical location devoted to the growing of crops, harvesting of crops, raising of animals (including seafood), or any combination of these activities.” These operations may also pack or hold raw agricultural commodities, as well as in very limited and specific instances, pack, hold or manufacture processed food.

A Secondary Activities Farm is an operation, not located on a Primary Production Farm, devoted to harvesting, packing, and/or holding raw agricultural commodities, provided that the majority owner of the operation is the Primary Production Farm that supplies the majority of the raw agricultural commodities harvested, packed, or held by the Secondary Activities Farm.

This seemingly complex addition to the definition of a farm, enables farmers in some packing operations that were formerly considered “off-farm” to benefit from inclusion in the farm definition and thus gain exemption from some of the FSMA rules.

[2] The FDA’s new risk-based rules for animal food also implicate the expanded definition of a farm. For example, a beef cattle operation that also operates a feed mill would be considered a single farming operation and thus not subject to the preventative controls rule for animal food so long as the feed mill is managed by the same company as the cattle operation, is in the same general location, and produces feed that is fed only to animals on the primary cattle operation or another farm under the same management. In sum,

fully vertically integrated farming operations with feed mills (i.e., the mill, animals, and land are under common ownership) would most likely qualify under the definition of a farm, and are therefore outside the scope of the preventative control rules.

[3] However, the FDA has signaled that future rules may require feed mills integrated in these operations to implement current good manufacturing practices established by the new preventative controls rules. [4] It is important to note that although many grain and livestock operations will qualify as “farms,” and are thus exempt from the preventative control and registration rules, a separate and forthcoming Produce Safety Rule will implement onfarm standards for the growing, harvesting, packing and holding of produce intended for human consumption. A summary of the proposed (but not yet final) rule is available on the FDA’s website.

Finally, the FDA has pledged to work closely with USDA and the farming community to provide outreach and guidance documents to assist in understanding these and other forthcoming rules under the FSMA. A series of webinars, fact-sheets, and training resources is available on the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act’s website.

Notes [1] FDA, Background on the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), available at http:// www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm239907.htm.

[2] FDA, Final Rule on Preventative Controls for Human Food, available at http://www. fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/ ucm334115.htm [3] FDA, Final Rule on Preventive Controls for Animal Food, available at http://www. fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/ ucm366510.htm [4] Id.

TSCRA survey indicates ranchers are starting herd rebuilding

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he Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association’s (TSCRA’s) Marketing Committee recently conducted a survey where association members provided information on cattle herd rebuilding intentions and challenges.

Since the high point of the drought in 2011, cattle raisers have continued to match their herd levels and rebuilding plans to grass and water availability. Most have increased their herd in the last year, though they have not yet returned to their normal 10-year averages.

Survey participants indicated their herds are at 74 percent of their 10-year average herd size.

18 percent of respondents are operating at 100 percent or greater of their prior 10-year average operating capacity.

Compared to the 2014 survey, cow and heifer retention was mixed. Region 1 (Texas Panhandle) showed the greatest change, increasing from 64 percent to 76 percent in 2015. Regions 2 (West Texas) and 3 (Oklahoma) remained unchanged

at 68 percent and 75 percent, respectively. Region 4 (South Texas) was the sole region with lower cow and heifer retention, decreasing from 79 percent to 75 percent of the 10-year average.

Regions 5 (southeast Texas) and 6 (northeast Texas) increased from 76 percent to 78 percent and 69 percent to 75 percent, respectively.

Though respondents have not yet rebuilt to their 10-year averages, TSCRA members are clearly rebuilding their herds. 57 percent of respondents indicated they grew their female inventory year over year. The limiting factors to rebuilding vary slightly by region, but the leading limiter remains pasture conditions. Though conditions improved in the spring, the abnormally dry summer and return of drought conditions in some portions of Texas and Oklahoma are on ranchers’ minds as they consider further herd rebuilding.

To view the 2015 TSCRA Marketing Committee Survey Executive Summary, visit http:// www.tscra.org .

November 15, 2015

Livestock Market Digest

Page 11

Administration’s ‘energy-no, pot-yes’ policy

BY JOHN SICILIANO, WASHINGTON EXAMINER

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bill approved by the House in mid-October aims to end what one senior Republican calls the Obama administration’s “double standard” when it comes to growing pot, an illegal act under federal law, and producing oil and gas from fracking on tribal lands.

“What’s bizarre is that for energy production, the administration interprets Indian lands as federal lands, but for pot production, these same lands are interpreted as being non-federal lands,” says Rep. Rob Bishop, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the Natural Resources Committee and is lead sponsor of the bill.

It’s an “Energy,-no, pot-yes” policy, he said.

The bill, the Native American Energy Act, attempts to change that by drawing a line of distinction between what is federal and non-federal land when it comes to oil and gas production on American Indian lands.

The bill would make tribal lands immune to new Department of Interior fracking rules, which in turn would make oil and gas production by the tribes a lot less burdensome, according to the committee.

The Interior Department’s rules have been highly criticized as duplicative and unnecessary by the oil and gas industry.

For the Bureau of Land Management’s fracking rule, the bill “correctly interprets Indian land in trust as Indian land — not federal land — so BLM wouldn’t be able to impose its fracking rule on that land. Tribes would not be subject to it,” committee spokes-

woman Julia Slingsby said in an email.

A committee report says designating “Indian land” in trust as federal in one instance and Indian land as tribal in another is part of a historic “double standard” that the bill is attempting to change. “This double standard is interesting … it empowers historically impoverished tribes to produce their own pot, but not their own energy,” the report says.

The federal government has had a complicated relationship with marijuana, and that relationship has become more complicated as states pass laws to make cultivation legal. Even though it is still a federal crime, the government has been trying to find the right track for enforcing law in areas where pot is decriminalized by state governments. Lawyers say the policy in going after growers is inconsistent, depending a lot on the priorities of U.S. attorneys.

“On the surface, it would appear the administration believes the production and sale of illegal drugs presents a better long-term economic model for Indian tribes to follow than mineral extraction,” the committee’s report says. “Aside from the question whether this is sound federal Indian policy, the administration’s view regarding the status of Indian lands – not ‘sovereign’ for energy development but ‘sovereign’ for marijuana production – is inconsistent.”

Of course, the Obama administration doesn’t agree, which it conveyed to Bishop in a strong-worded veto threat.

“The bill would undermine public participation and transparency of review of projects on Indian lands under the National Environmental Policy

Riding Herd measuring three feet across and weighing up to 24 pounds. Not recommended for small condos.

Just like some of my relatives, this strange flower does not have any visible means of support and is parasitic in nature. Again, like some of my kin, it has a disgusting odor that smells like rotting flesh, hence the nickname, “the meat flower”. Other than that it can make a friendly, intelligent and semi-portable pet. #5 Fassett’s locoweed- I have no idea who Fassett is but this threatened species has been around for over 10,000 years.

Unlike a dog, you’ll never have to walk it, pick up its poop, buy it tailored clothes or take it to a beauty parlor. Cattle are said to go crazy over it. #6 Welwitaschia mirablis- The “onion of the desert” is a cosmetically challenged plant consisting just two leaves that wrap around themselves like two teenagers in love. May pout if not enough attention is paid. It can live for up to 1,500 years so make sure to leave a provision in your will for its caretaking. #7 New Mexico ridge nosed

Act, set unrealistic deadlines and remove oversight for appraisals of Indian lands or trust assets,” the Oct. 7 veto threat reads.

It says making “Indian lands … exempt from the Department of the Interior’s hydraulic fracturing rule” undercuts the flexibility the Interior Department offers the tribes, which protects the tribes sovereignty as well as the environment.

“That rule already contains a provision allowing for variances from the rule’s requirements when tribal laws meet or exceed the rule’s standards,” the White House says. The fracking rule’s “approach both protects environmental and trust resources, while also protecting the decision-making role of the tribes.”

Bishop fired back with a report from the Government Accountability Office, the government’s watchdog, which says the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ “management shortcomings,” including overly complex regulations, have “hindered Indian energy development.”

The June 15 report says the agency took eight years to review documents related to energy development, with tribes estimating that they lost nearly $100 million in revenue they could have been earning from oil and gas severance taxes and oil and gas royalty payments.

“Native Americans are being denied opportunities due to the federal government’s incompetence,” Bishop said in a response to the veto threat.

“GAO said it best. With tribes rich in resources but suffering unemployment rates of 50 percent, the administration’s call for reform rings hollow.”

Bishop said the president and his Cabinet “are fine with the status quo,” but “I am not.” continued from page one

rattlesnake- The official state reptile of Arizona, leading us to wonder why it’s not the Arizona ridge nosed rattlesnake? It probably won’t kill you if you’re bitten while roughhousing with it. #8 Frigate island beetleThese critically endangered insects are scared by loud noises and rats find them really tasty, which means you probably shouldn’t also have a... #9 Giant Kangaroo rat- Also known as the “Developer’s nightmare” because its presence has stopped more housing tracts than stingy bankers. Get a female because the males of the species are disgusting creatures and they like to sunbathe in the nude, rubbing their sides in the sand which produces a smell that attracts little bikini clad rat babes on the beach. #10 Agarikon- A very rare fungi that shares half its DNA with humans. It is thought that 650 million years ago these fungi and man shared common ancestors, which explains why some family members at your last reunion sat like bumps on a log while feeding on BS. Can’t be

taught many tricks but they are less smelly than a ferret, don’t shed and have no sharp claws.

Baxter BLACK O N T H E E D G E O F C O M M O N S E N S E www.baxterblack.com

The National Insect

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hanksgiving is a time for reflection. Warm memories, overstuffed afternoons and family. Yet rising from this cornucopia of good feelings, like a rubber chicken from a shopping cart full of cut-up fryers, is that runner-up for national bird...

The Turkey.

Despite its cinder blocklike intelligence, gurgling vocals and dangling snood, there is nothing absurd about the turkey being nominated as our national bird. After all, a group of entomologists has tried to convince Congress to name a National Insect. Their suggestion was the Monarch butterfly.

I have always assumed that the turkey was passed over for the bald eagle for obvious reasons; beauty, grace, majesty, strength and inspiration. But after watching Congress consider the Monarch butterfly, I realized how it is simply a matter of which special interest group presents the most convincing case.

There was considerable rancor stirred amongst the feminist groups when they pressed their case for a National Insect to represent them. They were divided between the ladybug and the queen bee.

Organized religion sprang forth to submit their nominees. The Catholics liked the idea of a preying mantis on the fifty cent piece. The Methodists suggested the wa-

ter skipper while the Baptists chose the lobster.

The legal profession marshaled its considerable influence behind the scorpion. Civil service employees thought the humble, diligent ant would be a good choice.

Roto Rooter placed the tumblebug into consideration.

Suggestions for the National Insect came pouring in from special interest groups: Pork Producers – the sow bug; carpenters – termites; insomniacs – bed bug; librarians – book lice; Nike – millipede; Republicans – the Sherman tank; Adams County bowling team – bowl weevils; uncle wanted aunts; the A’s wanted the B’s; Volkswagen wanted the beetles; honkytonkers wanted night crawlers; and the Texans thought the oil derrick would make a nice National Insect!

So, I can imagine if there is this much interest in a National Insect, the competition must have been double tough for the National Bird!

If Ducks Unlimited, the Pelican Farm News, the Kansas Jayhawkers or Chicken of the Sea had been able to nominate candidates for the National Bird, our coins might have looked a lot different.

However, if the Turkey Growers are still bent on installing the turkey as a symbol of something uniquely American...they’d have to go to Washington, D.C. anyway...

Page 12

Livestock Market Digest

November 15, 2015

Cattle Markets: Correcting the Correction?

BY DERRELL S. PEEL, OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LIVESTOCK MARKETING SPECIALIST

T

here are encouraging signs that fed and feeder cattle markets have turned the corner on the massive slide in prices in recent weeks. Notice that I didn’t say “correcting the overcorrection.” What has happened, especially for fed cattle markets, was a necessary correction to provide the market signals to fix a problem that developed over several months due to a lack of proper market signals.

Feedlots have been pushing carcass weights for months, abetted by packers, since both had individual as well as market incentives to offset lack of cattle numbers with additional

carcass weight. However, there are both biological and market limits to how far weights can be pushed before hitting a relatively abrupt wall. Signals such as discounts for heavy carcasses and yield grade 4 and 5 carcasses did not adjust quickly enough to slow the weight train and avoid hitting the wall. Reported heavy carcass discounts have not increased at all and Yield grade 4 and 5 discounts did not increase until September, and then, only modestly. Even the Choice-Select Spread followed a normal seasonal increase until mid-September before adjusting sharply lower in the face of very high Choice grading percentages that accompanied the overweight carcasses. It has taken sharply lower average fed cattle prices, com-

bined with these quality factors, to emphasize that these heavy cattle must be marketed now.

Is the problem fixed? There are several encouraging signs: cash fed and feeder cattle prices rallied recently and Live and Feeder futures contract prices also rallied sharply. More importantly, two weeks of higher slaughter, especially steer slaughter, and a slight decrease in steer and heifer carcass weights in the latest data may be signs that the worst is behind us. However, the next two weeks are likely to be the most critical in determining the cattle market situation for the remainder of the year.

If the heavy cattle are thoroughly cleaned up, there is good potential for a significant rally and fundamentally stronger cat-

tle markets for the rest of the year. However, the quickest way to make sure a rally never materializes is to start waiting for it too soon. Certainly, it will take some time for the additional beef tonnage to work through wholesale and retail markets, but it is encouraging that beef movement appears to be good.

The recent situation also highlights another point that may be very important in the coming months and years: The dramatic increase in fed carcass weights this year is testament to cattle genetics and production technologies that allow cattle to grow to weights unimaginable just a short time ago. This, combined with relatively low feed cost, increasingly suggest that we have the ability push both total

production and product size beyond market limits.

It is pretty clear that we can continue to make steaks bigger but it is not at all clear that we can sell them profitably. At the very least, there will have to be changes in the way products are marketed. Perhaps Ribeye steaks which are too big for the plate will have to be marketed as Ribeye nuggets. I expect that these questions will become ever more important going forward. There may be a Jurassic Park lesson for the beef industry in all of this: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. It is critical that we recognize and focus on what we must produce to meet market demand and not just on what we can produce… no matter how efficiently.

The impact of dressing percent on cull cow marketing

BY GLENN SELK, OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY EMERITUS EXTENSION ANIMAL SCIENTIST

A

recent Cow-Calf Corner newsletter discussed cull cow grades. Remember cull cows that are destined to go to the packing house

are graded by their fleshiness.

The fattest cows are called Breakers. Moderately fleshed cows are Boners. Thin cows are called Leans or Lights, depending upon the weight of the cow.

There will be price differences among these four grades.

However, within each grade, large variation in prices per hun-

dredweight will exist because of differences in dressing percentage. Cow buyers are particularly aware of the proportion of the purchased live weight that eventually becomes saleable product hanging on the rail. Dressing percentage is (mathematically) the carcass weight divided by the live weight multiplied by 100.

Key factors that affect dressing percentage include gut fill, udder size, mud and manure on the hide, excess leather on the body, and anything else that contributes to the live weight

but will not add to the carcass weight. Most USDA Market News reports for cull cows will give price ranges for High, Average, and Low Dressing Percents for each of the previous mentioned grades. As you study these price reports, note that the differences between High and Low Dressing cows and bulls will generally be greater than differences between grades. Many reports will indicate that Low Dressing cows will be discounted up to $8 to $10 per hundredweight compared to High Dressing cows

and will be discounted $5 to $7 per hundredweight compared to Average Dressing cows.

These price differences are usually widest for the thinner cow grades (Leans and Lights). See examples from recent sales in Oklahoma City National Stockyards at www.ams.usda.gov.

As producers market cull cows and bulls, they should be cautious about selling cattle with excess fill. The large discounts due to low dressing percent often will more than offset any advantage from the added weight.

An insult to ag producers

BY ANSLEY MICK,

JOURNALSTAR.COM

I

n January 2015, Michael Moss, a writer for the New York Times who has a history of sensationalism as it relates to food and animal agriculture, wrote an article alleging inhumane practices at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC) here in Clay Center, Nebraska. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the Inspector General (USDA OIG) began a review of USMARC practices and overall operations, and released its interim report.

Despite USDA affirming it stands behind USMARC’s protocols and scientists, the article, “Animal activists condemn USDA interim report on Clay Center,” (LJS, Oct. Oct. 4) included only the perspectives of critics. The article even quoted Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States – an organization dedicated to ending animal agriculture – without a single account from a Nebraskan employed or impacted by USMARC. Mr. Pacelle criticized the OIG finding that many allegations hurled in the Times piece were practices “in line with industry norms.” What does this mean? It means what Michael Moss saw at USMARC was in many ways

consistent with what he would see on any farm. Piglet mortality, predation, and inclement weather are complications you would find on operations of all sizes using a variety of production practices. To suggest such incidents occur because of carelessness or negligence is an insult to producers, who are animal lovers by nature, feed their families the very products they grow, and understand healthy, comfortable animals are far more sustainable.

Other allegations addressed in the interim report include the claim that USMARC does not employ enough veterinarians to provide proper animal care and oversight, which is patently untrue. The report explains the Center’s Veterinary Medical Officer (VMO) has the right to attend any and all medical procedures, and reviews health records to ensure proper animal care. The VMO is assisted by an experienced research technician and four additional veterinarians employed onsite by the Great Plains Veterinary Education Center – well beyond standard practice.

The OIG also responded to the notion that USMARC exists primarily to “help producers of beef, pork and lamb turn a higher profit ... ,” an idea which completely disregards the food safety and security, improved animal handling, nutrition enhancement, and resource protection

research happening at the Center every day.

Employees at USMARC surely are baffled by the struggle to garner support right here at home. The center is quite literally the envy of agriculture researchers worldwide. The research there is a cooperative effort between producers, veterinarians, scientists and other stakeholders to improve animal health and food safety, and the contention that their practices are anything less than humane has no basis in reality. Ignoring science and refusing to embrace agriculture research will only result in putting growers of all sizes out of business and increasing the cost of food.

Don’t be fooled by carefully constructed articles and soundbites by animal activists. Extremists know there is a growing gap between food and farming, and they continue to use misinformation to drive an agenda beyond improving animal welfare.

Agriculture – especially animal agriculture – is not always pretty, but it’s not a secret. If you want to know more about where your food comes from, there are experts across Nebraska who welcome questions along with open, honest dialogue.

Ansley Mick is executive director of We Support Agriculture, a coalition dedicated to bringing transparency to entities with extreme animal rights agendas which ignore science and threaten farm families, global consumers, and Nebraska’s economy.

November 15, 2015

Livestock Market Digest

Page 13

Two Prairie Butterflies Gain More Than 45,000 Acres Critical Habitat in MN, WI, IA, MI, Dakotas

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he U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized critical habitat protection for two rare prairie butterflies in six midwestern and Great Lakes states. The Dakota skipper is gaining 19,903 acres of protected habitat in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota; the Poweshiek skipperling is gaining 25,888 acres of habitat protection in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas.

The inch-long orange and brown butterflies were protected under the Endangered Species Act in October 2014 due to widespread loss of the native prairie habitats they depend on for survival.

“Endangered Species Act protection with designated critical habitat is the best way to make sure that species are not lost to extinction,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s good news that these beautiful prairie butterflies now have the protection that will ensure they survive for generations to come.”

Protection for the Dakota skipper resulted from a landmark 2011 settlement between the Center and the Service to speed protection decisions for 757 imperiled plants and animals across the country. The Dakota skipper has been lost from 65 percent of its historical range and was listed as threatened with a special rule that facilitates agricultural activities in its habitat. The Service added the Poweshiek skipperling to the listing rule because it shares habitat with the Dakota skipper and is no longer being found in 95 percent of its historic range. Simultaneously protecting species with shared habitats is a more efficient use of agency resources than developing listing

proposals individually.

Both butterflies are threatened by loss of native prairie vegetation to agriculture, development, altered fire patterns and groundwater depletion. They are also threatened by pesticides, drought and climate change.

Today’s critical habitat designation includes both native prairie habitats and dispersal corridors to connect the remnant patches of prairie.

“Protecting high-quality prairie habitats for the butterflies will keep these special places safe and will also benefit many other imperiled species that need native prairie habitat to survive,” said Curry.

The Dakota skipper is a small butterfly with hooked antennae and a thick, muscular body that enables a faster, more powerful flight than other butterflies. Males are tawny-orange to brown on the back of their wings and dusty yellow-orange on the underside; females are darker with diffused orange and white spots. They once occurred in tall-grass and mixed-grass prairies of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. They have been lost from Illinois and Iowa and in the United States are currently found only in western Minnesota, northeastern South Dakota and the eastern half of North Dakota. The butterfly was last seen in Illinois in 1888 and in Iowa in 1992.

Poweshiek skipperlings are small and slender-bodied. Their wings are dark brown with an orange band on top and whitish underneath. Skipperlings were once common and abundant throughout native prairies in eight states and Manitoba; this

skipperling has been lost from Illinois and Indiana and was last seen in North Dakota in 2001, in Minnesota in 2007, and in Iowa and South Dakota in 2008.

Small numbers survive in Michigan, Wisconsin and Manitoba.

The Dakota skipper was first identified as being in need of protection in 1978. The Service placed the Poweshiek skipperling on the candidate list in 2011.

In 2011 the Center and Service reached a settlement to speed protections for all the species on the candidate waiting list as of 2010, as well as a host of other species previously petitioned for protection. To date 149 plants and animals have received protection as a result of the agreement, and another 66 have been proposed for protection.

In total, for the Dakota skipper the Service is protecting approximately 19,903 acres of habitat in Chippewa, Clay, Kittson, Lincoln, Murray, Norman, Pipestone, Polk, Pope and Swift counties in Minnesota; McHenry, McKenzie, Ransom, Richland and Rolette counties in North Dakota; and Brookings, Day, Deuel, Grant, Marshall and Roberts counties in South Dakota.

For the Poweshiek skipperling, the Service is protecting approximately 25,888 acres of habitat in Cerro Gordo, Dickinson, Emmet, Howard, Kossuth and Osceola counties, Iowa; Hillsdale, Jackson, Lenawee, Livingston, Oakland and Washtenaw counties in Michigan; Chippewa, Clay, Cottonwood, Douglas, Kittson, Lac Qui Parle, Lincoln, Lyon, Mahnomen, Murray, Norman, Pipestone, Polk, Pope, Swift and Wilkin counties in Minnesota; Richland County,

The EPA Spilled Again in Colorado and Failed to Tell

R

eports are in that in early October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency caused a spill of 2,000 gallons while working on a cleanup site at the Standard Mine in central western Colorado. The EPA failed to notify federal officials including Rep. Scott Tipton (CO-03) and has yet to comment on the spill.

Information from local officials indicates that roughly 2,000 gallons of gray wastewater was released from the site. Work had recently resumed from a temporary halt after the August 5 blowout at Gold King Mine.

In August, EPA contractors released over 3 million gallons of toxic mine water from the Gold King mine cleanup site into the Animas river. Officials in areas all along the river were forced to get their information from other sources and backchannels. The EPA failed to contact local, tribal, and federal officials in a timely manner.

Western Caucus Chairman Cynthia Lummis (WY) and Vice Chairman Scott Tipton (CO) issued the following statements in response to the Standard Mine spill: “I don’t understand how, after all the trouble the EPA is in for the catastrophic Animas River spill, they could fail yet again to inform officials

when they make another potentially dangerous mistake,” said Chairman Lummis. “While not the same magnitude of Animus, the EPA has caused another spill and failed to inform all concerned officials in a timely manner. The EPA has broken trust with the American people. Moving forward we need a more trustworthy process to clean up these sites and that solution lies in empowering and cooperating closely with local communities.”

“Another spill caused by the actions of the EPA—at a Superfund site no less—calls further into question this agency’s ability to adequately execute these types of projects. It is troubling and frustrating that the spill occurred yesterday and once again the EPA did not notify our office, despite repeated assurances from EPA after the Gold King blowout that communication would improve. Apparently nothing has changed at EPA,” said Vice Chairman Tipton. “These sites need to be cleaned up, and I believe there is a better way to go about it than the current EPA status-quo. That is why I continue to work with my colleagues and with local stakeholders to put the power and funding to address these problems in the hands of the folks on the ground who have been working to solve them for years. ”

North Dakota; Brookings, Day, Deuel, Grant, Marshall, Moody and Roberts counties in South

Devolution areas, military installations and tribal lands from transfer.

Canada’s Devolution Revolution Canada offers a glimpse into what could be the U.S. post-transfer of public lands future. Canada’s federal government once controlled huge swathes of all three territories – Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Just like in the U.S., Ottawa’s geographical distance from the lands it administered resulted in bureaucratic redundancy and lack of local accountability. In 2003, Yukon became the first territory to be awarded jurisdiction over its territorial lands and resources, and nine years on, scholars at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario issued a report confirming “that devolution has generally had a positive effect on the territory and in particular has led to more efficient and responsive land use…” From 2003-2012, Yukon’s real GDP growth exceeded the national rate and private sector contributions to the economy increased substantially. Yukon’s unemployment rate remains below the national average, and understanding the importance of tourism to the economy, Yukon has protected its lands, and has been rewarded by tourism revenues of $200 million annually.

Emboldened by Yukon’s experience, devolution became official for the NWT on April 1,

Dakota; and Green Lake and Waukesha counties in Wisconsin. continued from page nine

2014. NWT Premier Stephen Kakfwi explained the importance of this step as a way to job creation and an enhanced standard of living. After preparation for devolution began, NWT realized the vastness of its untapped resources. The territory is estimated to have 37 percent of Canada’s marketable light crude and 35 percent of its marketable natural gas. One year on, devolution in NWT has been a success; a fact highlighted by Canada’s Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development at the one year anniversary.

Devolution has given Northerners more control over their own economic and political destiny by placing decision making about land and resources in Northerners’ hands.

It is increasing the prosperity of the NWT by giving the territorial government the power to collect and share in resource revenues.

Further evidence that devolution is a Canadian success story is that Nunavut, the only territory without control of its public lands, is seeking an agreement as early as autumn 2015. Devolution is a Canadian idea that the U.S. should borrow and make its own. [i] Hicks, Josh,“National Park Service delayed $11billion in maintenance last year because of budget challenges,” Washington Post, March 25, 2015. [ii] Fretwell, Holly and Shawn Regan, “Divided Lands: State vs. Federal Management in the West,” The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), March 2015.

Page 14

Livestock Market Digest

The View FROM THE BACK SIDE

Left Coast Cowgirl

BY BARRY DENTON

S

everal years ago I sold one of our working cow horses to a city gal from the left coast. I will call her “Boomerang.”

The horse was a true beauty with muscles and shine everywhere. This horse had all the right Lenas in its pedigree to be a star and I counted myself lucky to have him. The horse was cut late so he looked very much like a stud with a big jaw on that pretty head.

He was a little difficult to get started, but after awhile he looked forward to his training.

I was excited to ride him everyday because he was as talented as he was beautiful. Just about the time I was getting him going, well, I had an accident which laid me up for a couple of years. My accident was unrelated to the horse, but it was clear I would not be riding for a long time.

My wife finished up his training and showed him several times and did quite well in the reining and working cow horse classes. However, he was not her favorite horse and she was already overwhelmed with horses to show. We made the decision to sell the pretty sorrel as he was going very well and looked like a

million bucks.

This was too nice of a horse to sell just anywhere so we advertised him in a national horse magazine. It was not long before we had several calls on him and one lady wanted to come over from the left coast to see him. This is how we met ol’ Boomerang.

A shiny new, top of the line truck, with longhorns on the hood, and a decked out horse trailer pulled in with Washington State tags on it. Out hops this “want to be cowgirl” dressed in fashion style buckaroo boots and a rhinestone studded hat that would rival Nudie or Manuel. She dripped with turquoise jewelry of the Navajo version. I was beginning to think if she ran out of money she could trade jewelry for my horse. I could not wait to see her tack.

We ventured out to the training barn to see the horse and she liked him right away. The horse on the other hand was looking at her with one eye ball showing white, something I had not seen

November 15, 2015 him do previously.

However, he was well broke at the time and he put up with her. I took her for a short ride around the ranch so she could get used to him a little. We rode out by the roping chutes and she wanted to know what those were. The next thing Boomerang wanted to know was if you could rope on this horse she was astride. I assured her that you could.

That was the wrong thing to say. We switched horses and I swung a rope off of this horse and even did a few rope tricks.

My nice sorrel horse just stood there and went to sleep. Next we traded horses again and she wanted to try roping. I showed her how to build a loop and suggested that she try and just throw at the ground in front of the horse first. The only thing I told her not to do was hit the horse with the rope.

Immediately she whacks old sorrel and he is just giving me the evil eye. After she did it the second time I suggested that we get off our horses and try roping the dummy on the ground first until she could handle her rope better.

Boomerang informed me that she had a PhD and did not appreciate being involved with anything that was considered a dummy. I assured her that even the most intelligent ropers started out roping a dummy.

Boomerang could build a loop, but she could not swing one. It kept wrapping around her arm as she attempted to swing it. I never really had seen anyone accomplish that so many times in a row. I had kept my cool for a long time, but how dense could this lady be?

I knew I wasn’t that bad of a teacher because last week the Lions Club had brought a contingent of 11 teenagers from Japan that did not speak English.

I had them all roping the dummy pretty well within an hour.

After showing her the correct way to swing the rope for the 35th time I was getting pretty frustrated. I might have said something that rhymes with “cheese and rice.”

She was shocked that I would say something like that to a very wealthy lady of stature. Needless to say, but the price of my horse just went up again.

We finally finished the roping lesson and Boomerang said

she needed to ask me some serious questions about the horse. I wondered if I would have to call my vet in for this episode.

I was astonished when she asked me if the horse’s mane and tail would grow more. Next she implied she was tired and asked if we had a tack room. I could not figure out why those two questions went together. As we got back to the barn she asked me to hold her horse while she went to my tack room.

I am a little partial to my tack room and my great equipment I have acquired over the years so I was not very thrilled about this. I finally tied up the two horses and went to see what she wanted in the tack room.

Boomerang was almost yelling at me that this was not a tack room.

I said well, it is a room full of horse tack, what are you talking about? Boomerang then went on to explain that the tack room at her barn had a sink, a refrigerator, a bathroom, and was tastefully decorated. Funny thing, but I thought the old Garcia Bit Co. poster and the pinup girl were quite exquisite enough decoration for a bunch of bridles and saddles. She sure was disappointed when she had to go to the house for the bathroom.

I ended up selling Boomerang the horse. My sorrel horse had stood very still while she put on his plush silky shipping boots. He was smiling at me like a Cheshire cat as he boarded his air ride trailer. He knew he would never be asked to work hard again. Pretty much all he had to do was eat and enjoy his life of luxury. Going for a trail ride twice a week would be his lot in life. The rest of the time he would be luxuriating in a vast green pasture and just have to come in for his evening oats.

The primary reason I called this left coast cowgirl Boomerang was she reminded me of when I was a kid. Someone had been to Australia and brought me back a real boomerang. I worked at it for two months before I could get it to come back to me. However, when it did it would always come from a weird angle and hit me on the side of the head. That accurately describes my experience of selling a horse to a left coast cowgirl.

To place your ad in the Livestock Market Digest, please contact Randy Summers randy@aaalivestock.com

November 15, 2015

Monumental grazing problems, a “terrorist rancher” injustice, and laser fences for airborne avians

Boy, was I wrong

I,

along with others, felt the anti-grazing language in the recent Presidential Proclamations designating the two new national monuments in New Mexico would set a precedent for all future monument designations.

Environmental nirvana had been reached. The enviros had lost some recent court cases seeking to limit grazing in national monuments and they needed new language in the Proclamations that would prevent such losses in the future. They sought language that would allow them to tell the public that grazing was still allowed yet give them the legal hook to come in at a later date and have grazing removed or severely limited, and they got just what they wanted in the New Mexico proclamations.

Recall the New Mexico proclamations had the consistency language, saying grazing could continue as long as it was “consistent with the protection of the objects identified” in the proclamation. The result is any current or future grazing practice will be subservient to the protection of those objects. Multiple-use is discarded.

Then in July of this year, Obama issued a proclamation designating the 700,000 acre Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada. When checking the grazing language in the Nevada proclamation – surprise, surprise – the consistency language is nowhere to be found. In fact, it’s just the opposite as the proclamation goes out of its way to say the monument designation will not affect grazing: Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to affect authorizations for livestock grazing, or administration thereof, on Federal lands within the monument. Livestock grazing within the monument shall continue to be governed by laws and regulations other than this proclamation.

In the New Mexico monuments, grazing is subservient to all the other objects to be protected, while in Nevada the monument designation has no effect on grazing. How can this be? Where is the “consistency” in this? Why are ranchers in one state treated differently than ranchers in a similar situation in another state?

You’ll have to ask NM Senators Udall and Heinrich. The consistency language comes right out of their legislation, the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Conservation Act. In Nevada, Obama got his

Livestock Market Digest

monument, but Harry Reid protected the ranching families in his state. In New Mexico, Obama got his monument, and Udall and Heinrich stuck us with the most anti-grazing language yet to appear in a monument designation.

Ranchers as Terrorists

After a two-week trial in July of 2012, Oregon rancher Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven Hammond, 46, were found guilty of setting fires that caused damage to federal property. One fire burned 139 acres of federal land, the other only 1 acre. The Hammonds claimed the fires were for range management purposes, the federal prosecutors said they were set for more nefarious reasons.

Now-retired U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan sentenced Steven Hammond to one year and a day in prison for setting intentional fires in 2001 and 2006,

and ordered Dwight Hammond to spend three months behind bars for his involvement in the 2001 blaze.

That should have been the end of the story. But it wasn’t.

The feds appealed claiming the ranchers should have received mandatory sentences of five years. They had charged the ranchers with violation of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. That’s right, the feds were using a law aimed at terrorists to prosecute the ranchers and that law required the mandatory sentences. Judge Hogan had ruled that 5-year sentences would “shock the conscience”, would be grossly disproportionate to the offenses committed and violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the feds, however, and returned the case for sentencing. On October 7 of this year, both Hammonds received the mandatory minimum sentence of five years for deliberately setting fires that spread from their property onto federal land. For comparison, other federal laws that carry fiveyear minimum sentences are for treason, child pornography, using a gun while committing a violent crime or importing drugs.

That should have been the

Page 15 end of this sad story. But it wasn’t.

Capital Press posted an online article about the five year sentences and a person who identified himself as Greg Allum posted three comments on the article, calling the ranchers “clowns” who endangered firefighters and other people in the area while burning valuable rangeland. The real Greg Allum, a retired BLM heavy equipment operator, called Capital Press and complained he hadn’t posted those comments. “They’re not terrorists. There’s this hatred in the BLM for them, and I don’t get it,” Allum said.

The publication undertook a search of the Internet Protocol address associated with the comments and discovered the computer was owned by one of BLM’s offices in Denver, Colo.

Treat ranchers as terrorists and then use a government computer to publicly disparage them.

One is an injustice and the other is an abuse of federal equipment to ridicule private citizens.

Oregon Farm Bureau President Barry Bushue says this “is an example of gross government overreach, and the public should be outraged. Today’s verdict is also hypocritical given BLM’s own harm to public and private grazing lands, which goes without consequence.” Bushue con-

tinued, “This prosecution will have a chilling effect across the West among ranchers, foresters, and others who rely on federal allotments and permits.”

Collaboration anyone?

Laser fence

I’ve previously written about Toad Roads, Bee Highways, Prairie Dog Peanut Butter and Chicken Coop Solar Panels.

To that we can now add Laser “Light Fences” for Airborne Avians.

An electric cooperative in Hawaii is spending $2 million a year to keep birds from flying into power lines. Working with the Kauai Endangered Seabird Recovery Project, this program uses lasers designed to focus green beams parallel to power lines near known flight paths of seabirds. “These experimental techniques, if effective, could drastically reduce the cost to KIUC and its members for protecting endangered seabirds,” says the cooperative.

What we really need is a Laser “Heavy Fence” to keep government agents away.

Till 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

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Page 16

Livestock Market Digest

November 15, 2015

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