Citizens' Daily Lobby

The cap and trade system proposed in the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House last year could actually lead to increased farm income, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. This is due to the fact that agricultural enterprises would not be “capped” under the bill, but would still be eligible to make additional income via offsets.    This is in contrast to regulation of CO2 by the EPA without passage of cap and trade legislation, which is predicted to place additional cost and regulatory burden on farmers.  Of the three methods of regulating greenhouse gas emissions (cap and trade, regulation, and carbon taxes), cap and trade is the friendliest to agriculture.   Under cap and trade with offsets, the return to farmers  (of commodities, at least)  might look something like the data presented in Table 2.  The Center acknowledges that without some control of greenhouse gas emissions, the effects of climate change on agriculture would leave agriculture “vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change not only in the US but in the world”.   Full story here.

It will be important for agriculture to carefully consider the offsets available and to choose those that don’t take too much cropland out of production (ie, for forestation).   I would be interested to see what the data might look like for returning land that is currently in commodity production to growing produce and animal protein for local markets.  Mainstream agricultural economics doesn’t do a very good job of looking at serious alternatives to our current agricultural system.

If campaign contributions are any indication, utilities love Blanche Lincoln.  She ranks number 5th overall (among senators seeking reelection this year) since 2005 in money received from utility companies.  This may help explain why Senator Lincoln has signed on with Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski to support weakening the Clean Air Act and to keep the EPA from regulating CO2 emissions.   Lincoln’s office would have us believe that she is “accountable to Arkansas voters alone,”  according to the NYT. Maybe so.  But money has changed hands, and it’s hard to believe that Lincoln is getting, in the immortal words of Dire Straits “money for nothing.”

Now that a primary challenger has come onto the scene, Senator Lincoln may be more responsive to  Progressive voters here in Arkansas.   Now is the time to put the pressure on.   The Democratic establishment doesn’t think there is enough support in Arkansas for a more liberal candidate.  They’re laughing at Bill Halter and at those who support his primary challenge to Lincoln.  This primary will be more than a referendum on Senator Lincoln.  This will be a referendum on the hearts of Arkansas voters.   However you may feel about Bill Halter, it’s important to make yourself heard now on the issues that are important to you.  If there was ever a time for Progressives to make noise in this state, this is it.

As an alternative, you can take the pragmatic approach, accept the general platitude that you live in a conservative state and there’s nothing you can do about it. Buck up and vote for Blanche to keep the crazy Right out of the Senate.  It all comes down to how much of an ideologue you are.  I have a very hard time supporting someone whose philosophy on economics, health care, and the environment is so far removed from my own.

Big business was out in force this week to push its agenda with Congress.    In “private meetings,” CEOs of several large corporations pushed to get the same tax breaks that small business is given in the jobs bill.  To paraphrase the few quotes that have leaked, the corporate message was “When we’re happy, small business is happy.”   Corporate America has no game plan but trickle down economics.  Credit goes to Harry Reid for being somewhat incredulous.

These are the 11 invitees to the Wednesday meeting: John J. Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, an industry trade group; David Cote, CEO of Honeywell International; Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase; Michael T. Duke, CEO of Wal-Mart Stores; William Green, CEO of Accenture; Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric Company; Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical Company; Antonio Perez, CEO of Eastman Kodak Company; Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T; and Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon Communications.  Corporate leaders also met with President Obama, privately, on Tuesday.

What is really going on here is that the big fish in the lake aren’t too happy about giving the small fry a fair chance.   What seems clear is that the companies listed above should not be privately lobbying Congress with their hands out.  Frankly, nobody should be “privately” lobbying Congress or the President.  The American public deserves to know what Big Business is saying to our leaders.

Get the full story at the HuffingtonPost.

If you haven’t done so already, please join the virtual march on Washington today.  MoveOn and a coalition of other groups are sponsoring the event.  The goal is to have $1 million faxes sent to Congress today.  You may also call your Senators, especially if the thought of all that paper use gets you down.

InArkansas has a nice report this week tracking the green portion of Arkansas’ stimulus money.   Arkansas received $110 million for energy projects last year.  Here’s a rough breakdown of the major recipients of this money and what it will do for the state:

Arkansas Department of Human Services $48.1 million to help low-income families become more energy efficient.  Low-income individuals often live in the least efficient homes, and they pay a disproportionate amount of their income for energy needs. The stimulus funds are expected to help weatherize 6,500 homes by 2012.

Arkansas Energy Office: $39.4 million to fund 13 environmental energy projects.  Most of the money will be used for energy efficiency improvements in public and private buildings.

Local goverments:  $16 million for various projects, largely for energy efficiency.  Kudos to Conway, for its plan to implement a synchronized traffic light system that will save gas, time, and frustration for local motorists.

This doesn’t quite total $110 million.  A table would have been helpful in the article.   I’m sure I could find the missing $7 million in the article if I took the time to sort through all the figures.

Last week I was asked by CREDO to vote for my favorite of three anti-Lincoln billboards, one of which will ultimately be erected here in Blanche Lincoln country.  The billboards aim to call the Senator out for her stance on the Murkowski amendment that would take the teeth out of the Clean Air Act regarding CO2 emissions.  The billboard contest was created by CREDO Action and Friends of the Earth.    None of the three proposed billboards is exactly what I would call a triumph of political advertising, and, let’s face it, none of them would exactly resonate with Arkansas voters.  I have said it before, and I’ll be happy to say it again:  if you’re going to mess with Arkansas politics, you should probably know Arkansans.

Billboard number 1, “Senator Lincoln:  Don’t Choke Our Razorbacks.  Hands off the Clean Air Act” comes complete with a non-official Hog cartoon.    Even if the hog were a genuine, NCAA-approved, legitimate Razorback, the billboard would still strike me as condescending.  Not only that, but it’s just not an effective message.   What the creators of this particular billboard probably do not know is that a football coach from the Fayetteville area once famously declared during a public hearing that his high school team “bows down” to the smokestack of a local coal plant and thanks God for that plant.  Money talks.

Billboard number 2,  “Arkansans Love Clean Air, Why Doesn’t Senator Lincoln?” is better.  The problem with this one is that the photo of Senator Lincoln is virtually unrecognizable.  Judging by the photo, the text should read something like “B-r-a-i-n-s…B-r-a-i-n-s.”

Candidate number 3 is simply an official-looking photo of the Senator with the phrase “Corporate Polluters, I support you-Blanche Lincoln.”  Too detached.   Arkansas voters are simply not concerned about “corporate polluters.”

I think I may be able to help these people out.  Here are two billboards that are almost certain to resonate in Arkansas:

Send a letter urging the US Forest Service to finalize a “no leasing” preference for part of the valuable Wyoming Range and to prevent further exploitation of this essential ecosystem.  The Wilderness Society makes it easy with an e-letter.   The Society explains the situation:

The Wyoming Range is an isolated range of peaks rising up from sloping foothills and vast sagebrush plains located in western Wyoming at the southern end of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It contains summer range for the largest mule deer herd in the lower-48, and is home to half of Wyoming’s moose. It also contains blue-ribbon native cutthroat trout fisheries, elk and pronghorn. Its lush habitat and scenic vistas are treasured by Wyoming families and visitors alike.

In 2005 and 2006 the Forest Service identified 44,700 acres for new leasing on the eastern flanks of the range in the wildlife-rich foothills, mostly in the Horse, Beaver and Cottonwood drainages.

These proposed leases have been sold at a series of auctions, triggering growing waves of protests and appeals from many corners, including the governor, labor groups, outfitters, property owners, sportsmen groups, and conservationists.

The threat of additional leasing mobilized a growing coalition that joined together to pass legislation in Congress to prohibit future oil and gas leasing in this scenic landscape. Now we have to finish the job by supporting the Forest Service’s withdrawal of these leases. Once this is done, the Wyoming Range Legacy Act will ensure that these lands are forever prohibited from future oil and gas development!

This is an important decision that demonstrates balance. Already, adjacent to these forest lands, there are thousands of oil and gas wells on BLM lands, with over 9,000 additional wells projected to be drilled in the region. Some of our most special public lands must remain free from industrial development to support other uses and values.

This won’t be the last battle for the Wyoming Range, however. After this is over, more work and public engagement from our supporters will be needed for one last project, as the Forest Service continues a separate process to consider authorizing 136 new gas wells in a roadless part of the Range near the Upper Hoback River.

To learn more about the Wyoming Range campaign visit www.wyomingrange.org

Even as the local food movement has entered an encouraging period of growth, significant roadblocks to local markets exist.  One of the biggest issues facing local farmers markets is the influx of cheap produce that is not grown locally.  A large percentage of this produce comes from shipments to large grocery chains that are rejected by the company for a variety of reasons, including temperature discrepancies and minor blemished incurred during shipping.  These shipments are sold very cheaply to local wholesalers by truckers anxious to get back on the road for their next shipment.  The wholesalers then put the produce up for sale on the roadside or at local farmers markets at a deep discount.

Selling such cheap produce at local farmers markets puts farmers at a disadvantage.  The deep discounts wholesalers can offer on their produce cannot be met by local farmers without a loss, and, as a result, the local farmers lose money.  The state may also lose money, because these wholesalers may unfairly take advantage of sales-tax exemptions given to local farmers.  Consumers lose, too.  Many consumers believe that foods offered at farmers markets are locally grown and fresh, rather than blemished goods rejected by the national grocery chains.

It is imperative that state lawmakers acknowledge this problem and that steps are taken to ensure that locally grown foods are given a fair chance at local markets.  Jody Hardin has some ideas for what this policy might look like:

If we can persuade our policy makers to see we need this fairness to be mandated throughout the state as law: to provide designated, fair trade markets exclusively to our states farmers and only their produce be allowed, it would be an automatic game changer for the fresh market farmer!  I’m thinking, perhaps, that we may propose to host a CAFM market on Saturday at the River Market, and ask all the other non farm vendors as well as farmers who want a second day to to sell on, to move to a Sunday market with a new distinction as “International Bazaar or Flea Market”, for example.  This would help the merchants drive two big business days downtown and it would segregate the tax exempt farmers from those who are required to pay state sales taxes from re-selling, giving the City of Little Rock, Pulaski County,  and state a legitimate reason to make the distinction into a law and increase tax revenue.  Mixing farmers with re-sellers will never be fair to local small farmers or the local food system.

I recently received an annual update from Jody Hardin, of Foodshed Farms, Basket-a-Month Community Supported Agriculture (BAM), and the Certified Arkansas Farmers’ Market (CAFM).  With the help of people like Jody and his great support group at Foodshed Farms, fresh local foods are being made available to people all over the state, and consumers are spending money in their own communities to help local farmers.

Foodshed Farms’ Basket a Month CSA alone has put over $500,000 back into the local economy over the 4 years it has been running.  When the local markets in Argenta, Hot Springs, and Searcy are added, total economic impact is estimated to reach $1,000,000 over the same 4-year period.   The local foods movement is growing rapidly.  Jody is in discussions with 3 additional Arkansas communities to start local affiliates of the CAFM.

Jody’s estimates do not include the economic impact of other local food clubs such as that provided by the Arkansas Sustainability Network, an organization that conducts a year-round, on-line only market.   Many local growers produce for both markets, reaching different populations in the area.

Everyone can take advantage of the wonderful, fresh produce, meat, dairy, and other items grown and marketed locally.   This spring will be a good time to plug into the local foods movement and find out how satisfying it can be to participate in the community.

Tomorrow’s post will deal with the obstacles still facing local agriculture.