LMD September 2018

Riding Herd

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

by LEE PITTS

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Leather’s New Look

Slow Moving Traffic

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September 15, 2018 • www.aaalivestock.com

Volume 60 • No. 9

BY LEE PITTS

he earliest childhood memory I have is being scared out of my four-year-old mind by a grotesque dead fox, complete with head, that my great-grandmother wore around her neck on special occasions. By the time we got around to settling her estate that poor animal finally got the proper burial it deserved because fox stoles had gone completely out of fashion.

Another of the oldest memories I have is of my grandpa having to buy a full length mink coat for my grandma instead of buying something we really needed... like a new fishing boat. By the time my grandma died the only ones who wanted that mink stole were the moths in her closet.

Currently there are at least 29 new companies and billions of dollars betting that real leather from real animals will soon go the way of grandma’s mink stole. And that’s not just a problem for folks who make wingtip shoes, bomber jackets or leather handbags, it’s a BIG problem for ranchers too because a significant part of their paycheck is based on the leather hide that beefsteaks and top sirloins come wrapped in.

The Drop

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

The value of a steer, heifer or cow hanging on the rail is determined by two things, the value of the beef cuts and the value

Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction. of the non-meat items. We refer to these byproducts of the beef business as the “drop” and it includes 23 non-meat items like bones for bonemeal, cheek meat, liver, tallow, tongue and most importantly, the hide. The hide typically makes up over half the value of the drop.

A leatherworker or saddlemaker typically buys two types of beef hide: chrome tanned which comprises the flashy colorful leather on the chaps rodeo queens wear, and veg tanned, which is the tooled leather at the top of the chaps that comprise the belt. Chrome tanned

leather is so named because the hide is tanned with a chromium chemical mixture, whereas veg tanned sits in vats of liquors comprised of vegetable tannins derived from oak trees, for example. Only veg tanned leather can be tooled in typical cowboy style.

Chrome tanned leather is typically sold in whole hides 40+ square feet in size and is mechanically “split” to a uniform thickness. One of the problems with leather is the hide is not of uniform thickness thoughout the hide. The leather most cowboys are familiar with is veg

tanned leather. A rancher’s saddle and belt are always made from this veg tanned leather.

Saddlemakers and leatherworkers normally buy their leather by the side, there being two sides to a complete hide. Saddlemakers can also buy their hides in a roll of 5 sides. A hobbyist usually buys shoulders, double shoulders, bellies, butts, by the inch, or by the kit from Tandy Leather. Whereas a hobbyist might be paying as low as $129 per side right now for foreign leather that has brand and insect marks, a good saddlemaker might easily pay double that for something like Hermann Oak Leather, Thoroughbred or Wickett and Craig, which are all premium brands. A saddlemaker can easily use up to 3-4 sides of leather to construct one saddle.

At the packer level the wet hides are all given strange names like natives, Laredos, Coloradoes, butt brands, plump cows, Holsteins, bulls and Heavy/Texcontinued on page two

Questionable Funding For Environmental Groups & What They Do With It

BY JACK DINI / CANADAFREEPRESS.COM

M

any corporations provide funding to environmental groups and the level of funding has been growing. As Steve Goreham says, “We’re talking big dollars here.

Corporate funding of environmental groups amounts to hundreds of million of dollars per year. In 2007, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Coca-Cola announced a multi-year partnership worth over $20 million to WWF. Home improvement retailer Lowe’s contributes more than $1 million each year to The Nature Conservancy for conservation projects in North America. In 2013, Wells Fargo bank provided $21.8 million in grants to nearly 500 environmental nonprofits. The Nature Conservancy received millions in contributions from oil giant BP. Boeing, Chevron, Clorox, ExxonMobil, Monsanto, Shell, Starbucks, and Walmart are just a few of the global corporations partnering with environmental groups.

Saving the world has become big business for environmental NGOs, courtesy of contributions from corporate partners.” 1 In addition to the money NRDC wields to influence elections and energy policy

Greenpeace, the largest environmental organization in the world, will take in more than $10 million this year to support its US operations. The group has an organizational membership of more than 3 million and offices in more than 40 countries. This is the organization lobbying against every form of energy except wind and solar. They oppose GMOs. In fact, they are perhaps the world’s leading opponent to of ‘golden rice,’ the genetically engineered miracle food that can prevent debilitating deficiencies in millions of children worldwide. The have led the global campaign against the pesticide DDT. Hundreds of thousands now contract the malaria DDT could prevent. 2 The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is one of the largest and most well-funded environmental groups in the United States. In 2013, NRDC had $268.1 million in financial assets and $116 million in income.

The NRDC Action Fund brought in $1.7 million in revenue to support its lobbying efforts in 2013. Between 1998 and 2013, NRDC and its affiliates spent $9.5 million on lobbying and $1.6 million supporting political candidates. 3 continued on page four

f all the cars in the world were placed end to end... they’d probably be behind a slow moving cattle truck.

Everyone is in such a hurry these days they don’t have time to waste behind a Gooseneck filled with cattle.

So they pass with no visibility or lay on their horns, as if that’s going to speed things up. They’ll risk their lives hurrying themselves to death so that they can get to their final destination earlier. And when I say “final” I mean final!

I prefer a less hurried pace. I hate life in the fast lane with everyone crowding, shoving, pushing and running over each other. We live in a fast paced world where we brag about the speed of our Internet service and agonize over which would be faster, the escalator or the elevator? Everyone is so stressed out and in such a hurry that I heard of one housewife who quickly loaded her dirty plates and dishes in the microwave before rushing out the door only to discover upon her return that a microwave is not a dishwasher. We have a frenetic friend who loaded her three month old baby in the baby carrier and then went off and left it and the baby sitting on the kitchen table.

I’ll never forget my first ranch job out of college when the owner wanted me to take the bobtail cattle truck and bring back a load of feed from the mill.

No problem, I’m the son of a long-haul trucker and I know my way around a set of gears. But I was surprised he trusted me that much and that he didn’t want to tag along, but I quickly discovered the reason when I tried to navigate the two lane road around windy curves with steep grades and descents. I was soon being followed by a long line of cars and everyone had one hand on their horn.

The average driver will honk a horn 15,250 times in their life and many of the drivers behind me that day

continued on page four

Page 2

Livestock Market Digest

September 15, 2018

LEATHER as steers. A typical price might be $69 to $75 for an entire hide that might weigh 62 to 64 pounds. Prices would go down from there. A brand on a hide can easily take five bucks off the value.

Saving Our Hide The hide business hasn’t exactly been booming lately. Although it’s a three billion dollar annual business, it’s a faddish one. Other than the premium boot business, the shoe business, dominated by the likes of Nike and Adidas, are turning away from beef leather. The automobile business, which traditionally uses a lot of Holstein hides, has lately saved beef’s hide, so to speak.

Something you might not associate with shoes has a huge impact on the price of American hides and that’s the price of a barrel of oil. After all, much of the synthetic material found in a typical Air Jordan athletic shoe is made from petroleum. Another little-thought-about-thing that has hurt the hide business is the bankruptcy of Payless Shoe Stores. That company’s chapter 11 filing left many creditors in a lurch and unable to pay their bills.

Also hurting the hide business is the fact that 90 percent of the hides ripped from the backs of beef carcasses in American packing plants are exported for tanning. That’s primarily because the EPA and other government agencies have just about put American tanneries out of business. That’s especially true of tanners who produce a lot of chrome tanned hides.

Let’s face it, tanning is a dirty business not conducive to the usage of computerized robots and only outfits like Hermann Oak and a few others can still tan hides profitably in America.

Of the 90 percent of hides exported, 99 percent go to just seven countries: China/Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, It-

continued from page one

aly, Vietnam, Mexico and Japan.

China/Hong Kong import 55 percent of all U.S. salted/brine cured hide exports and 32 percent of wet blue exports by volume. (Wet blues have been partially tanned.) To say the least, China’s environmental standards are pitiful. According to HideNet,”Pollution issues continue to plague Chinese tanneries. Chinese tanners and their municipalities are on guard for the countries EPA equivalents which could come at anytime without warning. If not compliant, they are apt to be immediately closed. This is one reason a number of tanners want to have only minimal raw stock inventory to tan. We have been advised that sometime local EPA authorities will even go around and make night checks on suspected non-compliant tanneries. There have already been multiple tannery closings.”

Because of China’s dominance in tanning American hides you can imagine how much Trump’s tariff wars are having. As the world’s largest exporter of hides, foreign trade is critical to the prosperity of the U.S. hide industry. If hide exports to China were suddenly stopped, capacity doesn’t exist elsewhere to take up the slack and it’s highly doubtful the EPA would allow any new American tanneries.

According to Stephen Sothmann, President of the U.S, Hide, Skin, and Leather Association, “With China and Mexico being two of our largest export markets, the U.S. hides and skins industry is concerned about the political rhetoric surrounding international trade.

We hope that any policy revisions to the existing international trading system will not negatively impact a thriving U.S. industry’s ability to compete in the global marketplace, particularly as formidable competitors finalize free trade agreements that could place

the U.S. industry at a competitive disadvantage.”

Fashion Forward Unfortunately, we haven’t even mentioned leather’s greatest nemesis going forward. Just as fake meat is causing convulsions in the beef business, so too is fake leather. The fashionable and chic New York designer these days wants to turn labgrown leather into your next jacket, bag and shoes. Instead of leather being made by beef animals it can now be made by microbes. No farm animals needed, thank you very much.

Just as my great-grandma’s generation found the hides and skins of wild animals chic in the 1940’s and my grandma’s generation was drawn to mink stoles, in the latter half of the 20th century we combined chemistry and oil into high-octane garments. An advertisement in 1939 gushed about a new material from du Pont Co. that would revolutionize fashion. Its new fabric was made from coal, of all things! These “nylons,” could last five months before springing a hole, thereby exposing some skin! Goodness Gracious!

The next revolution, or what is referred to these days in the world of high fashion as, The Fourth Revolution, is something called “biofabrication” and its biotech leather has already hit the catwalks in fashion capitals like New York and Paris.

The building blocks fabric designers are using to create these all-new fabrics are genetically engineered microbes. At the forefront of this biofabrication movement is Andras Forgacs, CEO and co-founder of Modern Meadow, a firm that wants to leave leather on the back of live cows. His first thought was to make “steak chips” grown from bovine cells and you should be threatened by him the same way you would be of the folks making fake meat. Forgacs saw a whole bunch of competition in the fake

CAREN COWAN..........Publisher

LEE PITTS....................Executive Editor

CHUCK STOCKS.........Publisher Emeritus RANDY SUMMERS......Sales Rep

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meat field and decided to switch to biofabricationg leather instead where there were only 28 other firms. In his first foray into venture capital circles to raise money for Modern Meadow, investors practically shoved $40 million at him to grow leather without livestock.

This is one guy the beef business ought to be taking seriously. In a former life Andras commercialized 3D bioprinting to create human tissues for medical research. He also managed a tech venture fund that raised money to create “biopharma” products and helped found an e-commerce banking group.

He holds an MBA from Wharton and a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Harvard. In other words, the cows are betting on Forgacs to save their hides.

Fashion’s Fourth Industrial Revolution “Throughout history, material innovation has marked our progress,” says Forgacs. “In the The Stone Age we mastered natural materials like leather, silk and wool, the Plastics Age brought us synthetic polymers, and the Information Age unlocked life itself: DNA. We are now able to tap into nature’s tool kit to create advanced materials ushering us into a new era: The Biofabrication Age. At Modern Meadow we envision creating a world of biofabricated materials that provide infinite design possibilities and, at scale, will have a lighter footprint on the planet.”

Bioleather materials are advanced materials designed and grown from animal collagen which can be combined with other natural or manmade materials. Instead of having to cut off pieces of a cow hide because they aren’t the right thickness, or because they are either too hard or too soft, these new leather products can be made in uniform sheets or molded to form, shape or size. Bioleather can take on any texture, and can actually be sprayed on. It can be mixed or added to rubber, plastic or any other material and it can reduce waste by up to 80!

But here’s the worst part as far as ranchers are concerned: the consumer will not be able to tell which is real leather and which is fake leather. Only it won’t be called fake leather but real leather because it was made from leather cells taken from a real live cow. Some are calling it “the future of leather”, the dawn of a new material age, and Fashion’s Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Modern Art It may be too early to know if all this is just hope and hype but so far..

• Mountain Meadow’s prototype T-shirt made with Zoa, its biofabricated leather cultured from yeast cells was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2017 as a piece of art.

• Paul Shapiro’s 2017 book “Clean Meat,” about the cultured meat industry was actually bound in a biofabricated leather that a company called Geltor cultured using animal collagen.

The material had the same molecular structure as jellyfish and looked just like leather.

• Suzanne Lee, Chief Creative Officer of Mountain Meadow has been growing microbial materials since 2003 and established Biofabricate in 2014, a now annual summit to unite design, biology and technology. She says, “This is a new, emerging category of materials that may give me what I love about an animal product — the look, the feel — but an animal hasn’t lost its life in order for that to happen.”

• If Bono, lead singer of the famous rock band U2 and co-founder of a company to make fake leather, gets his way, biofabricated leather will do to real leather what protestors with red spray paint did to mink stoles.

• Adidas has already developed a “Biosteel” running shoe whose upper is woven out of cultured spider silk, instead of cow leather.

• MycoWorks, Ecovative Design, Grand Zero and Espace are all making leathers from cultured mycelium — the fibrous, vegetative part of a fungal organism.

• In 2016, North Face sold limited quantities of a $1,000 Moon Parka made with biofabricated spider silk. San Francisco’s Bolt Threads put up for sale 100 knit caps whose yarn was a blend of merino wool and cultured spider silk, and they disappeared from shelves almost immediately.

• Green lacewing silk is being biofabricated to make a material even stronger than Kevlar.

Crazy Like A Fox To those who say Forgacs is crazy he says, “What’s crazy is what we do today. We raise and slaughter billions of animals to make our hamburgers and our handbags. Each year we raise almost 60 billion land animals for meat and dairy goods. These animals occupy a third of Earth’s ice-free land, they drink eight percent of global water, they create 18 percent of greenhouse gases and, because they live in such close quarters, they create a breeding ground for disease.

In just a generation it will take 100 billion land animals to provide the world’s population with meat, dairy, eggs and leather goods. Maintaining this herd will take a huge, potentially unsustainable toll on the planet.

What if there were a different way? Animal products are just collections of tissues. So what if instead of starting with animals, we started with cells.” He says, “At Modern Meadow we’re making science-fiction fact. We are working tirelessly to see this new future materialize; one where humans make the material and the animals roam free.”

“Why does leather have to come from a cow or an alligator?” he asks.

And the beef industry better be coming up with a good answer or the Fourth Revolution in Fashion just might take a big chunk out of the hide of cattlemen everywhere.

September 15, 2018

Livestock Market Digest

This is Not Science: Scientist Rips into the Latest Attempt to Blame Wildfires on Global Warming

BY MICHAEL BASTASCH | CONTRIBUTOR / DAILY CALLER

Page 3

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he Associated Press claims that “science says” global warming increases the area of western U.S. land scorched by wildfires every year.

Climate scientist Cliff Mass noted AP’s simple correlation is not “science” and misses other key drivers of fires.

It’s similar to another report from early August also attempting to link wildfires to global warming.

The Associated Press is out with an analysis claiming that “science says” the amount of western U.S. land scorched by wildfires every year increases as temperatures go up.

However, while those things are true, simply correlating two data trends is not “science,” as AP writer Seth Borenstein claims. And one expert says the simple correlation is meant to suggest a strong relationship between global warming and western wildfires that might not be there.

“This is not science,” University of Washington climate scientist Cliff Mass told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The AP’s analysis found the “five years with the most acres burned since 1983 averaged 63.4 degrees from April to September,” which is “1.2 degrees warmer than average and 2.4 degrees hotter than the years with the least acres burned.”

Since 1999, “10 years have

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1 Year at $19.95 had more than 10,000 square miles burned, including 2017, 2015 and 2006 when more than 15,000 square miles burned,” the AP found. “Nationally, more than 8,900 square miles have burned this year, about 28 percent more than the 10-year average as of mid-August.”

However, the simple correlation between temperature and wildfires is meant to play into a broader media narrative that global warming is the main driver of fires, but Mass noted that other factors, including land management, play an important role.

“Correlation is not causation,” Mass said. “Temperatures are warming, that is true. Wildfire area in increasing in parts of the west, also true.

But one does not necessarily cause another.”

“Wildfire area could well be increasing because of previous fire suppression, mismanagement of our forests, and a huge influx of people into the west, lightning fires and providing

lots of fuel for them,” Mass said.

Most fires are human-caused, including 95 percent of fires in California, according to recent research. Sparks from vehicles, chainsaws and generators can set off massive blazes, as can power lines colliding with dried-out vegetation. Arson is the cause of many fires.

As the population of the West spreads into fire-prone landscapes, so does the risk of human-caused fires. Wildfire season is longer and more widespread in part because of an increased human presence in areas already prone to burning.

“I should note that there is a deep literature for California fires showing a very weak correlation between summer temperatures and wildfires,” Mass said. “If Borenstein had written up his ‘study’ and submitted it for publication, it would have been quickly rejected.”

Interior Secretary Ryan continued on page four

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Livestock Market Digest

September 15, 2018

GROUPS

continued from page one

In addition to the money NRDC wields to influence elections and energy policy, NRDC has developed cozy relationships with federal agencies.

NRDC staff members have held 50 positions on 40 federal advisory committees. NRDC representatives submitted regulatory recommendations to 256 federal dockets, and the organization funded numerous congressional junkets, including 40 to Alaska for five members of Congress.

Demonstrating the revolving door between NRDC and Capitol Hill, as of 2013, 10 NRDC lobbyists worked in congressional offices before they joined the group. 3 NRDC throws lavish parties for EPA and have even gotten their own employees hired, using specially created job descriptions that have nothing to do with science in order to make them qualified to work there.

The government’s own GAO

criticized the administration for engaging in ‘propaganda’ related to environmental goals. 4 The Environmental Working Group (EWG) will raise more than $12 million this year.

These are the “your sunscreen is giving you cancer people.” You can find them behind almost any chemical scare spreading across the web. Examples: fresh fruits and vegetables are covered in toxins, lipstick gives you lead poisoning, baby bottles are toxic. And so on. This group has mastered the art of turning bogus scare campaigns into donation dollars. They are responsible for some of the worst pseudoscience fear mongering around, including the reprehensible claim that vaccines can lead to autism. 2 Each year since 1991, the USDA has been publishing the results from a large-scale pesticide residue monitoring program call the PDP. Each year, a different set of crops is chosen and samples purchased from regular stores and tested. Year after year, the results of these studies confirm the safety of the food supply. Year after year, the EWG misrepresents the data to say otherwise. EWG generates an incorrect ‘grade’ for the crops and posts it as part of their ‘Shopper’s Guide,’ and on their notorious ‘Dirty Dozen List.’ 5 The Dirty Dozen may attract attention from concerned consumers, but it doesn’t use the same rigorous methods for measuring risk that food scientists typically do. A report by the World Health Organization and United Nations found that the Dirty Dozen list results in con-

sumer perceptions about fruits and vegetables that go against dietary advice to eat more of them. The EWG performs their own analysis which research experts have rejected as utterly anti-scientific.6 Research using USDA data found levels of pesticides in 90 percent of cases from the 2010 Dirty Dozen List that were at least 1,000 times lower than the chronic reference dose which is the concentration of a chemical a person could be exposed to on a daily basis throughout life before risking harm.7 The Sierra Club is one of the best funded environmental activist groups with over $82 million in assets on its last tax return. One of the Sierra Club’s primary goals is to shrink our energy portfolio to only include renewable resources such as wind and solar. The Club runs campaigns aimed at eliminating the use of fossil fuels, including “Beyond Coal,” “Beyond Natural Gas,” and Beyond Oil.” Ending the use of fossil fuels isn’t enough for the Club, however, they also oppose the use of nuclear power and large scale hydropower. Currently, Sierra Club approved energy sources contribute less than 5% of the power in the United States and their unrealistic energy policy would mean disaster for family budgets and the economy. 8 As part of their Beyond Coal campaign, in 2011 the group very publicly took $50 million form New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to further its campaign. But before that, they also took secret contributions of more than $25 million from

Chesapeake Energy, one of the nation’s biggest owners of natural gas holdings. This was back when the Sierra Club saw natural gas as a preferred replacement for the nation’s coal-fired power. 9 But then something happened. Natural gas reserves boomed and electric utilities began converting some coal-fired plants to natural gas, prompting the Sierra Club to launch a sister campaign called “Beyond Natural Gas.” Just two years removed from accepting millions from a natural gas company, the group was opposed to natural gas as an energy source in principle. It wasn’t a change of heart, but a re-evaluation of strategy.

One observer has commented: “For an organization largely responsible for increasing coal production a generation ago, mainly because such promotion satisfied its ideology du jour, the Sierra Club’s current stance on electricity production is not just Beyond Coal, it’s Beyond Reason.” 9 The Center for Science in the Public Interest has a yearly annual income of more than $14 million. This group are experts at the scary press release. They have become America’s food police using shaky science to go after dozens of popular foods and demanding ridiculous levels of food labeling. Their founder is so obsessed with caffeine that he urges Americans to replace coffee ships with ‘carrot juice house.’ And, of course, they are violently anti-GMO.2 The NRDC, The Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters accepted donations

SCIENCE Zinke said that while climate change is a factor in drying out vegetation, the fact that officials aren’t clearing fuel from public lands is letting fires grow to catastrophic proportions.

The AP’s analysis correlating temperature with areas burned by wildfire is nearly identical to a “fact check” published about

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of $13.5, $15 and $18.1 million from the Sea Change Foundation. This group got $23 million from the shell corporation Klein Ltd, which only exists on paper.

Klein Ltd has deep ties to Russian energy investment groups and is incorporated in the Bahamas so it doesn’t have to disclose its donors. This is an example of high-level Russian oil and political interests funding and supporting American environmental groups which then launch attacks on the US natural gas and oil industry. 10 In another case, Organic Consumers Association (OCA), and the group it funds, like US Right To Know and the lawyer-run partisan attack site Sourcewatch, may be in a lot of trouble. Shortly after being revealed as the financial source for promoting anti-vaccine sentiment, they have now been shown to be working in collusion with the propaganda arm of the Kremlin. 11 References: 1. Steve Goreham, Outside the Green Box, (New Lenox, IL, New Lenox Books, 2017) •2. Hank Campbell, private communication, August 2, 2013. Ron Arnold, Natural Resources Defense Council: the scaremongering chemophobe-in-chief,” Environmental & Climate News, March 2014. Hank Campbell, “Who watches the watchers?”, Priorities, July 2016 5. Steve Savage, “How wrong is the latest dirty dozen?”, appliedmythologyblogspot. com, May 16, 2013 • 6. Carl K. Winter and Josh M. Katz, “Dietary exposure to pesticide residues from commodities alleged to contain the highest contamination levels,” J. Toxicology, May 15, 2011 •7. Kelly April, “Dirty dozen debate,” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2011 •8.

“Sierra Club,” Activist Facts, accessed August 7, 2018 •9. Lance Brown, “Sierra Club energy: beyond affordable,” masterresource.org, September 12, 2012 •10. Andrew Follett, “Here’s how Russian oligarchs gave $23 million to US environmentalists,” The Daily Caller, December 8, 2015 •11. Hank Campbell, “How the Kremlin manipulates environmentalists,”, and more ACSH links,”, acsh.org, May 22, 2017

continued from page three

two weeks earlier by the website Carbon Brief.

The site argued “there is a strong relationship between temperature and fire extent, with warmer years generally having higher fire extent than relatively cooler ones since the early 1980s.”

Like The AP, Carbon Brief only looked at data from 1983 onward. Author Zeke Haus-

father said that’s because data before then is unreliable, noting the U.S. Forest Service estimates of massive wildfires in the 1930s and 1940s were “double counted two or three times.”

U.S. Forest Service estimates are often cited to show wildfires were much worse in the past, suggesting land management is a major factor in

RIDING HERD were using up half their quota. I’d have given anything for a bumper sticker that said, “Keep honking. I’m reloading.”

I subscribe to the theory that you should never drive faster than your age and If I recall correctly I was about 21 at the time. The speed limit in 1905 was 20 miles per hour and I think that was the year the truck I was driving was made. I considered driving in reverse up the steep grades because the reverse was geared lower and would probably have been faster. I was going so slow algae had time to grown on the tire treads.

I pulled over every chance I got but still every sports car or SUV that whizzed by me had a one finger salute thrust

keeping large fires in check. So does that mean all data prior to 1983 should be ignored?

Probably not. State-level data for lands under their jurisdiction also suggests massive wildfires burned in the 1930s and 1940s comparable, or even larger, than today’s fires. That trend is exemplified in data presented by the Oregon Department of Forestry. continued from page one

out the window. I was embarrassed and couldn’t say I blamed them because I had no right to slow them down.

But what was I to do, disobey orders from the boss and get fired from my job that paid a whopping $600 a month?

There was simply no other way to get to my destination.

Anyone who has driven a tractor on the asphalt or stopped traffic to drive sheep or cattle across a road has experienced the same hatred as I did that day. We ought to form our own victim’s group, get ourselves a high priced lawyer and sue someone.

One wonders why all those irritated folks were all in such a big hurry anyway. If it was work, a doctor’s appointment or an IRS audit, what was the

rush? I remember theorizing that perhaps they were all in such a hurry because they had to use the restroom facilities ten miles distant, but I came to the conclusion that all of their bladders couldn’t have been that bad. I think it’s all just part of the human condition that says anyone who is going slower than you is a hayseed moron and anyone driving faster is a reckless maniac who is, “Going to get us all killed!”

It must have been especially humiliating and galling that day for all the high-speed drivers who flipped me off when I passed them in the slow lane when we all ended up at the same signal light together. wwwLeePittsbooks.com

September 15, 2018

Livestock Market Digest

Page 5

At Interior, We’re Ready To Bring The Endangered Species Act Up To Date

BY DEP. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR DAVID BERNHARDT / THE WASHINGTON POST

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modern vision of conservation is one that uses federalism, public-private partnerships and market-based solutions to achieve sound stewardship. These approaches, combined with sensible regulations and the best available science, will achieve the greatest good in the longest term.

Last month, the Trump administration took this approach to bringing our government’s implementation of the Endangered Species Act into the 21st century. We asked ourselves how we can enhance conservation of our most imperiled wildlife while delivering good government for our citizens. We found room for improvement in the administration of the act.

When Congress created the Endangered Species Act, it built a tiered classification for our most at-risk wildlife, designing different protections for “endangered” and “threatened” species. The act was designed to give endangered species the most stringent protections while affording federal

agencies the authority to tailor special rules for lower-risk, threatened species on a caseby-case basis.

It may surprise most Americans, however, that the highest level of protection is often applied, regardless of the classification, through application of a “blanket rule.” The use of this rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service automatically elevates protections for threatened species to the same level as those given to endangered species.

But automatically treating the threatened species as endangered places unnecessary regulatory burden on our citizens without additional benefit to the species. The blanket rule reflexively prohibits known habitat management practices, such as selective forest thinning and water management, that might ultimately benefit a threatened species.

We need creative, incentive-based conservation, but that becomes impossible with the current blurring of the lines between the two distinctions.

This muddle discourages collaborative conservation from the parties we most need to

partner with us — states, tribes and private landowners — ultimately harming species that can thrive with a more tailored approach.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency that also administers the act, understands this.

NOAA has never employed a “blanket rule,” and we propose to follow this approach.

The Endangered Species Act provides intensive care for the species with the greatest need in order to ensure they survive for future generations. Like with a hospital’s intensive care unit, the goal is not to keep patients there forever. The goal is recovery — to send the healthier patients home where they can continue to receive the lower level of care they still need.

The criterion for admission to a hospital’s ICU is the same as it is for discharge: critical need. The same principle applies to the act, but over the years, the standards for down-listing (from endangered to threatened) and altogether delisting a species have been pushed higher than the standards for initially granting protection under the act.

We are proposing to clarify that the standards for listing and delisting are identical.

With limited resources, we cannot and should not keep recovered species on the list forever.

We must return conservation management back to the capable hands of the states and focus our federal protections and resources on those species that need them most.

These changes are just some in a series of proposals that will improve the administration of the Endangered Species Act, encouraging collaborative conservation and leveraging flexibility to incorporate innovation.

We are also clarifying the meaning of certain terms that are in the act itself but not defined. For example, the law allows us to list species as threatened when they are likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future, but it does not explain what “foreseeable future” means. We aim to provide the public and our federal agencies with a universal language that will increase regulatory certainty.

In addition, we want to keep everyday Americans apprised of the impact the government’s

work will have on them. We will continue to consider only the best scientific and commercial data in our listing determinations, as required by the act.

But collecting data about the economic impacts of a species listing and presenting it to the public increase transparency — a hallmark of good government.

This is the first step in a deliberative process. Rather than allowing special-interest groups to start and end the debate, we will give everyone — including the local voice and the rural voice — an opportunity to have their say. We have kicked off a 60-day public-comment period, after which we will evaluate the feedback and move forward, making adjustments where appropriate.

Familiar faces have come out in opposition to the proposal, which is no surprise, though sadly, much of their response has been hyperbolic and unhelpful in promoting constructive discussion. But they, too, should submit their ideas, because the status quo is unacceptable for everyone — including the various species of flora and fauna that merit the act’s protection.

New Tools Added to Farmers.gov to Aid Producers

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gricultural producers have new resources available to them to prepare for and recover from impacts of natural disasters on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new website, farmers.gov. The site has updated tools and information to help agricultural producers identify the right programs and make decisions for their operations.

“Agriculture is a risky business,” said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. “At USDA, we’re here to help you prepare, recover, and build longterm resilience to natural disasters.

Whether you want to visit your local USDA service center or visit our new

farmers.gov, we want to help you get the help you need.”

New additions to the site – being built for farmers, by farmers – include a farmers.gov portal for secure business transactions and a disaster assistance discovery tool. The discovery tool walks producers through five questions to help them identify personalized results of what USDA disaster assistance programs meet their needs. The farmers.gov portal is the first edition of a secure dashboard for producers to manage program applications and other USDA documents.

These resources are in addition to other currently available through

Farmers.gov, including: • A mobile-friendly service center locator, connecting users with USDA assistance at the location nearest them.

• Information about the new 2017 Wildfires and Hurricanes Indemnity Program, which provides disaster payments to producers to offset losses from hurricanes and wildfires during 2017, • Routinely updated farmers.gov blog where producers can read stories about other farmers across the nation containing insight into how other producers address challenges in running successful agricultural operations.

FDA to Crack Down on Labeling Nondairy Products as ‘milk’

BY ALEXANDER NIEVES WWW.POLITICO.COM

I

n early August, the head of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) said that the Trump administration will move to crack down on the use of the term “milk” for nondairy products like soy and almond beverages.

The agency will soon issue a guidance document outlining changes to its so-called standards of identity policies for marketing milk, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said

at the POLITICO Pro Summit.

“An almond doesn’t lactate, I will confess,” Gottlieb said, referring to the fact that the agency’s current standards for milk reference products from lactating animals.

The move would be a major boon for dairy groups, which have been struggling amid dropping prices and global oversupply. The industry has petitioned FDA to enforce marketing standards for milk, but the agency has not previously addressed the issue.

Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) introduced a bill in early 2017 that would ban the use of the term “milk” in nondairy products. But legislative action on that front has gained little traction.

Gottlieb said FDA plans to soon start gathering public comment before taking next steps in redefining the rules for milk products.

“This is going to take time,” he said. “It’s not going to take two years, but it probably takes something close to a year to get to go through that process.”

• A soil health webpage, where producers can read about the soil health management practices offered by USDA. • An online playbook, where people can track the latest developments of the site.

“USDA’s vision for farmers.gov is to provide farmers, ranchers and foresters with online self-service applications, educational materials, engagement opportunities and business tools,” Perdue said. “Our goal is to provide you, America’s farmers, with the best customer service, and this website is one of many ways we’re working to do so.”

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Livestock Market Digest

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

Lawn Clippings

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he first week of August I was haulin’ a load of cows to the sale. We hadn’t had rain for five weeks and my pasture was pretty sorry.

I’d been feedin’ hay for two weeks. Along the highway I could see houses on either side. Most had green lawns.

It occurred to me ‘Somethin’ is wrong with this picture!’

Not that I’m against people havin’ lawns, or even soakin’ them with precious water. But then they mow it.

They pick up the clippings.

Then they stuff these clippings in a plastic bag and try and hide it somewhere. I could quadruple my cow herd if I could just rent pasture from one residential block and graze their yards. But I know that is not realistic.

Residential yard workers do not think of their lawns as forage. They grow it, mow it, harvest its bounty and add it to a landfill. They think of it more like hair than wheat.

But you talk about work!

Maybe there are people who look forward to mowin’ the lawn; barbers, for instance, or manicurists. And it’s not just the weekly horse whippin’ of a following a Briggs and Stratton around for half a day, some enthusiastic yarders edge, weed, fertilize, shape, prune, rake, haul and water in never-ending tail chase to create compost!

So, I been thinkin’ why not capitalize on all this hand labor. What is grass good for?

Cow feed, of course. But it is unlikely that livestock producers could rent 2 AUM’s (Animal Units per backyard)

or some such. Which means we have to be able to use the grass after it is harvested. Now, any cowman who’s tried to dump lawn clippings over the fence knows most cows ignore it unless they’re starvin’. But the way cows love silage, maybe we could treat it like a fermented product.

We’d spread the word that fresh clippings would be picked up Saturday and Sunday evenings. Participating Eco-sensitive residential yarders would set their plastic bags out. We’d pick it up, haul it to the dairy or feedlot, add silage preservative and put it in a pit. If it was put up fresh it might hold a worthwhile protein level. Of course, all participating yarders would have to guarantee that their lawn was organic; herbicide and pesticide-free.

And it would help our image. It would have tremendously politically correct implications. Urban residents would become more sympathetic to livestock operations in their area. They’d be recycling and saving precious water. It would give meaning to an otherwise strictly cosmetic use of natural resources. Sort of like using a Picasso painting to cover a water stain on the wallpaper.

And if it works we can get a grant to research recycling old hair and toenails. After all, look at marshmallows. I think they’re made of horse’s hooves. www.baxterblack.com

September 15, 2018

Report: Feds are Lowballing the Cost of Protecting Endangered Species by Billions of Dollars

BY TIM PEARCE, ENERGY REPORTER, DAILYCALLER.COM

• The government’s estimated and actual costs of the Endangered Species Act are often erroneous and never comprehensive, a report shows.

• Bureaucratic costs, court fees and species recovery plans on the part of state and federal governments are difficult to predict and often lead to large, unforeseen costs on American taxpayers.

• The “lion’s share” of costs, and the hardest to calculate, come from heavy restrictions in endangered species’s areas that shut down development at “whatever the cost,” the report said.

Federal estimates for the cost of protecting endangered species are likely much lower than the actual expense in real dollars, according to a Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) report published recently.

And most estimates don’t include the revenue lost from closing land endangered species occupy, which could otherwise be used for pipeline construction or farming, the report said.

Bureaucratic processes, court fees and the cost of species recovery plans under the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA) costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

The largest toll the ESA exacts on Americans, though, is the hidden costs of losing the productive projects that would otherwise take place on land near or deemed necessary for ESA-listed species, CEI adjunct fellow and ESA expert Robert Gordon wrote in the study.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that Congress passed the ESA to prevent and reverse the decline of threatened or endangered species at “whatever the cost,” giving federal agencies broad power to block projects such as dams, logging and pipelines. “‘Whatever’ is hardly a standard that encourages fiscal responsibility, and as any bureaucrat knows, unquantified costs cannot be used as a yardstick to judge the effectiveness of a program,” Gordon wrote.

“Four decades later, ‘whatever the cost’ is, it is far greater than generally recognized, and the ultimate price of the program easily reaches up into the tens

and more likely hundreds of billions of dollars.”

A single listing under the ESA costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars between conducting early studies of the species’s health to publishing a final rule in the Federal Register. The federal government spends about $800,000 if the process plays out smoothly without the need for repeated studies, especially as a result of litigation.

In 2016 — the most recent year for which annual costs are available — federal agencies and state governments spent roughly $1.5 billion on ESA goals, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

Some of the costs marked down in the FWS report raise questions over the report’s accuracy, Gordon points out. For example, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) spent a total of $1.1 billion on one species in 2016.

The year before, the USFS spent $140 million on 150 species, a broad swing for which the FWS report provides no explanation. Also missing from the 2016 report, 21 states, including western states such as Texas and California that contain many ESA-listed species, did not report any expenses from ESA-related activities in 2016.

“Cost of recovery” estimates, or the amount of money the government is expected to spend to mark an ESA-listed species as recovered, are vague and incomplete if they are reported at all, according to Gordon. Many estimates may be hundreds of billions of dollars short.

The FWS estimated that recovery for about 500 listed species would cost more than $9 billion, according to the agency’s latest fiscal report to Congress.

A single recovery plan for five species — two animals and three plants — estimated that the total cost of recovery would hit over $1.2 billion by 2063 without including funds to “acquire/protect currently unprotected habitat,” according to Gordon.

The recovery plan for the Iowa Pleistocene Snail estimated that the snail’s recovery would cost $84,000 from fiscal years 1984-1987. Later reports on the snail’s condition suggest the estimate was too low by a factor of ten, despite that

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new colonies of hundreds of thousands of snails were found.

(RELATED: Report: Feds Are Wasting Billions Protecting ‘Endangered’ Animals That Are Just Fine. See at: http:// dailycaller.com/2018/04/18/ report-feds-endangered-animals-billions-taxpayer-dollars/) While accurate government reporting on the costs of the ESA is spotty at best, the “lion’s share” of ESA costs are imposed on landowners and state governments via the law’s prohibition against ‘take’ and designations of “critical habitat,” the primary regulatory tools of the ESA, according to Gordon.

“There is no reliable tracking of these costs,” Gordon wrote.

The ESA’s prohibition on “take” is broadly defined and liberally enforced, according to Gordon’s report. The FWS defines “take” as “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” any species listed under the ESA. The vast majority of actions fall into one of more of these categories, especially to “harass” or “harm.”

Congress originally intended the “take” provision to apply only to those species in dire circumstances. Shortly after the ESA was passed, the FWS extended the prohibition to every species listed on the ESA. The Trump administration has proposed rolling back the regulation to fit in more closely with Congress’ original intent of the law.

Unlike when listing a species under the ESA, the law allows regulators to consider the economic impact of “critical habitat” designations, or areas determined by the federal government to be necessary to a species’s survival. Regulators may decide against designating an area critical habitat if other potential benefits of using the land “outweigh” the benefit to the species.

Despite the law’s flexibility in critical habitat designations, the FWS and other federal agencies often evade economic arguments and claim that land should be recognized as critical habitat because existing regulations — usually from other ESA-listed species in the area — have already made the land worthless, Gordon wrote.

“There is a particularly specious argument that FWS has made on several occasions that requires special attention,” Gordon writes. “The agency has asserted that it is the prohibition against ‘take’ of an endangered or threatened animal — primarily the prohibition against ‘harm’ — not the subsequent designation of its critical habitat, that causes the economic impact. Consequently, the FWS has argued that a critical habitat designation has little additional economic impact.

September 15, 2018

Livestock Market Digest

Page 7

Hoping to Stave Off Federal Action, Texas Rewrites Lizard Plan

BY ASHER PRICE AND ERIC DEXHEIMER - AMERICANSTATESMAN STAFF

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he Texas Conservation Plan to protect the dunes sagebrush lizard was created to avoid federal regulation.

Environmentalists said the plan favored oil and gas companies over species protection.

After trying to fix it with patches, state officials decided to rewrite the entire plan.

Aiming to reform a troubled state program designed to stave off federal habitat protections for a rare lizard species in the petroleum-rich Permian Basin, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar is asking the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) to approve a new version, meant to address what Hegar’s office called the plan’s “systemic problems.”

The proposal, the latest turn over how to protect the dunes sagebrush lizard amid a threat of federal action, eliminates scientifically unsupported conservation options and defines ways for companies to avoid lizard habitat, enacts fees from some companies operating in the lizard habitat to support conservation efforts to offset habitat disturbances and includes incentives to focus industrial activities in degraded or nonhabitat areas.

“It’s fair to say we’re very pleased that it strikes balance of protecting species while also al-

lowing growth and development in the Permian Basin,” said Robert Gulley, who oversees endangered species conservation for the Texas comptroller’s office.

The Texas Conservation Plan, shepherded by then-Comptroller Susan Combs, enlisted oil and gas companies to voluntarily help preserve the lizard’s habitat.

Although the plan has thus far succeeded in fending off the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s efforts to designate the animal as endangered — and the strict land-use regulations that would have accompanied it — conservationists criticized it as favoring petroleum interests over the species.

And in early June, a pair of environmental groups again asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider the species endangered — this time citing the destruction of habitat by the newly booming sand-mining industry, which supports hydraulic fracturing.

With the sand miners not contemplated in the original conservation plan, the new petition further prompted Hegar’s office to act.

But even leaving aside the latest effort by environmentalists, the comptroller’s office had discovered a series of discomfiting facts about the effort to protect the lizard.

“Investigation revealed prob-

lems that were systemic and not amenable to piecemeal fixes,” the staff at the comptroller’s office wrote in a letter this month to U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials.

Sand mining The oil and gas industry has protected less land than Combs had forecast. And the original Texas Conservation Plan appears to have vastly underestimated the size of dunes sagebrush lizard habitat.

A credit swap program meant to save habitat also turned out to be largely useless. Under the system, oil and gas companies paid a contractor to remove large clumps of mesquite on private ranchland in exchange for permission to excavate on comparably sized lizard habitat on their own drill sites.

Oil and gas companies liked the program. But there often was little consideration as to whether the mesquite removal was being done on land genuinely favorable to the species.

And while the conservation plan called for lizard habitat hit by surface disturbances to be mitigated or repaired — removing abandoned concrete well pads and roads, for example — between 2013 and 2014 the comptroller’s office determined that a foundation monitoring the plan had failed to do the work on

Bribery Case Part of Cancerous Trend in Political Prosecutions BY: GUEST OPINION / ARIZONA CAPITOL TIMES

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here is a rot spreading through the nation’s criminal justice system, and federal investigators and prosecutors in Arizona are showing symptoms of the disease. Prosecutors nationwide are bringing extraordinarily aggressive cases against Americans engaged in the political process, and federal prosecutors in Phoenix have recently concluded — and lost, due to a hung jury followed by a dismissal — a trial in which they accused four American citizens of a conspiracy to bribe a member of the Arizona Corporation Commission.

When judges and neutral jurors review the criminal charges presented by prosecutors in political cases across this country, they very often give prosecutors a failing grade. Consider the following examples: After former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was prosecuted on corruption charges, an independent investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice found the case was “permeated by the [government’s] systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence.”

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously vacated the conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell on public corruption charges because “merely arranging a meeting or hosting an event to discuss a matter” is not a crime.

The U.S. Department of Justice dismissed corruption charges against New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez in shame, after failing to persuade a jury of the senator’s guilt.

The court dismissed an indictment against former Texas Governor Rick Perry. The indictment alleged that, by demanding revisions to pending legislation, Governor Perry committed a crime.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of

staff was convicted on charges of lying to federal investigators about his conversations with reporters — but those charges have since been discredited and the reporter in question has recanted her testimony after reviewing her notes.

A jury last year acquitted the former Utah attorney general of public corruption allegations grounded in routine fundraising activities before he took office.

Compare these outcomes to non-political cases. When charges are not based on political activities, the government has an almost insurmountable advantage and conviction rates exceed 90 percent. Political prosecutions are the outlier, suggesting that something is amiss.

But Arizona’s recent case may set a new low.

Federal prosecutors skipped the investigation before flinging accusations; a stream of critical witnesses took the stand and denied being interviewed before the charges were filed. Prosecutors, who based their entire case on the testimony of a jilted lover, insisted that a modest monthly salary of $3,500 paid to a politician’s wife constituted a bribe — but the recipient of the funds had significant experience in her field of work, performed substantial services for the money, and similar jobs in the industry were compensated at similar levels. The funds weren’t paid as cash in a brown paper bag; they were paid by check and reported to the IRS. That’s not a bribe — that’s a job.

The embarrassing end to the government’s case in Arizona was not particularly surprising — immediately after reading the indictment, we publicly warned against assuming the government could prove the allegations — but even with the dismissal, the message from federal law enforcement to politically active Arizonans is clear – with or without sufficient evidence, we’re coming for you.

several sites.

Perhaps the most significant failure of the old Texas Conservation Plan, however, was its inability to address the sudden arrival of sand-mining companies.

Sand is a crucial tool for fracking, the process by which petroleum companies blast a sandand-water mix into the ground, opening fissures to extract more oil and gas.

Sand mining has become a booming business in the Permian Basin, disrupting thousands of acres of lizard habitat. Yet the Texas Conservation Plan applies only to oil and gas companies, so the comptroller’s office has had no good way to enlist the new companies in the effort to protect the lizard.

High marks Gary Mowad, who oversaw the Texas office of the FWS from 2010 to 2013, said he gives the rewrite proposal high marks.

“This is how it should have been done the first time,” said Mowad, who now works as a consultant on environmental rules. “They fixed the problems that were in there, that literally made the plan ineffective and unlawful.”

The rewrite forces industry to make a calculation: On the one hand, the plan demands more of participants; on the other hand, a firmer plan could make an endangered listing — and onerous federal habitat protection — less likely.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has argued that an endangered species listing for the lizard threatens “the jobs of nearly 27,000 Texans who work in the Permian Basin.”

Neither the Permian Basin Petroleum Association nor Combs, now a senior adviser to

the U.S. secretary of the interior, responded to requests for comment.

“Our member companies are committed to preserving the species and doing so in a manner that allows for continued oil and gas activity in the region,” said Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association. “We appreciate Comptroller Hegar’s dialogue with the industry and look forward to the process continuing with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

‘Defensible in court’ About half of the 17 sand-mining companies operating in the basin have decided to participate in the current conservation plan.

The new plan is meant to be “defensible in court, and durable so that it doesn’t have to be amended over a 30-year period,” Gulley said. “The oil and gas industry wanted a plan that would provide that kind of certainty.”

In a letter to the New Mexico-based regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in early August, Deputy Comptroller Mike Reissig said the agreement, when approved, “will include new participants, and that the acreage enrolled will likely increase.”

The comptroller’s office, citing confidentiality clauses in the agreement, declined to release the names of companies currently participating in the program.

The companies, and anyone else, will have a chance to offer comments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in coming months.

Gulley said the federal government could make a decision on whether to give the revamped plan the green light by spring.

Page 8

Livestock Market Digest

September 15, 2018

What New Tax Law Means for Agriculture & Rural Landowners WWW.FINDFARMCREDIT.COM LANDSCAPES SUMMER 2018

Cash Method Accounting Farmers with average gross receipts (more than three years) under $25 million will be permitted to use the cash method of accounting. Additionally, these taxpayers will not be required to account for inventories under Section 471. However, cash-basis taxpayers will not be able to deduct inventory until sold. The uniform capitalization rules are also removed for taxpayers under the $25 million threshold.

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he largest overhaul of the U.S. tax code in three decades went into effect this year, impacting farmers, ranchers and other rural landowners in a variety of ways.

For the most part, financial experts anticipate benefits for these groups.

“The increase in the exemption in estate and generation-skipping taxes to $11.2 million in 2018 will allow more farmland to be passed to future generations with less or no estate tax.” –Burl D. Lowery, CPA “The 2018 tax law changes include several items that I feel will be beneficial to agricultural producers,” says Burl D. Lowery, a Brownwood, Texas, certified public accountant (CPA) and a director of Central Texas Farm Credit.

“The increase in the exemption in estate and generation-skipping taxes to $11.2 million in 2018 will allow more farmland to be passed to future generations with less or no estate tax.

Lowery and fellow CPA John R. Adams, a director of Alabama Farm Credit, point to several key changes they believe could reduce the tax burden on some farmers.

These include: • A 20 percent deduction for pass-through income • Extension of the bonus depreciation on capital purchases, allowing a 100 percent write-off on new or used equipment in the year of purchase • An overall reduction in tax rates • A new flat tax rate for corporations “While simplification was a goal of tax reform, much complexity still remains,” says Adams, who is with the accounting firm of Byrd, Smalley & Adams in Decatur, Ala. “For that reason, it is imperative that producers begin the planning process now with their tax advisors.”

Following are some of the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that will affect agricultural producers in 2018.

Individual Tax Brackets The new federal tax law was expected to change some of the individual tax-rate brackets and adjust the bracket amounts. While the total number of brackets remains at seven, the top rate will fall from 39.6 percent to 37 percent, and the amount of income covered by the lower brackets has been adjusted. This is significant as the vast majority of farmers pay

taxes as individuals.

Source: Tax Foundation, Final Tax Law, published Dec. 15, 2017

with the taxpayer.

Net Operating Losses

The standard deduction for individuals increases to $12,000 for single filers and $24,000 for joint filers.

Like-kind exchanges are limited to real property. For example, farmers can still swap land for other land tax-free, but equipment trade-ins will no longer be tax-free events.

The law limits net operating losses (NOLs) to 80 percent of taxable income. Farmers are permitted a two-year NOL carryback.

“It is imperative that producers begin the planning process now with their tax advisors.” –John R. Adams, CPA

Section 179 Depreciation Deduction

$25 Million Interest Deduction Limitation

Beginning with the 2018 tax year, farmers will be allowed to immediately write off capital purchases, including breeding livestock, farm equipment and single-purpose structures, such as milking parlors, up to $1 million dollars. The phase-out of this expensing provision does not kick in until a farm reaches $2.5 million in purchases.

Businesses, including farms, will now be limited on interest-expense deductions when their gross receipts exceed $25 million. If applicable, the interest deduction cannot be more than the business interest income plus 30 percent of adjusted taxable income. Taxable income is computed without regard to certain adjustments, such as business interest expense and net operating losses.

Farmer cooperatives and other farming businesses may elect to be exempt from the interest-expense limitation. In exchange, such businesses may use an alternative 10-year depreciation system.

There is an election that farmers may consider in order to avoid the limitation. The catch, however, is that a slower alternative depreciation system will have to be used on farm property with a recovery period of 10 years or more, such as greenhouses and barns.

Farmers will be permitted to carry interest forward indefinitely, subject to some pass-through limitations for partnerships.

Domestic Production Activities Deduction

Standard Deduction

Bonus Depreciation Farmers will now be able to write off 100 percent of qualified property purchased after Sept.

27, 2017, through the year 2022, at which time a phase-down occurs.

The new law expands bonus depreciation to include both new and used property that is purchased or constructed. The 100 percent deduction also applies to fruit- and nut-bearing plants that are planted during the year.

It is important to note that many states do not conform exactly to the federal bonus and Section 179 depreciation provisions. For example, a farmer expensing 100 percent of a $3 million capital purchase with bonus depreciation may not receive that $3 million deduction at the state level.

Farm Equipment Farm machinery and equipment (other than grain bins, fences or other land improvements) will be eligible for depreciation over five years, rather than the previous seven years, as long as the original use of the asset begins

Like-Kind Exchanges

Corporate Tax Rate Although the new flat tax rate will benefit most farmers by decreasing their tax rate, some farming corporations that fall within a 15 percent tax bracket may actually see a tax-rate increase. Those producers may want to visit with their accountants or attorneys about possible tax advantages to modifying their corporate structure.

The Section 199 domestic production activities deduction (DPAD) has been repealed. As a result, some cooperatives may accelerate that pass-through deduction to patrons before year end.

Estate Tax The federal estate tax exemption rate will double to approximately $11.2 million per individual and $22.4 million for married couples in 2018. These increased amounts will sunset on Jan. 1, 2026.

Deductions for Cooperatives The tax bill eliminated the Section 199 tax deduction for domestic production activities income used by farmer-owned co-ops and typically passed on to their member-owners. It was replaced

by Section 199A, which provides a pass-through deduction for virtually all entities other than corporations.

As originally written, Section 199A included a 20 percent deduction on all payments from a farmer co-op to its members, a provision to which owners of private grain elevators objected. In March, the omnibus spending bill corrected the so-called grain glitch.

The “fixed” version of 199A essentially puts Section 199 back into the code, so that it operates as closely as possible to the “old” 199. Under the new version, coop members calculate their own deduction, and can also receive a pass-through deduction from

the co-op. One significant change in the new law is that taxpayers structured as C corporations are not eligible for the 199A deduction.

Noncorporate Taxpayers Like cooperatives, noncorporate taxpayers will get a 20 percent deduction that may be used to offset ordinary income.

Of concern, much like the DPAD that is being repealed, are limitations associated with the noncorporate taxpayers’ 20 percent deduction, such as the amount of wages and unadjusted tax basis the businesses have. The cooperative members’ deduction has limitations as well.

These limitations are somewhat complicated, and certain provisions remain unclear as to their mechanics. Additionally, the deduction only offsets income tax, not self-employment tax. One of the concerns with the deduction is that it may be of little use to dairy farmers who cull cows, since any capital gain sales, such as raised cows, limits the impact of the deduction.

Breweries, Distilleries and Wineries Alcohol manufacturers will enjoy a reduction in excise tax for the next two years. The new legislation also excludes the aging periods for beer, wine and spirits from the production period with regard to the uniform capitalization (UNICAP) rules, thereby allowing deductions over a quicker time frame. The credit against the wine excise tax also was expanded. Sparkling wine producers are included.

The Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was not repealed with the new tax provisions. While the individual health insurance mandate technically remains, the penalty has been reduced to $0, effectively rendering it moot.

However, beginning in 2019, other aspects of the ACA, including the employer mandate, remain in place as before.

–Article courtesy of Farm Credit East, adapted from an article titled “What the New Tax Law Means for Northeast Agriculture,” published at FarmCreditEast.com in December 2017 and updated in 2018. Contributors: Dario Arezzo, Joseph Baldwin, Paul VanDenburgh, Christopher Laughton, Kristine Tidgren, Tiffany Dowell Lashmet and Marlis Carson.

Disclaimer: The information in this report has been compiled from sources believed to be reliable. This is provided for general information purposes only and is not market advice. Farm Credit Bank of Texas makes no representation or warranty regarding the content presented.

Texas Junior Named Australian Exchange Program Recipient

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ongratulations to Molly Smith, former AJBA Director, for being the 2018 AJBA Australian Exchange Program Recipient. Each year this award is given to one AJBA member who has demonstrated exceptional leadership skills and a proven devotion to the Brahman breed and beef industry. The award recipient is given the opportunity to spend up to three months in Australia learning more about the Brahman breed and the Australian breeders. The time of the trip depends on the award recipient’s schedule.

Molly Smith grew up in Lockhart, Texas and is currently attending Texas A&M University- Kingsville.

Molly has been involved in the cattle industry since the age of 8 but was only introduced to Brahman cat-

tle six years ago, when she began showing them. Molly quickly fell in love with the Brahman breed as she found them to be “intelligent and inquisitive creatures that tend to be a little shy and love affection”. Molly decided to apply for this trip because she believes that if you truly want to understand something then you need to immerse yourself in all aspects of the subject.

She learned about this opportunity from a friend of hers who was a prior recipient. After researching the award, she knew that this was a great opportunity for her to continue her education of the Brahman breed.

In fact, Molly said “by applying for this award, I was giving myself the chance to have an educational experience of a lifetime!”

Molly is very excited to go to Australia where she will meet new people and learn about their culture.

She is also enthusiastic to be exposed “to the breed in such a way that I have not encountered before”. In the future, Molly sees herself in agriculture as a college professor and researcher. She is particularly interested in “studying genetics and biometric traits of cattle to facilitate reproduction”. No matter what career Molly decides to be a part of, one thing is sure “I have a clear plan of what my future will hold and that includes making a positive impact on the Brahman breed”.

If you are an AJBA member between the ages of 18-25 please consider applying for this award in January of 2019.

September 15, 2018

Livestock Market Digest

Page 9

For Real Estate and Classified Advertising Please Call 505/243-9515

REAL ESTATE GUIDE

Bar M Real Estate

521 West Second St. • Portales, NM 88130

SCOTT MCNALLY

575-226-0671 or 575-226-0672 fax

www.ranchesnm.com 575/622-5867 575/420-1237

Buena Vista Realty

Qualifying Broker: A.H. (Jack) Merrick 575-760-7521 www.buenavista-nm.com

Ranch Sales & Appraisals

AG LOANS AGLAND LAND LOANS AsLow LowAsAs 3% As 4.5% OPWKCAP 2.9% OPWKCAP 2.9%

INTEREST RATESAS AS LOW 3% INTEREST RATES LOW ASAS 4.5% Payments Scheduled on2525 Years Payments Scheduled on Years Call Buena Vista Realty at 575-226-0671 or the listing agent

Lori Bohm 575-760-9847, or Melody Sandberg 575-825-1291.

Many good pictures on MLS or www.buenavista-nm.com

Joe Stubblefield & Associates 13830 Western St., Amarillo, TX 806/622-3482 • cell 806/674-2062 joes3@suddenlink.net Michael Perez Associates Nara Visa, NM • 575/403-7970

Donald Brown

Qualifying Broker

505-507-2915 cell 505-838-0095 fax

116 Plaza PO Box 1903 Socorro, NM 87801 www.socorroplazarealty.com dbrown@socorroplazarealty.com

575-226-0671 www.buenavista-nm.com

Rural Listings with Homes & Barns in Eastern New Mexico 2638 S Rrd G, 160 ac very nice ranch setting near Causey, NM 361 S Rrd W, 38 ac w/ 3bdrm, 2 bth home 7 mi west Portales, NM 1866 NM 236, 10 ac w/4 bdrm 2 bth, barns, storage – 2 miles from town 1509 Davis Rd, very nice home, lots garage – barn space – 3 miles out 1242 NM 480, fantastic ranch home on 58 ac overlooking Portales

SOLD

See these and other properties at www.buenavista-nm.com

Missouri Land Sales

See all my listings at: paulmcgilliard.murney.com

• 564 ACRE GASCONADE RIVER FARM. 360 Acres of lush grass/hay/ Paul McGilliard tillable bottom ground make up this highly productive livestock/hunting Cell: 417/839-5096 property.Well maintained older 4 Bed, 3 Ba home. Only 45 miles east of 1-800/743-0336 Springfield, Mo. MLS#60115449 Murney Assoc., Realtors Springfield, MO 65804 • 11.2 ACRES GREAT RETREAT IN THE WOODS, or permanent residence if you love seclusion! Winter view of the North Fork River. Would be a great corporate retreat, or a large family, could sleep 15+. Property sells fully furnished. MLS#60109625 • 1+ ACRECORNER LOT IN MOUNTAIN GROVE, MO. One owner, custom built 3200 sq. ft. home. 4 Bed, 3 full Ba, formal living and dining room, gourmet kitchen, sunroom, 2 fireplaces, w/o finished basement, too many amenities to list. Price Reduced $349,000. MLS#60102756 • 80 ACRES - 60 Acres hayable, live water only 50 miles east of Springfield, 1/4 mile off of Hwy 60. 3 Bed, 1 1/2 Ba, 1432 sq. ft. home, nestled under the trees. Full basement (partially finished), John Deer Room.

MLS#60059808.

P.O. Box 145, Cimarron, NM 87714 • 575/376-2341 • Fax: 575/376-2347 land@swranches.com • www.swranches.com

Paul Bottari, Broker Selling residential, farm, ranch, commercial and relocating properties.

775/752-3040 Nevada Farms & raNch PrOPerTY

COLETTA RAY

Pioneer Realty 1304 Pile Street, Clovis, NM 88101

575-799-9600 Direct 575.935.9680 Office 575.935.9680 Fax coletta@plateautel.net www.clovisrealestatesales.com

www.bottarirealty.com

1301 Front Street, Dimmitt, TX 79027 Ben G. Scott - Broker Krystal M. Nelson - NM Qualifying Broker 800-933-9698 • 5:00am/10:00pm www.scottlandcompany.com

Ranch & Farm Real Estate

WE NEED LISTINGS ON ALL TYPES OF AG PROPERTIES LARGE OR SMALL!

■ LEONCITO DRAW RANCH – 14 sections +/- deeded, 120 +/- BLM, 20 +/- uncontrolled, beautiful Santa Fe style completed remodeled rock/ adobe home, employee housing, good set of working pens, located SW of Santa Rosa, NM, beautiful view from all directions.

■ SAN MIGUEL CO., NM – 3,000 +/- ac., mostly deeded, virtually new mobile home w/metal hay barn, metal shop bldg., good pens, open country to deep canyons.

■ ARROYO LARGO - 22,850 ac. +/- located in Lincoln, Chaves & DeBaca Counties, NM, well improved w/two homes, working pens & fences, well-watered by wells & pipelines, open rolling country w/numerous draws & arroyos provide for year-round cow/calf operation or seasonal yearling operation.

■ GRASSLAND W/STRONG IRRIGATION POTENTIAL – Union Co., NM - approx. 927.45 ac. +/-, on pvmt., organic poss.

■ TEXLINE SPECIAL – 472.4 ac. irr., on Dalhart/ Clayton hwy. in New Mexico, adjoins the grassland w/strong irrigation potential.

■ MALPAIS OF NM - Lincoln/Socorro Counties, 37.65 sections +/- (13,322 ac. +/- Deeded, 8,457 ac. +/- BLM Lease, 2,320 ac. +/-State Lease) good, useable improvements & water, some irrigation w/2 pivot sprinklers, on pvmt., all-weather road.

■ WEST CLOVIS HWY. 60 – 1,536.92 ac. +/- of grassland w/two mi. of hwy. frontage on Hwy. 60, ½ mi. of frontage on Hwy. 224, 3 mi. of frontage on south side of Curry Rd. 12, watered by one well at the pens piped to both pastures.

■ SOUTH CONCHAS RANCH – San Miguel Co., NM - 9,135 ac. +/- (6,670 +/- deeded, 320 +/BLM, 40 +/- State Lease, 2,106 +/- “FREE USE”) well improved, just off pvmt. on co. road., two neighboring ranches may be added for additional acreage!

On the Plaza

521 West Second St., Portales, NM 88130

O’NEILL LAND, llc

Bottari Realty

Scott Land co.

SOCORRO PLAZA REALTY

■

OTERO CO., NM - 120 scenic ac. +/- on the Rio Peñasco is surrounded by Lincoln National Forest lands covered in Pines & opening up to a grass covered meadow along 3,300 feet +/- of the Rio Peñasco. This property is an ideal location to build a legacy mountain getaway home.

■ GREAT STARTER RANCH – Quay Co., NM – well improved & watered, 2,400 ac. +/-deeded, 80 ac. +/- State Lease, excellent access from I-40.

■ OPPORTUNITY TO OWN A PIECE OF AN OLD WEST RANCH – Guadalupe Co., NM - There are multiple owners of the Frontier Ranch consisting of their individual, undivided ownership of 6,423.45 ac. +/- w/undivided ownership ranging from 38 ac. +/- & greater. You may buy undivided interest in this ranch at your discretion, this country suitable for a year-round cow/calf or summer yearling grazing.

■ DEER, QUAIL & ample OTHER WILDLIFE - 779 ac. +/- – Borden Co., TX. – adjoins the Quail Haven ranch on the north for addtl. acres or can be bought separately, well fenced & watered w/a good set of pens, on large, allweather, caliche road.

■ QUAIL HAVEN along w/deer, turkey, antelope & other wildlife – Borden Co., TX., 1,672.8 +/- ac., well located near Gail/Snyder, Texas on pvmt. & all-weather road, well improved.

■ STRONG WATER AREA – 1,280 ac. +/-, Texas Co., OK, 3 ¼ mile sprinkler in place, 1 irrigation well, remaining 5 quarters to be developed w/new wells & new sprinklers, test holes drilled, drilling of new wells set to take place.

Please call for further details!

■ SE OF HEREFORD, TX. – 658.3 ac. +/- w/498 ac. +/- of CRP, balance in native grass, virtually new 5 strand barbed wire fence around perimeter, nice set of steel pens.

NM Associate Broker owned.

■ UTE LAKE SUBDIVISION – beautiful, new custom built home, over 5,000 sq. ft. on 3.230 ac. +/-, 4 bdrm., 3 ½ bath, 3 fireplaces, immaculate w/view from every room.

Please view our website 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.

WAGONMOUND RANCH, Mora/Harding Counties, NM. 4,927 +/- deeded acres, 1,336.80 +/- state lease acres, 2,617 +/- Kiowa National Grassland Lease Acres.

8,880.80 +/- Total Acres. Substantial holding with good mix of grazing land and broken country off rim onto Canadian River. Fenced into four main pastures with shipping and headquarter pasture and additional four pastures in the Kiowa lease. Modern well, storage tank and piped water system supplementing existing dirt tanks located on deeded. Located approximately 17 miles east of Wagon Mound on pavement then county road.

Nice headquarters and good access to above rim. Wildlife include antelope, mule deer and some elk. $2,710,000 MIAMI HORSE HEAVEN, Colfax County, NM. Very private approx. 4,800 sq ft double walled adobe 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom home with many custom features, 77.50 +/- deeded acres with water rights and large 7 stall barn, insulated metal shop with own septic. Would suit indoor growing operation, large hay barn/equipment shed. $1,375,000.

RATON MILLION DOLLAR VIEW, Colfax County, NM. 97.68 +/- deeded acres, 2 parcels, excellent home, big shop, wildlife, a true million dollar view at end of private road. $489,000.

House & 1 parcel $375,000

SOLD

MIAMI 80 ACRES, Colfax County, NM. 80 +/- deeded acres, 80 water shares, expansive views, house, shop, roping arena, barns and outbuildings. Reduced $485,000 COLD BEER VIEW, Colfax County, NM 83.22 +/- deeded acre, 3,174 sq ft, 5 bedroom, 3 ½ bathrm, 2 car garage home situated on top of the hill with amazing 360 degree views.

Reduced $398,000 $349,000 MIAMI 20 ACRES, Colfax County, NM. 20 +/- deeded acres, 20 water shares, quality 2,715 sq ft adobe home, barn, grounds and trees. Private setting. This is a must see. Reduced to $265,000

FRENCH TRACT 80, Irrigated farm with gated pipe, house, stone shop, many out buildings privacy. Reduced to $292,000 MAXWELL FARM IMPROVED, Colfax County, NM. 280 $350,000 +/- deeded acres, 160 Class A irrigation shares, 2 center pivots, nice sale barn, 100 hd feedlot. Depredation Elk MAXWELL SMALL HOLDING, home with horse improveTags available. Owner financing available to qualified ments, fenced, water rights and 19+/- deeded acres. Handy buyer. Significantly reduced to $550,000 to I25 on quiet country road. $232,000.

TEXAS & OKLA. FARMS & RANCHES • 80 acre wood home with barns, meadows and woods.

Fronts State Rd. $650,000 • 14 acre Van Zandt County TX, Canton. 2 homes, 2 shops. Fronts State Rd. Excellent buy at $400,000 • 160 acre Ranger Eastland Co, $560,000 • 270 acre Mitchell County, Texas ranch. Investors dream; excellent cash flow. Rock formation being crushed and sold; wind turbans, some minerals.

Irrigation water developed, crop & cattle, modest improvements. Just off I-20.

Price reduced to $1.6 million.

Joe Priest Real Estate

1-800/671-4548

joepriestre.net • joepriestre@earthlink.com

BLACK DOG RANCH – Central NM, near Corona in Lincoln County. Comprised of 314 deeded acres with nice new of remodeled improvements. Good elk, mule deer and turkey hunting. Comes with elk tags. Price: $565,000 Price: $525,000 DOUBLE L RANCH – Central NM, 10 miles west of Carrizozo, NM. 12,000 total acres; 175 AUYL, BLM Section 3 grazing permit; Water provided by 3 wells and buried pipeline.

Improvements include house and pens. Price Reduced: $1,150,000 X T RANCH – Southeastern NM cattle ranch 40 miles northwest of Roswell, NM on the Chaves/Lincoln County line. Good grass ranch with gently rolling grass covered hills. 8,000 total acres, 200 AUYL grazing capacity. Partitioned into four pastures watered by 2 wells with pipelines. Call for brochure. Price: $1,750,000 SOUTH BROWN LAKE RANCH – Nicely improved cattle ranch located northwest of Roswell, NM. 5,735 total acres to include 960 acres deeded. 164 A.U. yearlong grazing capacity. Modern residence, bunkhouse, shop and feed barn. Three wells and buried

pipeline. Excellent grass country. Price: $1,300,000

L-X RANCH – Southeastern NM just ten minutes from Roswell, NM with paved gated

and locked access. 3,761 total acres divided into several pastures and traps. Nice improvements to include a site built adobe residence. One well with extensive pipeline system. Well suited for a registered cattle operation. Price: $900,000

Page 10

Livestock Market Digest

September 15, 2018

CLASSIFIEDS Help Wanted

The Arizona Cattle Growers’ Association is now actively seeking applicants to fill the Executive Vice President position within the organization.

We thank Patrick Bray for his dedication and many years of service. Arrangements have been made to meet the immediate needs of the association left by Patrick’s departure.

See below for job description: Responsible for day-to-day management of the ACGA office, staff and issues including, but not limited to membership, communications, regulatory affairs (state and federal natural resource agencies), finance and litigation.

Serves as an advocate for all policy positions of ACGA. Maintains knowledge of all issues confronting the associ-

angus

ation and continuously communicates with the president, executive committee, board and membership in developing strategies to resolve them that are consistent with the ACGA mission, policies and bylaws.

Serves as a lobbyist for the association.

Reports directly to the president.

To apply, please send cover letter, resume and three (3) references to Maria Cadena at mcadena@arizonabeef.org.

Deadline to apply: September 28, 2018 Salary commensurate with experience.

KADDATZ

Auctioneering and Farm Equipment Sales New and used tractors, equipment, and parts. Salvage yard, combines, tractors, hay equipment and all types of equipment parts.

ORDER PARTS ONLINE.

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CORRIENTE

Zinke’s folly O

Moving the swamp to the West and possible CEQ

n July 21 in Denver, Secretary of Interior Zinke briefed a group of United States Geological Survey senior executives on his reorganization proposal. Zinke said he probably planned to move the headquarters of the BLM, the USFWS and the Bureau of Reclamation to Denver, based on notes taken by the senior executives and obtained by E&E news. The following is based on those notes.

There are some good thoughts here by Zinke.

It included discussion of the secretary’s desire to shift more department resources and personnel from Washington to field offices across the country and empower front-line employees with more decisionmaking authority.

I have no quarrel with shifting resources and personnel out of DC and I agree with giving front-line employees more decisonmaking authority. The latter was one of our many accomplishments during the Reagan administration. Both can be accomplished under current authorities and do not require a major reorganization including establishing different zones for ecosystem management.

“Zinke believes the DOI organization is an upside-down pyramid — there are too many high-graded employees,” the notes said. “There needs to be more lower grades, and they need to be in the field. Example, when a GS14 retires, we should hire a GS-6 or 9.”

What Zinke says here is true of many federal agencies, including the Dept. of Interior.

Taking action to remedy this is an excellent goal, but again, can be accomplished within the current structure.

Zinke has told lawmakers that he wants to reduce the department workforce by 4,000 full-time jobs through a mix of attrition, separation incentives and reassignments to meet the recommendations of the Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget request.

A laudable goal for which I wish him great success. The problem here is the Republicans in Congress who so far have refused to go along with budget cuts.

The Montanan, a former Navy SEAL, also outlined for career managers his plan to have field offices report to regional joint management areas (JMAs) based on watershed and wildlife corridors.

The idea is based on the military’s joint command structure. Leadership at the JMAs “could change or rotate between bureaus in the JMAs,” the notes said. “They are

looking to select two to three cities in each of the 13 regions which will compete to be site of the regional/JMA office,” the meeting notes said. “Cities have to be no more than two hops from D.C. (by air), affordable and with good community infrastructure.”

This is where Zinke and I part. I have previously written these Joint Management Areas look suspiciously like the Climate Science Centers and Landscape Conservation Cooperatives established under President Obama. The House Committee on Natural Resources has been highly critical of these entities.“Despite a significant federal investment of at least $149 million, their effectiveness, management, and levels of oversight remain serious concerns to the Committee.” An Office of Inspector General report found “the LCCs failed to adequately keep track of their projects” in an accessible database.

Despite the OIG reports and the concerns expressed by the Committee, Zinke appears to base his reorganization on the same concept - ecosystem management. Some will say the Obama LCCs were the first step, and now Zinke proposes to implement the same management scheme in a fashion not even dared by the Obama administration. It has been observed the environmental community has not been critical of the overall concept. Some think this is what they have been after for years.

On a hike in Colorado and speaking of the need for reorganization, Zinke said: “There’s no reason a trail can’t begin on Forest Service property and go into a park and end up on (Bureau of Land Management) property Zinke is right, there is no reason it can’t be accomplished, which means it does not provide a reason to reorganize.

The Forest Service is in the USDA, not the USDI, so of what relevance is his example to a reorganization of the USDI? “If you’re a military commander, it makes sense to put your headquarters next to the fight,” It is a war zone out here.

The cause of the skirmishes, however, are various federal laws. It matters little where you place the soldiers. The battle will continue and harm inflicted until the cause - federal law - is addressed Where are Zinke’s war-ending, peace proposals to amend the ESA, NEPA, CWA, CAA,

FLPMA, etc.? So far, his highest legislative priority is to increase infrastructure funding and permanently fund federal land acquisition. From my perspective, that’s like improving the supply lines and increasing the ranks of the federal army.

We in the West want to sue for peace, but all Zinke is proposing is to move the troops around. It may appear he is doing something, but in the long run it will accomplish little.

He’s not draining the swamp, he’s just moving it West.

Writing recently in the Daily Caller, Tim Pearce referred to the proposed move of the BLM headquarters as a “good faith gesture” to farmers and ranchers who often complain of an agency far away from them and the resources they use.

A “good faith gesture” is an accurate description of this proposal. It is just a gesture.

Not a single law, regulation, field manual or policy memo is changed. The same landlord will exist, implementing the same statutory and regulatory regime.

Currently 94 percent of BLM employees are stationed in the field. I fail to see how moving the remaining 6 percent will result in any substantive change.

Think back to the Obama administration. If the headquarters of the BLM and the USFWS had been located in Colo. or Utah, what real difference would this have made?

Would the administration of grazing permits, the implementation of NEPA, or the preferred alternatives in land use plans have been different?

Would the number of endangered species listed have been different? Or the number and size of critical habitat designations?

If these agencies had been headquartered in the West, would their Congressional testimony, on behalf of the Obama administration, in favor of additional wilderness areas and other restrictive designations have been different?

Would Obama have designated fewer National Monuments?

I think not.

My fear is that while we have Republicans controlling the Presidency and both Houses of Congress, we are squandering an opportunity to bring meaningful, long-term changes to the statutes under which we are governed, and instead are spending energy, time and political capital debating and determing where our oppressors will be located.

Zinke is working on “upside-down pyramids” while we should be removing chariots from the Pharaoh’s arsenal.

Somewhere in the West, a chamber of commerce would benefit from the relocation of these headquarters. An urban area will welcome the federal employees and the additional spending they will bring. In the continued on page eleven

Livestock Market Digest

The View FROM THE BACK SIDE

The Cowboy Demonstrator

By Barry Denton

I

am sure you have all been to a Dorrance, Black, Brannaman, or Ray Hunt clinic somewhere along the way. If you have not been, then you certainly have heard of them. Normally, when folks start talking about how to do things with horses, those names seem to pop up.

However, I am talking about a different kind of cowboy demonstrator and he probably does not exist, but I’m looking for one. I mean, demonstrating and protesting pretty much violates the “cowboy code” so I doubt I will ever find one.

One sure thing about it, is that cowboys tend to stay broke because they think they need to buy the best saddles and bridles for their work. They do not make high wages and they also think they need to go dancing with a pretty girl once in awhile.

Between those things it will keep a cowboy broke. You would think that an out of work cowboy would be the perfect guy to hire as a paid demonstrator at some of these protests across the country. After all, cowboys tend to be wild, reckless, and in need of money.

Most true cowboys that I know, tend to work where and how they do, because they like it. One thing I have never seen, is a cowboy on welfare. They may be hurt once in awhile and need a hand, but when they are well, they pay it back three fold.

Another thing for sure, is that they will not be recruiting any maverick cowboys as paid liberal protestors. However, out of work cowboys may be giving up a great opportunity.

According to some “Fake News” outlets a protestor could

ZINKE rural areas, where these lands and their users actually exist, little will have changed.

NEPA changes The Council on Environmental Quality recently put out a call for suggestions how on how to revise the CEQ regulations on NEPA. Nick Ashcroft, on behalf on the Linebery Policy Council at NMSU responded with eight pages of comments.

Ashcroft writes that many view commenting on the NEPA documents as a waste of time because “they are viewed as only justifying the predetermined agency actions” and that only

get $500 just for one evening of protest. You could take the entire family including the kids and they each would get $500. Just think of the cash cow you would have with a large family.

That’s a few days work on cowboy wages. I tried to do some research on this subject to verify, but I could not reach a conclusion. When I interviewed paid protestors in person I found they were pretty good liars themselves or not coherent enough to know what I was talking about.

Besides the money, I think they also got free marijuana. I will note that they thought they were having a good time.

To me, it is stupid to be a protestor because most of the time you get no results and you look like a fool. Can you imagine the good that would be accomplished, if people took the time, money, and energy from protesting and put it into doing something positive for their community.

Yes, I’m thankful that we have the right to protest, but we obviously do not get our best and brightest there. Protests against Trump and other Republicans are drawing Hollywood celebrities, musicians, derelicts, hate groups, and New York mayors, but not one working cowboy.

Get my drift?

Can you just imagine a cowboy walking around with an “anti” sign in his hand? Besides, how would he get his horse there?

Recently the White Nationalists were holding a rally in Washington DC which seems to be the place to go. The Antifacist Movement known as Antifa, had members show up, and elected to throw eggs and shoot fireworks at police and journalcontinued from page ten

the environment impacts are presented “while the social or economic impacts of the human environment” are minimized or considered inconsequential.

Ashcroft then offers dozens of specific suggestions on how to improve the process. His comments are available on the Linebery Policy Center website to review or download.

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

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

ists.

They never even got to the people they claim to hate. That raises the question that when you are a paid protestor and your employer doesn’t know who to protest against, where does that leave you?

How do you know who you are protesting against if your employer has no clue? In this case I think our cowboy might just come in to rope and drag as many as he can from both groups.

One thing about it, the last presidential administration’s goal was to create an abundant amount of hate and discontent.

They seem to have got the ball rolling fairly well. How do you get up in the morning and de-

Page 11 cide to hate everyone? Did it ever occur to the haters that it is counter productive to the community and themselves?

To be honest I think so many of these groups are no more than common thugs with no real purpose in mind. It’s a good way for them to blow off steam when they can’t afford the gym fees in town. If you could get the Antifa clowns to work around the ranch for a few weeks I bet they would change their ways and start enjoying life. If you have nothing to do and are unhappy, then try getting something to do that makes you happy.

Demonstrating and protesting has never made anyone happy. That‘s why you do not see cowboys there. They know there

is a better life to live elsewhere.

One of the first solutions that comes to mind is to take rodeo tickets to the protestors and another ticket for a couple of free beers when they get there. If you got them to go to the rodeo once, they would forget all about protesting.

Would you rather be miserable all night for $500 or would you rather go to a rodeo and have a few beers? It is not difficult for me to decide, nor for any common sense cowboy. Can you imagine protesting the cattle auction house when the price is not as high as you think it should be? I was right, the cowboy demonstrator does not exist.

Now go see a rodeo or Bryan Neubert!

Road Map for the Future

BY KELLY GLENN-KIMBRO, ARIZONA CATTLE GROWERS’ ASSOCIATION MEMBER, COCHISE COUNTY, ARIZONA

“A

CGA is an inclusive, transparent organization driven by the members, looking forward to the next 100 years. We are alive, well and working on ways to improve. We hope you will come join us.”

The goal is to revitalize the organization and all that it stands for and all that it was founded for, creating an energized, accessible, responsive and forward-thinking team; to re-establish our strength, worth, value and unique character, both in the state and in the industry. The team will include those in leadership partnering with strong membership representation, all striving to effectively develop strategies and responses to the challenges that face us, which will work for everyone. Every member is invited to join the process.

On August 16 and 17, the President, the executive committee, several past presidents, ACGA Executive Vice President Patrick Bray and 51 ACGA members who had responded to a statewide invitation to all members, met at a meeting in Payson, facilitated by Tommie Martin. Tommie, a member and past executive secretary for ACGA laid the groundwork to bide by for our group representing County affiliates across the

state that came and stayed with the “cattle drive” and participated in “the works” at Payson. Representatives from Cochise-Graham, Gila, Navajo, Apache, Greenlee, Yavapai, Mojave, Coconino, and the Southern Arizona Cattlemen’s Protective Association representing Pinal, Pima and Santa Cruz counties, participated.

Our common denominator was that we all wanted success for the organization. We had ranchers, cowboys, cattlemen and cattlewomen, ranchers that were also politicians, retired law-enforcement, county supervisors, retired military, lion hunters, NRCD leadership, ACGA affiliate representatives, veterinarians, teachers, consultants and Cowbelles.

For the next day and a half we discussed, recommended, created, repaired, suggested and fine-tuned our ideas and…agreed on the future. We settled on two slogans for this process: “Coming together to be even better” and “Riding for the Brand”, to provide unity for our organization as we move into the future.

In our meeting, we agreed to present our conversation and conclusions to the membership for additional input. We framed a response to the concern that there had been a lack of communication between the President, the Board and the paid staff; we agreed that there should be full continued on page twelve

ELM

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FRIDAY: Small Animals Poultry – Butcher Cows JOE VIEIRA Representative Mobile: 209/531-4156 THOMAS BERT 209/605-3866

CJ BRANTLEY Field Representative 209/596-0139

www.escalonlivestockmarket.com • escalonlivestockmarket@yahoo.com

Page 12

Livestock Market Digest

September 15, 2018

ROAD MAP disclosure on all issues; we started the process of building bridges of communication.

Suggested committees and task forces: Organizational structure: there has been a change in the organizational structure and we find it a good time to revisit how the organization is set up and maybe have a slightly different structure, not necessarily changing the structure but adding to it; bringing it into the present and adjusting to the needs.

Suggestions were to develop a young rancher/young cattlemen and cattlewomen program, to implement a leadership training program and to make membership affordable. To identify the value of membership and to revisit the dues and possibly make first year membership less costly. To communicate to members the needs of the organization, whether it is lobbying efforts, education, event organization, fundraising, or committee members needed. To weigh outreach and outcome. To proudly publish the membership list.

• Communication: to work hand in hand and support the ACGA Communications Director which is a paid staff position on projects like the Cattlelog advertising and stories, possibly making the Cattlelog an income generator, and helping on other publicity and promotional projects. To establish that County Directors will identify a communication/publicity representative from their county to communicate with and contribute to the state committee resulting in more stories and ads which represent the industry statewide.

• Finance, Budget & Fund-raising (Promotions and Sponsorships): possibly split this group • Convention: to reduce the production costs of the convention, to reconsider locations and to reduce the cost to members to attend.

• Rancher Liaison: a hotline/ point of contact for ranchers facing immediate issues and problems where they need help.

We created the groundwork for members to have the opportunity to be a participant in committees or task forces that they may have an interest in.

We agreed that structure and bylaws work hand in hand as do communication, strategy and policy.

• Challenges: Mending fences, gathering strays; adding women to our top leadership positions, keeping our partners Cowbelles and Collegiate Cattle Growers in our organization; creating an environment that will stimulate our next generation to become members; continually getting the word out that we are moving forward and member driven. Further challenges will be financial (finding funding and sponsors), politics, industry issues and preventing mishap and miscommunication.

In 1903 challenges were met and the organization was founded. The past built the present and the past should not be discredited nor ignored. The building blocks

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of the organization include everything right up to the immediate past and all the good that every single past president, executive officer, board of directors member, paid staff and member have ever contributed.

Today, those challenges are being met and the result will be a forward thinking, membership driven, inclusive, transparent, organization with renewed credibility. We are ranchers; we depend on cattle markets and supply and demand, progressive disease control, politics working our way, our neighbors and fellow ranchers and RAIN…the only component that our only influence on is prayer! We have an organization like Cattle Growers to represent us, defend us, compel us and inform us…to keep us on the cutting edge of the industry, technology and science.

And so…we are extending an

invitation to you, your neighbors, your fellow ranchers and folks that want to preserve the way of life to renew your membership or to become a new member. We are asking you to weigh in and to serve as committee and task force volunteers and we are asking for a vested interest from you.

What can ACGA do for you?

Educate and defend on all issues involving water and national security and their effects on ranching.

ACGA can form new and maintain existing partnerships for wildlife and ranching; they can “have your back” on federal and state land issues; they can enhance beef promotion; connect agencies and join forces and work with them, all for the good of the landscape, the heritage, the economics, the politics, our ranching traditions and for our very survival.

What can you do for ACGA? Step up. Join or renew. Every one

of us can reinforce our industry by renewing, collaborating, preserving, educating.

In the next 90 days, we will revisit the current structure and develop new structural options as needed and as they fit, to better the flow and effectiveness of the organization: Where do you fit?

How can you help? As with any Faith, organization, club, ranch or family, unity and commitment by everyone is crucial for the survival and success.

“Coming together to be even better.” We stand united and we are setting the standard high. We have a good President, Executive Committee and Board of Directors in place…and…we have a membership base that is stepping up to what will be an incredible workload, encouraged by a positive state of mind and the desire to succeed. This will all evolve and change with the generations

and it is not expected by anyone that what is put into place today is going to be etched in stone and unchangeable. Life, economics, politics and issues, climates, methods, science and trends evolve. In reality, we are here on earth for a very short time and the legacy we leave is what we hope will be the map for the next generation, whether it is the ethics and morals we live by or the way we managed our ranches and the way we accepted change and each time there was a challenge, the way we conquered it and moved on for the better with temperance and time, change and resolution, agreeing to disagree and treating each other with respect and honoring your neighbor and fellow man.

Save the date and join us in Payson, Thursday, November 15th, 9am – 4pm to be a part of the continuing conversation.