LMD Feb 2019

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Riding Herd “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.” – JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

February 15, 2019 • www.aaalivestock.com

Volume 61 • No. 2

The Almighty Dollar BY LEE PITTS

No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.

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NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

t pains me to think about all the hard work that countless beef producers have devoted to beef promotion and the checkoff in order to increase demand for beef. Sadly, I think all those good people were unknowingly working for JBS, Tyson and Cargill. As initially conceived the checkoff was a brilliant concept and we at the Digest supported its passage. After three tries cattlemen eventually approved the beef checkoff. The reason it took three votes was because many cattlemen had reservations, one of those being that such a large amount of money might attract bureaucrats and organizations like bees to honey. Sadly, those concerns came to fruition when the National Cattlemen’s Association (NCA) was suffering financial distress and went looking for cash to stop the bleeding in Denver. They found their salvation in the beef checkoff. I don’t mean to belittle all the hard work producers have put in on checkoff related activities over the years but the way events have transpired, we might have been better off without a checkoff because it has enabled the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to push a global agenda that doesn’t care whether the beef on American’s plates comes from Bakersfield or Brazil. As for increasing demand, beef consumption has been in a downward decline that mimics the lifespan of the NCBA. And what good does it do if any new demand for beef in America is satisfied by imports from Humpybong, Australia, or Bananal, Brazil?

Winston Churchill I feel like I’m beating a dead horse or barking at a knothole after awhile. What’s the point of exposing the inner workings of where your beef dollars go if there are fewer and fewer of you to read about it. It is an undeniable fact that since the start of the checkoff we’ve lost over half the cattlemen in this country which begs the question... have we been committing occupational suicide one dollar at a time?

Save Us From Our Rescuers Every year the Operating Committee of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board Approves their Plan of Work for the following year. This past September they released their budget for 2019 and how the $40 plus million they collect will be divided up, subject to the USDA’s approval of course. Because as we all know thanks to NCBA’s pleadings before the Supreme Court,

the checkoff is, after all, a government program and therefore not subject to first amendment rights. To apply for money from the beef checkoff a proposal for funding, otherwise known as an Authorization Request, must be submitted to the Beef Board. For 2019 the CBB received 14 Authorization Requests submitted by only seven contractors. Those requests totaled 45 million dollars and the Beef Board came up with a 43.9 million dollar budget. So let’s see just where your beef bucks are projected to end up this year. • The NCBA had five of their proposals approved by the Beef Board for a total of $27.4 million. So right off the bat the NCBA got 62% of the Beef Board’s total budget. • The U.S. Meat Export Federation got one proposal approved for $8.3 million but it

was only as a subcontractor to the NCBA. So, if we add the $8.3 million to the other $27.4 million the NCBA controls we get to $35.7 million or 81% of the checkoff! • Gathering up the crumbs were the North American Meat Institute (four proposals for $1.9 million), Cattlemen’s Beef Board (one proposal for $1.7 million), American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture (one proposal for $700,000), Meat Import Council of America (one proposal for $417,000) and the National Livestock Producers Association (one proposal for $60,000). By the way, the North American Meat Institute represents the interests of U.S. packers and processors of beef, pork, lamb, veal and turkey. So if you add their checkoff dollars to that of the NCBA’s you come up with 86% of the Beef Board’s bucks going to entities that don’t support country of origin labeling and have proven to be bigger cheerleaders for the packers than they have for ranchers. Just to rub salt in the wound, the packers who are the biggest beneficiaries of the checkoff, aren’t required to contribute one thin dime to the beef checkoff. Also included in the Beef continued on page two

Proposed New WOTUS Rule Narrows Federal Jurisdiction WWW.NATLAWREVIEW.COM

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n December 11, 2018, the Army Corps of Engineers and the United States Environmental Protection Agency jointly proposed a new Waters of the United States (WOTUS) definition. The two agencies intend for the proposal to replace the Clean Water Rule that was issued by the Obama Administration in 2015. The 2015 rule automatically confers federal jurisdiction over several categories of waters, including traditional navigable waters, interstate waters, territorial seas, impoundments of jurisdictional waters, tributaries, and adjacent water. It also lists five specific types of “similarly situated” waters that are subject to a caseby-case analysis to determine whether there is a “significant nexus” that would provide jurisdiction. The 2015 rule also contains exclusions from jurisdiction for some water features, including certain ditches, groundwater, erosional control features, and stormwater control features. The Army Corps of Engineers and the United States Environmental Protection Agency intend for the 2018 proposed rule to further clarify jurisdictional questions, eliminate caseby-case determinations, and narrow Clean Water Act jurisdiction to align with Justice Scalia’s opinion in Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006).

What’s a WOTUS? The agencies have advanced a WOTUS definition that encompasses “relatively permanent flowing and standing waterbodies that are traditional navigable waters in their own right or that have a specific connection to traditional navigable waters, as well as wetlands abutting or having a direct hydrologic surface connection to those waters.” Specifically, the newly proposed rule outlines six categories of waters that would be considered waters of the United States, including: 1. traditional navigable waters 2. impoundments 3. tributaries 4. certain ditches 5. certain lakes and ponds 6. adjacent wetlands Notably, the proposed rule also expressly excludes certain waters from the definition of WOTUS: 1.waters not otherwise expressly included in the above categories of jurisdictional waters 2. groundwater 3. ephemeral surface features and diffuse stormwater run-off 4. ditches that do not fall into the category of jurisdictional ditches 5. prior converted cropland continued on page five

by LEE PITTS

Unreal Estate

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ears ago I gave serious thought to getting my real estate license after I’d found a buyer for a large ranch and didn’t get one thin dime out of the deal, thank you very much. Several of my road agent buddies got their licenses and every now and then you hear about one of them getting a commission check for more money than I make in a year. It’s natural fit because I don’t know of anyone who visits more ranches or meets more prospective buyers than the guys who travel for livestock publications working ring at cattle auctions. My good Texas buddy E.C. has had his broker’s license for years and from the outside looking in seems a profitable endeavor. I don’t know anyone who knows more rich people than E.C. He goes hunting with Baseball Hall of Famers and used to work all the big Keeneland sales in Kentucky where multi-million dollar horses sell to billionaire Arab sheiks. Recently retired from working ring, E.C. is the Godfather of all ring men. One day he’d be selling pricey art in Santa Fe, the next week he might be helping sell collectible cars in Scottsdale and the next he’s traveling all across the country selling real estate at auction. I don’t know any ring man who has more mileage on his odometer than E.C. so in our last conversation I asked when he was going to slow down. E.C. replied, “Funny you should ask. Margie and I just had a meeting with our financial adviser and after looking at our finances he estimated that at the current rate my offspring are producing costly grandkids I should be able to retire on the morning of the day I die.” Being a ranch real realtor is not all big commission checks. First of all you have to look prosperous because no one likes to do business with an unsuccessful realtor. At the very least ranch realtors need a current year Suburban or Expedition and many have their own airplane or helicopter. Then there’s the Luchesse boots, silver and gold buckle set, the latest iPhone and a sil-

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