On the Edge of Common Sense

from Winter 2022

Beef Briefs

Faith in Christmas

By Baxter Black, DVM

It’s Christmas time, when we celebrate the birth of Christ. In the U.S., surveys show that more than 80% of us believe in God. That’s more people than have lawyers, drive foreign cars, believe DNA is absolute proof of a criminal act, own a home, have been divorced, or watch Oprah!

How can such a high percentage of a highly educated, well-read, technologically and scientifically knowledgeable people believe in an omnipotent being? Where inside of us is the biological process that allows faith to exist? Not just to exist but to flourish. How do you define the words soul, love, compassion, conscience, guilt or sorrow without going outside the parameters of scientific definition?

To choose to believe only what is scientifically provable is to assume, I guess, that all human behavior can be traced to the basic instincts of territoriality, reproduction of species, and survival. That a conscience is a highly refined sophisticated mechanism that somehow helps keep peace in the herd, insures that each member gets her share of the kill, and that each dog in the pack gets a place in the pecking order.

If Earth is truly just a long series of accidental chemical bondings and adaptation to the environment, and God has no hand in it, then those animal rights folks who say a rat is a dog is a baby, are right. Human existence on earth would have no significance, no more than dinosaurs, rocks, oxygen, stars, wars, or renal dialysis. As Bertrand Russell, an atheist, once said, “Unless one assumes a God, any discussion of life’s purpose is meaningless.”

One of the dilemmas that deep thinkers have, is the need to explain the biological, physical, neural or meteorological mechanisms that allow something to happen. Miracles are hard for them to swallow. There must be some earthly explanation that the Dead Sea parted, Lazarus rose from the dead, and Jesus turned water to wine.It is necessary for them to write off Jesus feeding the multitude. To conclude the Bible is more fiction than fact. That Christmas is just a benign commercial day off.

But for the vast majority of Americans, Christmas is the recognition of something bigger than ourselves. It also strengthens our beliefs and reminds us that Jesus was born to change the world and that He has. Our entire concept of God exists by faith. It’s not complicated. When I’m asked if I believe Christ was born of a virgin, I say, of course! If I can believe in something so all mighty, all-powerful and unbelievable as God, I can surely believe Jesus was His son.

NCBA PUSHES EPA TO SUPPORT CLEAR WATER RULES WITH LAUNCH OF WOTUS CAMPAIGN

In Oct., NCBA launched a Waters of the United States (WOTUS) campaign aimed at developing fair, clear rules for cattle producers. While producers may have thought the WOTUS issue was behind them, court rulings and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announcements over the past few months have demonstrated that water rules are once again a focus in Washington, D.C. “Due to a recent court ruling that vacated the Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR)—a rule that protected farmers and ranchers—the EPA is justifying the development of a new WOTUS rule,” said NCBA Chief Environmental Counsel Scott Yager. “NCBA is a leading voice urging the EPA to respect the needs of cattle producers and craft a rule that limits federal authority over common agricultural practices.” The limits of federal water regulation have been hotly contested since passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, involving numerous rulemakings and Supreme Court cases. In 2015, the EPA created a widely overreaching definition that subjected nearly every water feature—including isolated features and areas that only held rainwater—to federal jurisdiction. Some of the common water features that fell under the 2015 WOTUS rule included grassed waterways, prairie potholes, rainwater, snow melt, small creeks, dry washes, drainage ditches, isolated wetlands, vernal pools, coastal prairie wetlands, pocosins, any waters within a 100-year floodplain, and any waters within 4,000 feet of a high tide line or ordinary high water mark. “While the 2015 rule may have sounded good to a bureaucrat in Washington, it did not hold up to common sense out in the country,” Yager said. “A feature that you can step over or a field that only has water when it rains should not be regulated by the federal government.” During the Trump administration, cattle producers saw relief from the onerous 2015 WOTUS rule with the finalization of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR). The NWPR limited the definition of a WOTUS to substantial bodies of water, like oceans, large lakes, tributaries that run during a typical year or seasonally, and adjoining wetlands. While the NWPR was not perfect, it was substantially better than the 2015 WOTUS rule. NCBA supported the NWPR and intervened in several court cases to uphold it before it was struck down by a U.S. District Court in Arizona. Yager noted that the Arizona court decision created even more confusion for cattle producers who had already lived through the 2015 and 2020 rulemaking attempts. “Immediately after the court decision, the EPA took the opportunity to apply the ruling on a nationwide scale, reverting back to the 1986 definition of WOTUS,” he said. “In the span of just over five years, cattle farmers and ranchers have experienced three different WOTUS definitions under the law.” Even before the Arizona court decision, the Biden administration had announced their intention to repeal the Trump-era rule and create their own WOTUS definition. “We were pleased to see cattle producers share their views with the EPA when the agency launched WOTUS listening sessions over the summer,” Yager said. “Sadly, our producers were outnumbered by activist groups who have historically favored an oversized definition of WOTUS.” In Oct. the EPA announced a process for hosting regional WOTUS roundtables. The catch? Stakeholders like individual state affiliates or conservation groups were asked to propose an entire plan to the EPA for how they would host a roundtable that includes agriculture, conservation, development, water management, environmental justice and industry groups. Yager pointed out that placing the burden on stakeholders to plan the roundtable and create the guestlist is the EPA shirking responsibility. “If you are a state cattlemen’s association, imagine trying to get environmental justice activists, conservation groups, developers and industry groups to sit at one table. These groups fundamentally oppose each other and yet the EPA is asking ranchers and farmers to call a meeting with activists that do not believe our way of life should even exist,” Yager said. To ensure that cattle producers’ voices are included in the WOTUS conversation, NCBA launched a multi-phased campaign aimed squarely at the EPA and the Biden administration. The first phase of the plan is a sign-on letter asking EPA Administrator Michael Regan to support clean water and clear rules for cattle producers. The letter urges the EPA (Continued on page 15)

Naughty or nice?

By Colin Woodall, NCBA Chief Executive Officer

In July of 2020, a petition was started by several individuals and groups like R-CALF to call for a referendum on the future of the Beef Checkoff. USDA initially gave the petitioners one year to collect signatures from 88,269 cattle producers who had paid into the Checkoff during the previous year. When their time was up this past July, they were woefully short on signatures. The petitioners then asked USDA for more time and cited COVID-19 restrictions as one of the reasons they did not have the opportunity to engage with as many producers as they would have liked. While we felt this was a disingenuous request given their use of an online petition portal, USDA nonetheless granted their request for an additional 60 days. Due to the 30 days it took USDA to make this decision, the petitioners actually got an additional 90 days to collect signatures. When time was finally up in October, there were not enough signatures to meet the threshold of having 10 percent of America’s cattle producers ask for a referendum. NCBA decided early in this process to not fight the petition. We did this because the Checkoff belongs to you, and we believe that you and every other cattle producer should have the right to decide the future of this great program. We had hoped the petitioners would conduct the petition process with integrity, but we soon found that was not the case. They definitely make the naughty list because of the way they characterized the process and some of the tactics they used to collect signatures. A referendum is about killing the Checkoff, but the petitioners were telling producers that it was going to be a chance to make some changes to the program. That is absolutely not the way this works. A referendum simply asks if you support the continuation of the Checkoff. It does not allow for any changes to be considered. Therefore, we can only deduce that the petitioners aimed to kill the Checkoff because why would you waste Checkoff dollars to conduct a vote on a program you want to keep? That is right, your Checkoff dollars would have been used to conduct the vote, and USDA told us it could easily be hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this. That is hundreds of thousands of dollars that would not go towards beef research or promotion. I had conversations with a few producers who signed the petition that told me they would not have done so had they really known what the referendum was going to do. We are also aware of many unsavory tactics used to collect signatures. There was one effort that put the names of those who signed the petition into a pot for a drawing to receive a cash prize. We heard of a similar process to draw for a pair of boots. We even heard of somebody at a gas station asking whoever walked by to sign the petition. Reports of other actions came to us throughout the year as our members saw the petition process in action. Even with desperate tactics, the effort did not produce the signatures needed. I see the lack of signatures as a de facto referendum on the Beef Checkoff. It was no secret in the countryside that this petition was collecting signatures. Petitioners were at fairs, trade shows, rodeos and other gatherings of cattle producers. They had the presence and tools to get the 88,269 signatures, but ultimately did not because of the great programs delivered by the Checkoff. The nice list is chock-full of Checkoff-funded projects and programs being delivered by State Beef Councils, the Federation of State Beef Councils and NCBA as one of nine contractors to the national Beef Checkoff. We are making the most of your Checkoff investment. If you have watched any holiday movies on the Hallmark Channel recently, you have seen Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. commercials. Throughout the fall, Checkoff-funded commercials aired during college football games on television and on Sirius XM radio. Our year-long Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. sustainability campaign delivered our cattle health and environmental stewardship message to tens of millions of consumers. We are also taking full advantage of online e-commerce advertising. Our e-commerce summer grilling campaign with Kroger stores delivered awesome results by selling an additional $60 of beef for every Checkoff dollar we used to advertise. That is what you expect from your Checkoff, and that is why the petition process came up short.

(Continued from page 13) to focus their jurisdiction on “traditionally navigable waters,” or water one could fit a boat in, rather than the small stock ponds or ditches found on agricultural operations. “In just three weeks, more than 1,000 cattle producers signed the letter, demonstrating their passion for this issue and sending a strong message to the EPA,” Yager said. “Our goal is to increase this number to truly show the EPA that the cattle industry is united on WOTUS.” The letter to the EPA is only the first phase of NCBA’s WOTUS campaign. NCBA is also looking for producers who are willing to discuss the good conservation work they do to protect water quality without the need for overburdensome federal regulation. NCBA is writing producer profiles that will explain to policymakers how new WOTUS rules impact long-time agricultural practices, and a personal story from a cattle farmer or rancher is extremely important for helping government officials understand that their decisions impact the livelihood of farm and ranch families. “If you want to fight back against WOTUS, we need to hear from you,” Yager said. “I can tell policymakers every day that our industry will be impacted by their decisions, but we need producers to stand up and prove that point.” Joining the WOTUS fight is easy. Simply email Scott Yager (syager@ beef.org) or Mary-Thomas Hart (mhart@beef.org) to discuss how you can be involved. To read and sign the WOTUS letter to the EPA, please visit ncba.org/policy. “NCBA has told the EPA that we need a WOTUS solution that works for cattle producers,” Yager said. “Now is the time to engage on this issue; sign our letter to the EPA, and share your story to protect not only your own operation, but the future of our industry.”