LMD Oct 13

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

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL OCTOBER 15, 2013 • www. aaalivestock . com

MARKET

Digest I Volume 55 • No. 10

In a Glass House O

by Lee Pitts

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

ften when two ranchers get together these days the conversation invariably turns to the wrong path this country is on, how financially and morally bankrupt we are, the ineptness of our federal bureaucracy and the socialist nature of our Commander in Chief. The worst part is, it seems like there nothing we can do about it.

It recently dawned on me that the exact same criticisms can be leveled at our own industry. The same laundry list of disparagements about what’s wrong with our government is also true about the NCBA: bumbling bureaucrats, staff driven, the same old people in charge, the revolving door between government, big business and past NCA/NCBA Presidents, influence peddling, wasted money, bloated salaries, centrally planned ideology, no transparency, few people calling all the shots, and on and on.

Sound familiar? And yet there is hardly a dissent.

The very same ranchers who criticize our inept government raise not a word of protest about the NCBA. And unlike our government, there is actually something we could do about it. Make no mistake, I’m no fan of our President or our government but it seems to me that we should get our own house in order. What we criticize about the feds, we toler-

If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.

ate within our own industry, yet what is wrong with the NCBA is an exact microcosm of what is wrong with America. Remember the old bromide, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?” Well folks, we are living in a glass house bigger than the Pentagon and our own industry organization, also financed with your tax dollars, otherwise known as the checkoff, is every bit as corrupt as the mess in Washington and in the short term may prove

far more dangerous to your livelihood than the knuckleheads in Congress and the White House.

Yet the silence is deafening.

The 27-year-old governmentmandated checkoff has become just another government-imposed tax that is doing more damage in the hands of the NCBA than any good it may have done. There I’ve said it. Now I’ll prove it.

Are They That Stupid?

The Cattlemen’s Beef Board

Communications Director, Diane Henderson, recently told Feedstuffs magazine that despite fewer dollars available for beef marketing and promotion, “beef demand remains strong.”

Really?

The nonrefundable checkoff program has spent more than $1.7 billion of your money to research and promote beef and in its 27 year existence the beef industry has lost 40 percent of its producers and the consumption of beef during the same period dropped from 74 pounds to around 50 pounds. Since the NCBA stole the checkoff through the merger the consumption of beef has gone down 13 percent.

It’s gotten so bad that not only is the chicken industry looking at beef in its rear view mirror, this year pork consumption will be bigger than that of beef.

If a CEO of a business showed those kind of results he or she would be unceremoniously continued on page two

Klamath County Water Crisis

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

ne of the most devastating government “takings” in the history of the U.S. is in progress in Klamath County, Oregon.

This movement to get farmers and ranchers off their privately owned lands has been brewing for many years but came to a head after a sequence of events this spring and summer shut off long-time water rights and deprived landowners of their ability to irrigate or water their livestock.

This area in Oregon runs more than 100,000 head of cattle in the upper basin (above Klamath Lake—Oregon’s largest lake) during the summer, and is farming country in the irrigated land below the lake. The water use for ranching and farming has had a convoluted history, which first gained national attention in 2001. Using the Endangered Species Act as their tool, environmentalists, local tribes and federal authorities forced a shut-off of the water to the farmers below the lake, claiming this was necessary to protect endangered fish.

At that time, the rural community and ranchers in the upper basin rallied around the farmers to fight a legal battle to avert that crisis and restore irritation water to 1,500 farms below the lake. Eventually the water was restored to the farms after much effort. The National Academy of Science showed that incorrect science had

O

Riding Herd

been used by the groups forcing the shut-off.

Then government agencies, local tribes and certain environmental groups took a different strategy to divest the upper basin ranchers of their traditional water usage.

Roger Nicholson, a stockman in the upper basin, says this is a huge issue and has the potential of destroying every western ranch. The precedent here in Oregon could be used elsewhere to halt irrigation, eroding traditional water rights. The current issue might be characterized as the desire of the federal government to take over state water rights, aided by environmental groups that want the land to go back to wilderness.

“As a bit of background, my family’s ranch has been here since the 1890s. We’ve added other ranches to it, but the majority of our land already had state adjudicated water rights which had held up in court,” says Nicholson.

The Federal Government sued local ranchers in the 1970s to try to gain water and water rights on the former Klamath Indian Reservation lands. This case became known as the Adair case and was eventually tried before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Even though the Klamath tribes did not have a land base (having sold their reservation many

by LEE PITTS

Don’t Laugh

f you needed another sign that America has gone off its rocker there’s the clown in Missouri who wore a mask of President Obama at the state fair rodeo. When the announcer asked if anyone wanted to see the clown run over by a bull a cheer went up. The clown was clowning around, trying to make people laugh, which pretty much fits the job description of a clown, but after a video of the event went viral on You Tube the media got involved and blew the incident all out of proportion.

Which fits the job description of today’s media.

Before you know it the politically incorrect clown had been permanently banned from ever appearing at a Missouri state fair rodeo, the president of the Missouri Rodeo Association resigned, and the Missouri chapter of the NAACP called it a “hate crime” and demanded a federal investigation of the incident.

The feds can’t even keep up with all the scandals in Washington, DC these days and the NAACP wants them to investigate a clown?

A word to the wise, all you rodeo clowns better declare all your income because I see an IRS audit in your future!

I saw this story on the evening news which was followed by a football game where fans in the stands held up huge masks of football player’s faces and yet, as far as I know, no one has demanded a federal investigation of Denver Bronco fans.

Congressmen on both sides of the aisle fell over each other trying to condemn the incident and were worried about the effect the masked clown may have had on any children at the rodeo. I suppose this means that any child who wears an Obama mask on Halloween, as many did last year, will be placed on the terrorist list and have their candy taken away. Another politician called the mask the “Ugly face of intolerance and ignorance” and compared it to “an effigy at a Ku Klux Clan rally.” A continued on page six

continued on page four

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 2

October 15, 2013

Glass House

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thrown out the door.

Thanks in part to the NCBA, the small and part-time rancher in this country has become an endangered species. The NCBA wanted the beef industry to be controlled by the big feeders and packers and now that rancher numbers have been reduced by 40 percent the NCBA is wondering why the money they get through the checkoff is so much less. They wanted the small producer gone and some of their NCBA brethren in the East also want the public lands ranchers gone, too. That means there’d be less competition and higher prices for them. Besides, they ask, “Why should they be getting such “low rents” from the BLM and Forest Service?”

As the NCBA was acting as a cheerleader for the monopolists I always wondered if they were aware that they were cutting their own throats. Even though they still get checkoff dollars from the beef imported into this country, it’s not as much as it would be if the beef was produced by ranchers in this country. Are they so obtuse that they couldn’t see that a beef industry patterned after the monopolized chicken and hog industries would result in fewer players, fewer transactions and therefore fewer checkoff dollars?

Are they that stupid?

Only 26,000 out of 700,000 ranchers in this country chose to join the NCBA (not quite 4 percent according to my calculator) but the organization gets to spend 80 percent of the checkoff dollars collected at the national level. That would be akin to letting the Sierra Club or PETA spend a big chunk of our federal budget. (If we had one.) To a rational person NCBA’s relatively low membership would seem to indicate that the NCBA is a fringe organization, just like many environmental groups with small memberships who want to dictate our national environmental policy. Yet we bad mouth the green groups yet say nothing when it is happening in our very own industry.

Sound Familiar?

As the largest contractor of checkoff dollars the NCBA is now feeling the pinch. The NCBA says that we’ve lost so many producers as a result the drouths in 2011 and 2012, yet if you chart the decrease in the number of ranchers in this country the skid began long before the drouths ever did.

It’s estimated that the checkoff dollars they get will fall by nearly 6 percent in the 2014 fiscal year.

As checkoff taxes have fallen to the lowest point since the program’s first year, the NCBA is being forced to cut $4.3 million from their budget. With the smallest U.S. cattle inventory in sixty years, and fewer taxable transactions taking place as a result of more contract production, there are fewer dollars to spend on salaries. Of course, that got the attention in a hurry of NCBA staffers who went into a

continued from page one

big dither and their cries sound indistinguishable from those of the crybabies in the halls of Congress.

A common complaint you hear about the federal government and big business is that there is little transparency. In other words, they are hiding what they are doing from the taxpayers. The NCBA is even less transparent.

Other than what they volunteer, the only way we can find out things about the NCBA’s finances is to file Freedom Of Information requests, which take a long time. But back in 2008 a group calling themselves Cattle Producers of Louisiana filed just such a Freedom of Information request and as a result they got to look at NCBA’s IRS Form 990.

In 2008 the NCBA brought in $55.6 million of which $46.1 million, or 83 percent were checkoff dollars. Now this is important: the NCBA collected only $3.4 million in total membership dues.

That’s less than 6 percent of its 2008 budget. In other words if they had to live off the income they generate the NCBA would be broker than our Federal Government. Except, instead of printing money, they steal it from you in the form of the checkoff!

The great writer Alan Guebert did even more digging into NCBA’s IRS form 990 and found that “NCBA’s top 14 officials earned a combined $2.7 million in salaries and benefits in 2008.

Overall, that means four out of five dues dollars collected by NCBA went to just 14 of its 193 employees. It also means that NCBA is not a national cattlemen’s group,” wrote Guebert.

“Take away the 83 percent of its revenue, the checkoff dollars it got in 2008, and NCBA doesn’t have enough members or money to populate or operate an average rural county in the U.S.” Yet where, my friends, is the outcry?

Thanks, Suckers Because the NCBA has to cut 10 percent from their 2014 budget they offered “voluntary separation incentives” to their employees. In simpler terms, you are paying for NCBA staffers to quit.

Where have you heard of that kind of action before? It sounds like a federal retiree program or the infamous dairy buyout. Only now the tax checkoff dollars are being used to pay people to quit working, not Holstein cows.

Just like the sequester where some federal bureaus were forced to cut an identical 10 percent from their budgets, it’s highly likely that those paying the checkoff won’t even know the employees are gone. Which begs the question, if you cut 10 percent of your staff and no one can tell any difference, why were they hired in the first place?

You Are Not A VIP The NCBA was counting on getting their hands on a big continued on page three

October 15, 2013

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Glass House chunk of the increase in the checkoff to $2.00 per head in several states where there were producer votes to double the beef tax. Despite the fact that the CBB and NCBA say there is overwhelming support for the checkoff, the statewide votes to double the checkoff did not go as planned. Ranchers invariably voted down the increase. So the NCBA had to come up with other methods of creative coercion.

To make up for the shortfall the NCBA devised a plan that should make every cattleman and cattlewoman in this country madder than if they got notified of an IRS audit by Obama’s tax collectors.

At the NCBA’s last convention they announced the development of a Voluntary Investment Plan (VIP). Under the program the packers will pay up to $2.25/head if the cattle feeders will match it. So, the packers don’t have to pay the beef checkoff tax to be wasted on NCBA salaries and such, even though the packers are the biggest beneficiaries of the research and promotion. Instead they get to put the money in a big slush fund where it will be off the books and out of the USDA’s control.

If you don’t think we’re talking about a big packer/big feeder dominated NCBA listen to this: The board of the Voluntary Investment Plan will be made up of 4 packers, 4 feeders and 5 others. Even if they put 5 ranchers on the board, which they won’t, the big feeders and packers would still have control. The NCBA might respond, why should ranchers have a say on the VIP when they don’t put any money in the pot? To which we would counter, why do the packers get to control the checkoff and use it for their own needs when they don’t put any money into it?

The slush fund VIP money will not go through the NCBA board.

Supposedly this new pot of money will be used to take the fight to the Humane Society, PETA and other such groups, no doubt trying to brainwash the general public that there’s nothing wrong with beef produced in the global packer’s industrialized factories.

They will hide behind the rancher’s good name just as they have used your checkoff money to help form the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance to convince a general public that there’s nothing wrong with beef produced with beta agonists, hormones and such.

The final plan for the Voluntary Investment Plan will be presented to NCBA’s Executive Committee and it will be a Policy Division only vote. In other words, no checkoff people. Even though the NCBA commandeered the checkoff and are picking the pocket of the Beef Board, the NCBA isn’t returning the favor by letting the CBB in on the new slush fund, evidently thinking that Beef Board and ranchers are not VIP’s.

Leaving Legacies Behind The NCBA has come up with other ways to get cash. The staff,

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at the direction of the NCBA Executive Committee, has eliminated the Youth Activities Programs that have been so successful at the annual convention the last 5 years. Farm Credit has funded the program up to about $60,000 this year and the NCBA staffers see that as money they could shove in their own pockets.

So they killed the program.

Evidently, training young people for the future is less important than NCBA salaries and benefits.

Either that or the NCBA must think there isn’t going to be much of a future in the cattle business in this country, so why train future leaders?

Past NCBA President Andy Groseta from Arizona was the

Godfather of the program and it was to be his legacy. Not any more. It seems a lot of NCBA leaders, past Presidents, Task Force Members and founders are now finding that the legacies they thought they were leaving behind aren’t what they had in mind.

You Gotta Be Kidding Another good indicator that the NCBA has too much of your money to play with is the fact the NCBA has a “Director of Sustainability.” They are also working on an Industry Sustainability Assessment and want to build a Beef Sustainability Center. All paid for with your beef tax dollars. Dr. Kim Stackhouse is the Director of Sustainability

and she said that the beef checkoff-funded assessment is “The first time any food value chain has ever documented the economic, environmental and social fingerprint.”

The Beef Sustainability Center, otherwise known as The Center for Research & Knowledge Management in the Department of Research, Education & Innovation of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, will also be financed with your checkoff dollars, “To concentrate on balanced solutions, strategic partnerships and collaborative efforts to lead industry principles on sustainability issues.” If that doesn’t sound like some-

thing the federal government would come up with I don’t know what does.

Ranchers by nature are an independent bunch and yet it’s one of life’s big ironies that the NCBA, in hijacking the beef checkoff, has turned them into a bunch of helpless and hopeless taxpayers whose leaders are no better than the clowns and fools in Congress and the White House.

So next time you start complaining about the corrupt politicians in Washington, D.C., just remember that our only hope of reclaiming any future at all for your children, and their children, is by starting to clean up the mess in our own backyard.

Livestock Market Digest

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October 15, 2013

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Klamath County years before), the Adair case granted the tribe rights for hunting, fishing and gathering – since the Indians didn’t specify that they were selling those rights with the land when they sold it.

The court system ruled that they did indeed still have these rights, and granted the tribe a water right for hunting, fishing and gathering, for a moderate standard of living, as they used it in 1979 and not historically.

“By doing this, the court opened Pandora’s Box. The 9th Circuit decision went on to say they were not going to create a wilderness servitude on the agri-

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observations.

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cultural land with this decision, but the end result is that it’s been in court ever since. The 9th Circuit had established the parameters of the water right but left the quantification to be done within the state courts,” he explains.

This gave the State of Oregon the empowerment to adjudicate the Klamath Basin water. “This was the first time an adjudication had taken place in the state for Federal Reserve Rights (water on federal lands such as BLM and Forest Service), even though many agricultural rights had already been adjudicated,” he says. This led to decades of state court adjudication proceedings.

“The federal government took a cheap shot in the closing days of the Clinton administration and sued us again and reopened the Adair case – taking it to the federal district court in Portland, Oregon. Judge Panner decided that case. He decided that the moderate standard of living was meaningless; he wanted to maintain productive fish habitat through ideal flow in the streams. We took Judge Panner’s decision back to the 9th Circuit court which unanimously overturned it. Judge Panner was told that the Adair decision was to go to state court for qualification as originally authored, without interference from any other court,” Nicholson says.

A state court of administrative law was assigned to make quantification decisions. “That court, in the quantification phase used as a legal basis the Judge Panner ruling which had already been vacated. The net result is that the state process essentially awarded all the water to the Indians on the wrong legal basis,” explains Nicholson.

“Thus it goes into full force and effect, and now you see the irrigated lands that satisfied the needs of more than 100,000 head of cattle are gone. It has destroyed our community.”

After the shut-off this spring there was not going to be even enough water for livestock to drink.

“There is a provision in the state water law that says during a drought designation livestock water is put ahead of everything else. Because we have a drought designation in our area this summer, we do have stock water.

But we had to take action to ensure that we could water our

animals, and without a drought designation in this part of the state we will lose it; there is no legal provision to maintain it,” he says. Many ranchers and farmers are in a serious situation.

The water issue is now in the quantification phase in the local circuit court which will handle all the exceptions to the OWRD order that came through the administrative phase. “But this phase is scheduled for about 10 years. Ranchers can’t hang on that long and they can’t afford attorney fees without any production from their land. Essentially this has put them out of business, including me,” says Nicholson.

Klamath County is huge and encompasses a lot of grazing land. It is in the top 3 percent of all counties in the U.S. for numbers of stocker cattle and cow/calf operations. “It also has a tremendous connection with the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, with Klamath County supplying summer pasture and the California counties supplying winter pasture. This water shutoff is affecting hundreds of families, and many agriculture-related businesses. I talked with some of the businessmen in Klamath Falls and their sales are down 50 percent from what they were earlier. The cattle situation will have a dramatic negative effect on feedlots in the Northwest; they are very dependent upon the cattle coming out of Klamath County to satisfy their need for numbers,” he explains.

This nullification of traditional water rights is a “taking” of private property. “But the opposing groups will just say that they had never had their day in court and now they show that we have nothing – and that the tribes/environmentalists should have had the water all along.

The very dangerous part of this is that there has been enough legal precedent established at this point that if we don’t totally overturn this, it will happen again all across the West, wherever there are tribes that decide they want the water. I recently had two people call me from Montana, emphasizing the fact that we have to overturn this, or they may be vulnerable, too. It will be a taking of all water and water rights across our cattle lands, and we can’t survive without the water,” says Nicholson.

“It’s a huge case with tremendous precedential implications –

more than we can imagine.

Seemingly the end justifies the means for the state government of Oregon; they have facilitated this and enabled it to happen because of their desire to establish full in-stream flows. It’s a political decision,” he says.

“They are trying to satisfy a wide variety of interests and issues, mainly the fisheries and the in-stream flow issues. Yet the in-stream flow issues were never a real problem earlier. I can give an example, on a particular creek that I was involved with, showing the absurdity of their claims,” Nicholson says.

“I have about 1,000 acres of irrigated land that lie on the former Indian reservation – part of the allotments that were the former Indian homesteads. The way the reservation was set up, it allowed every Indian to have a piece of private property. As part of that process, the federal government installed the first Indian irrigation project in Klamath County, on Fort Creek. The tribe, assuming they owned all the water at that time, deeded out part of that water to their individual Indian people to convert them to an agricultural way of life. Subsequently federal case law allowed those same Indians to turn around and sell that property, with the water rights, to gain more benefit from their property if and when they did sell it,” he explains.

“My family – myself and my father – bought several of those allotments through the years, with the water. And now this court decision essentially takes that water and puts it right back into the title of the tribe itself. I don’t think that’s a very American way to do business,” says Nicholson.

“The creek itself also demonstrates the absurdity of the issue.

Fort Creek, the stream that the water was to come out of, flows 75 second feet of water, spring fed, year round. It never varies, year round, since there’s no runoff water in it from snow melt.

It’s just spring water, from a very productive spring. But the state, for aquatic purposes, had the instream flow rights at 25 second feet of water from that stream.

Out of the 75 second feet, we used 25 second feet. The net result was a full-time flow of 50 second feet in the creek – which was twice what they said was necessary to support aquatic life.

It was working fine the way it

was, but the state still shut off our water,” he says.

“This has become an intolerable situation. We have livestock without a home and yearlings moving to market early, people putting their cows on the market, and there doesn’t seem to be any chance for positive results for quite a while. Our only choice is to either continue with the court case or somehow obtain a settlement. It needs to be emphasized that this is not a temporary drought shut-off but instream flow levels are set so high that this is a permanent shut down,” he says.

Even if the ranchers decide to sell, their property isn’t worth very much now. “The economist who works for us says that the hit this year, with the decline in the county’s economy as well as land values is somewhat over $500 million. This is pretty hard to recover from, ever. Within the area, the state of Oregon totally controls ground water. They’ve closed this basin down and won’t even allow people to drill wells to remedy the situation. Not only do they not allow drilling new wells, but the governor’s office has told us that there’s a good chance they are going to shut down the existing wells,” says Nicholson.

It seems like the goal is to get people off the land and have it go back to wilderness, something the 9th Circuit prohibited. “This situation has been going on for a long time, and I’ve led various groups that have stood up to it.

In 2005 we signed a settlement agreement with the Klamath tribe that would have avoided all of this. The agreement was signed by the tribes and myself in Washington, D.C. and was heralded as the end of this potentially contentious situation.

Two weeks later the Department of Interior announced that it would not allow the Klamath tribe to settle,” he says.

“Several weeks thereafter, a high-ranking Interior official told me that the reason they did this was that Interior feels there is a shortage of water all over the western states and this is their chance to gain a major block of water simply for the price of litigation, realizing that the ranchers could not stay with the cost of litigation. He stated that if it ever went to the Supreme Court we would probably win, but they would easily destroy us before it got that far,” says Nicholson.

October 15, 2013

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

New App

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“As we all know, the downturn in the economy and contraction of the horse industry, combined with drought conditions and the cost of hay, have placed great strains on many of us,” said Doug Thal, DVM, Dipl.

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HSVG improves communication between users and their local veterinarian. The “My Vets” feature puts important vet contact information at your fingertips and encourages the dialog.

Customize the Content: Use the “notes” feature in which you can attach your own personalized notes to any individual record within the database. This allows you to customize the database with information from other sources, especially content provided by veterinarians and other reliable sources.

Share function – You can quickly and easily share (through e-mail, Twitter and Facebook) a topic from within HSVG. Quick Reference features

It is not a substitute for your local equine veterinarian. It does not, and cannot, anticipate and address all of the subtle variations and unique circumstances associated with your horse’s health. That is your veterinarian’s job.

Horse Side Vet Guide is intended to increase the quality of communication between you and your equine veterinarian – for the benefit of your horse.

To download the application for iPhone or for further information, please visit https://itunes.apple.com/app/id

663353024 www.horsesidevetguide.com.

Follow us at www.facebook.com/horseside vetguide and http://twitter.com/ horsesidevet.

About Dr. Doug Thal. Doug Thal has been a horseman his entire life. His father was a steeplechase rider and polo player. He grew up on a family cattle and horse ranch and has been riding and training horses since early childhood. He has been an equine veterinarian for over 20 years working on a mix of performance and pleasure horses. His special interests are lameness and surgery.

Thal is board certified by the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners, in Equine Practice. He continues to manage his equine veterinary practice, Thal Equine, in Santa Fe, NM. You can see more about his veterinary practice at www.thalequine.com.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 6

October 15, 2013

IPCC authors confident their global warming predictions were wrong

BY RON ARNOLD, WASHINGTONEXAMINER.COM

y copy of the leaked final draft of the world’s most influential global warming report, despite authors of the highest reputation, reads like something from a mental hospital with no doctors or nurses.

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The 31-page “Summary for Policymakers” of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced the authors’ stunning concession that computermodeled forecasts of imminent planetary catastrophe were catastrophically wrong – global surface temperatures haven’t risen significantly in the last 15

years – but, even with many other doubts, also insisted that the IPCC is more confident than ever that global warming is mainly humans’ fault.

Then European Union Climate Change Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told the London Telegraph that EU policy on global warming is right even if the science is wrong.

That’s nuts, but that’s Big Green: Facts don’t matter.

I asked climate realist Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot and former Senate Environment and Public Works professional staff member, whether the leaked IPCC report was indeed full of inconsistencies.

“It is, but you have to pity the UN. The climate events of 2013 have been devastating to its political narrative on global warming,” Morano said.

He reeled off examples as if spooling out crime scene tape: “Both poles have expanding ice, with the Antarctic breaking all time records. Global temperatures have failed to rise for 15plus years. Global cooling has occurred since 2002. Polar bear numbers are increasing. Wildfire numbers are well below average. Sea level rise is failing to accelerate. Tornadoes are at record lows. Hurricanes are at record low activity.” Case closed.

I complained that none of that was in the IPCC report.

Morano indicated that the facts were well known even if obscured by jargon. As a result, “former climate believers like Judith Curry are growing more skeptical by the day,” Morano said.

It’s true. Judith Curry, head of climate science at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, this week published her analysis of the leaked IPCC draft report – and it sparked an international Twitter war.

“In view of the recent pause [in warming] and the lower confidence level in some of the supporting findings,” Curry said, it therefore made no sense that the IPCC was claiming that its confidence in its forecasts and conclusions has increased. “This is incomprehensible to me,” she said. “The science is clearly not settled, and is in a state of flux.”

All this business about “confidence” sounds like a sophomoric game because it is. It’s the IPCC’s consensus-seeking process at work. Consensus is a group decision-making process that seeks the consent of all participants, and it is not part of the scientific method. It gained popularity in the women’s liberation and antinuclear movements of the 1970s.

The only advantage of consensus-seeking for the IPCC is the political clout of being able

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White House spokesman said it was “Not one of Missouri’s finer moments” and Missouri’s governor apologized. A political science professor said of the clown’s act, “It goes beyond the pale.” Which is an interesting choice of words if white folks want to take offense.

Henceforth any contractor or subcontractor to the Missouri State Fair from here on out will have to undergo sensitivity training. Wow, if folks had been this touchy when Nixon was President our country would have had a nervous breakdown.

The backlash came from Representative Steve Stockman of Texas who said that liberals are thin-skinned and totalitarian and invited the clown down to Texas to perform for rodeo fans there. Because his name is “Stockman” all people wearing a cowboy hat and trying to get on an airplane in the future will be bulldogged to the ground by aggressive TSA officials and frisked like they were a feeble 89 year old lady.

This incident shows something that as a humor columnist I have known for a long time: it’s getting harder to be funny when people are just looking for

to say, “The scientific consensus is . . .”, thereby totally undercutting the views of non-IPCC scientists.

Its disadvantage to science is that nobody knows by an upand-down vote who disagrees with major pieces of the science and why, instead devising a scale of “confidence” for each set of results: “weakly confident,” “moderately confident,” and “extremely confident” – like marking your kids’ heights on the kitchen wall with “short,” “taller” and “way tall.”

Curry recommended that the consensus-seeking IPCC process be abandoned for a more traditional review, saying, “I think that arguments for and against would better support scientific progress, and be more useful for policy makers.”

One of the report’s authors, professor Myles Allen, director of Oxford University’s Climate Research Network, said, “The idea of producing a document of near-biblical infallibility is a misrepresentation of how science works.” He recommended this IPCC report be the last.

With all the economic pain, social divisiveness and resource misdirection the IPCC has caused, the 195 governments that funded it should get their money back.

Ron Arnold, a Washington Examiner columnist, is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

continued from page one

an excuse to be offended. With all this political correctness, America has lost its sense of humor. We’re a nation of sourpusses and have forgotten how to laugh at ourselves.

Our vocabulary has shrunk as more words are off-limits.

You can’t make jokes about overweight Americans (fat), follicularly challenged folks (bald), or nontraditional shoppers (looters). I remember a few years ago when the Los Angeles Times told its writers to avoid words like deaf, handicapped and Canucks, unless it’s the hockey team. The word alien was also off-limits when talking about our seasonal guests who happen to be Mexican, which is also off-limits even though they are from Mexico, just as Americans are from America. Now they are “persons of Latin descent.”

It seems that the only people who are exempt from all this bologna are persons of Hollywood descent and politicians, excuse me, patriots serving our country in a bureaucratic position. These are the same clowns who live in Washington, DC and root for a football team called the Redskins.

October 15, 2013

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Page 7

Herd expansion means tighter supply first

BY LYNDEE STABEL

n a roomful of cattle feeders, an Oklahoma State University (OSU) livestock marketing specialist had everyone’s full attention as he said there is no way around it: In the next two to three years, the already short supply of feeder cattle will only get tighter.

OSU Breedlove Professor Derrell Peel described the current feeder cattle situation and the circumstances leading to it at the eighth annual Feeding Quality Forum in Omaha, Neb., and Garden City, Kan., last month.

With a U.S. cattle inventory at levels not seen since 1952, “We’re much smaller than we ever intended to be,” Peel said. Drought and other circumstances led producers to liquidate their cow herds 15 out of the last 17 years, despite recent market signals to expand.

Peel expects that to change.

Throughout much of the U.S., drought conditions have improved, opening the door to herd rebuilding. Instead of looking for the likeliest animals to cull, many producers will begin looking for the best heifers to keep.

“For the next several years I would expect the [heifer replacement] percentage to be above average,” Peel said. “And that has implications to what happens to feeder supplies in the short run.”

Growing the cattle population is the ultimate solution to the limited feeder supply, but it is not an instant fix. Until a heifer starts calving, each replacement kept is one less animal available for feeding.

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Cattle feeders already competing for a piece of that small supply know but don’t relish the fact, but “it will get worse before it gets better.”

Even so, Peel is optimistic about the growth rate of the national herd. Many producers were forced to cull heavily during the drought, but they did not do it at the expense of their herds’ quality.

Many heifers were kept and older cows were sold.

“We’ve probably got this herd as young and productive as maybe it has ever been,” Peel said. “When we do start to expand, we have the capability for a year or two to expand faster than what we could have probably seen otherwise.”

Growth will still take time. Peel expects it to be 2017 before herd numbers can even recover to 2011 pre-drought levels. Strong markets for feeders will continue to pull in a share of animals and moderate herd growth.

Cattle imported from Canada and Mexico make up only a small portion of the feeder cattle market, but Peel said the industry cannot expect extra animals from these sources to help supplement its own limited supply.

Mexico contended with its own extreme drought and liquidated much of its herd, many of those animals entering the U.S. “Last year we got just short of 1.5 million head of cattle from Mexico,” Peel said. “That is not a sustainable number. Those exports were at the expense of their ability to produce in the future.”

Already the results are evident, with 450,000 fewer head imported

from Mexico, year-to-date compared to last year.

And with Canada rebuilding its own national herd, those imports will remain relatively low.

All these factors lead Peel to believe the coming years will see the number of feeder cattle fall even further than the 3.5 percent decline projected by the end of this year.

Even though overall herd numbers have been declining since the 1970s, the number of cattle on feed has not followed the same pattern.

The industry has been able to keep those numbers up by feeding cattle more intensively and at a younger age so cattle move more slowly through the feeding process. For every calf on feed during the early ’70s and ’80s, there were three more available to replace it. By last year, less than two calves were available for every one calf on feed.

Years of cheap corn prices made it profitable to buy smaller calves to feed over a longer period of time.

“The question is, what has to go on to go forward, because over the last few years, that hasn’t been true,” Peel said. He projected price relationships between cattle weights and cost of gain, given a range of corn prices that should trend lower.

All these circumstances may lead to other unusual premiums. “I think there is a good chance that when we get really low with herd expansion, we will see much less discount on heifers relative to steers,” Peel speculated. “You may even see heifers bring premiums this year because the breeding female demand on top of the tremendous demand for the feeder

animal will be there.”

Such strong market signals for more feeder cattle would typically send producers into high gear to expand their herds and calf crops, but for many American cattlemen today the situation is not that simple. Most producers are more than 62 years old, and at this point in life they are not looking to increase their workload.

When you show a lot of older producers the potential that is out there from the cow calf standpoint, they say, ‘Yeah, I see all of that, but it ain’t going to be me. It’s going to be someone else,’” Peel said, but who will that “someone else” be?

Getting into the cattle business is not an easy task.

The next generation of cattlemen cannot borrow enough money to get started, so Peel said it is up to the older ranchers to help get them in business. He suggested looking at different financial arrangements such as long-term contracts or lease arrangements to transfer equity to the next wave of producers.

No matter who takes on the challenge, the fact remains that the market needs more feeder cattle than are available today. “Now the question is how far do we need to grow, and how fast can we do it,” Peel said.

The Feeding Quality Forums were sponsored by Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB), Feedlot Magazine, Purina Animal Nutrition, Roto-Mix and Zoetis.

More details and coverage at CABpartners.com.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 8

October 15, 2013

Conservation Easements and the Urge to Rule

BY TOM DEWEESE THE NEWAMERICAN.COM

onservation easements: The Green Mafia tells us this is the only way to save the family farm. Without their tax credits and restrictions on development rights, America will be paved over and Astroturf will replace sod. We’re in crisis, they tell us. However, as H.L Mencken once warned, “A plan to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”

Conservation and environmental groups openly advocate conservation easements as the answer to saving farmland, as do state departments of agriculture, farm bureaus, and the federal government. A full court press is on to lock in millions of acres of private property under the blazing headline, “Save the Family Farm.”

There’s no question that the family farm is under assault. Taxes, international trade agreements, inflation, and government regulations are eating away at the ability to keep the farm operating. I’ve never met a farmer who wanted to give up and stop working the land that perhaps his ancestors first acquired. In most cases it’s agony for a farmer to decide to sell his property. On the other hand, the land is his main asset. To provide a good life for the family, selling the land, many times to developers, is necessary for survival.

However, there is now a much more lethal threat facing small farmers, and the outrageous fact is, this threat is being disguised as a way to help them.

The real threat is the green solution — “conservation easements.” And farmers are falling into this trap across the country.

Conservation easements are promoted by land trusts and environmental groups. Tax breaks are promoted. Even cash is offered those farmers willing to sell their development rights under the argument that this will drive away the temptation to sell the land to nasty developers, thus keeping it farmland. The clever slogan, “Farm land lost is farm land lost forever,” helps sell the case for easements.

The promoters of such ideas are very good with the sales pitch. If it were politically correct to do so, one could actually hear “God Bless America” playing in the background as the promises to save the family farm roll off the pitchman’s tongue.

Say proponents, “A conservation easement is a voluntary perpetual agreement that restricts non-agricultural uses such as mining and large scale residential and commercial development.”

They boldly promote the easements by promising that “the landowner continues to own, live on, and use the land.” They even promise that the land can be passed down to heirs, along with generous tax credits. What’s not to like? Desperate farmers are

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flocking to the pitchman’s wagon to buy his life-saving potion.

Of course, as another famous pitchman, P.T Barnum, once said, “there’s a sucker born every minute.” Farmers beware the slick talker who has the answers to your woes. His answers may well be your demise — and your farm’s. It’s wise to read the fine print of a conservation easement agreement. Here are some facts.

The Facts about Conservation Easements In a typical conservation easement, a private Land Trust organization purchases some or all of the “bundle” of a property owner's rights. The bundle includes development rights for the property; the ability to overrule the owner’s choice of how to use the property, including adding more buildings or renovating or rebuilding existing buildings; in the case of farmers, it may include decisions on which fields to use for planting, or even which crops to grow and the technique to be used. All of these things come under the command of the easement. And all of it may become the decision of the Land Trust, because once the conservation easement agreement is signed, the owner’s rights are legally subservient to his new partner, the Trust.

True, in exchange, the property owner receives charitable deductions on federal taxes based on the difference between the values of the land before and after granting the easement. The property owner receives relief from federal estate or inheritance taxes. Many states provide income tax credits and property tax relief. And the owner receives a payment for his development rights.

In the beginning it all sounds good: Money in the pocket, the farm safe from development, and the ability to practice the beloved tradition of farming.

Well, maybe.

The fact is, under the easement, the owner has sold his property rights and therefore no longer has controlling interest in his property. Through the restrictions outlined in the easement, property usage is now strictly controlled, including everyday decisions on running the farm.

In many cases, the conservation group that controls the easement demands strict adherence to “sustainable” farming practices.

That means that strict controls on how much energy or water can be used in the farming process, access to streams for the livestock, use of fertilizer, etc., are all under the direction of the Land Trust. And there’s more.

Certain details weren’t revealed to the landowner as he signed on the dotted line. For example: n Trusts often re-sell the easement to other conservation groups. They sell and resell them like commodities. The farmer may not know who holds the control over his land. For these

groups, the easements become a significant profit center as they rake in fees for each new easement they sign up. n Worse, the conservation group may work directly with government agencies, helping to establish new regulations which alter best-management practices, driving up compliance costs.

Eventually these cost increases can force owners to sell their land at a reduced price. n This is especially effective when trying to dislodge a landowner who has refused to sell his land to the government or sign a conservation easement.

The Nature Conservancy is a master at this trick, creating millions of dollars of income for the group. Its favorite practice is to tell the landowner that the government intends to take the land, but if they sell to the Conservancy then it will guarantee that the land will stay in private hands. But of course, since the government intends to take the land it is now worth much less.

So they get the landowner to sell at a reduced rate. Then the Conservancy calls the government agency to tell them the good news that they have the land.

And the agency pays the Conservancy full market value. They call that “Capitalism with a heart!!” n Because ownership rights are muddled between taxes, restrictions, and best-practices requirements, it can be difficult to find a buyer willing to pay a fair market price for the land. In a sense, once the easement is signed, the owner has just rendered his land worthless on the open market. n Conservation easement deeds use broad language that expands the trust’s control but very specific language that limits the landowner’s rights.

When productive land is taken off the tax rolls, a revenue shortage is created that has to be made up by other taxpayers, causing rate hikes in property taxes.

Some Are More Equal Than Others All of the combined dangers from conservation easements, and all of the combined powerful forces of Land Trusts and governments seemed to land on the head of one innocent, lovely lady named Martha Boneta. Her story made national headlines last year and led to a colossal battle in the Virginia state legislature — a battle that continues to rage today without resolution.

In Fauquier County, Virginia, where Martha (and I) reside, the chief “conservation” group is a behemoth called the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC).

They have managed to work their way into every nook and cranny of the county, specifically in the county government. PEC people have bored deeply into the county development office and other country agencies; they converge on farmers to pressure

the establishment of conservation easement, and they make a ton of money from them. It’s good to be king.

In fact, PEC holds sway over nine Virginia counties and they brag that they have succeeded in “helping citizens protect nearly 350,000 acres” of land with “voluntary conservation easements.”

PEC calls it one of the most dramatic private land conservation successes in the nation. It is interesting to note that those nine counties, in particular Fauquier County, are the main center of the famous Virginia horse country where, throughout Virginia history, the rich landed gentry have had the pleasure of riding their horses across vast

open land in organized fox hunts. These horsy people are rich and powerful with vast estates in the countryside. Many have contributed to the PEC land conservation effort as a way to keep open space available for their fox-hunting pursuits.

It is also interesting to note the comments and attitudes often expressed by these people concerning newcomers to the county. Say the horsy gentry, there must be a way to curtail new people from coming into the county and buying or developing property. That’s because, they charge, these newcomers have no understanding or continued on page nine

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

October 15, 2013

Conservation Easements respect for the age old tradition of riding their horses over the land that now gets fenced in or blocked by these unwanted intruders. How dare they do that to their own land! The answer to their desire to stop it — the PEC. At a January, 2013 meeting of the Fauquier County planning commission, it was revealed that 96,600 acres of county land is in conservation easements (or 23 percent of the total land area of the county).

A little research revealed an interesting detail. It seems that, as the conservation easements are sold to the public as a way to save the small family farm, in reality, of the 23 percent of the land, only two percent of it is actually small family farms. The rest is basically the vast estates of the landed gentry who have found a way to not only keep the land open for their fox hunts — but to also reduce their property taxes.

Last year, when I presented these statistics in a talk in Richmond, Virginia, a member of the Piedmont Environmental Council commented that he “never thought he would hear a conservative advocate class warfare.” Actually, I was trying to prevent it.

Martha’s Plight Into this atmosphere, enter Martha Boneta. If one were to write down all of the requirements as expressed by the Greens for their idea of the perfect small farmer, Martha Boneta would be their poster child.

Martha just wanted to farm.

She loves it. And she is very creative about it. It was her dream come true when she found the small farm in Paris, Virginia. It had been on the market for at least six years. And so she was able to purchase it at a very reduced price from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

Everything was looking great for a lady anxious to get her hands in the dirt. She is into organic farming — just like the PEC advocates in their publications, on their website, and on bumper stickers — “Buy Fresh, Buy Local.” Martha made the farm a haven for rescued animals. She restored the heavily deteriorated barn and turned it into a small farm store to sell her products — items produced right there on the farm.

Oh yes, there was just one small detail brought up at the very last minute during the closing meeting for her mortgage loan as she was purchasing the property. The Piedmont Environmental Council slipped in a conservation easement on the property. This specific easement did not pay any cash to Martha nor did it provide any tax credits. All the benefits went to PEC. Martha signed the document because she had been told conservation easements were a way to protect the farm from being developed. She was for

that.

But there is one major aspect of Martha’s value system that doesn’t fit the PEC profile for the perfect small farmer. She believes in private property rights. And that’s when the trouble started. Space does not allow a full description of the battles Martha has faced over her attempts to farm her land.

Here is the “Cliff notes” version: Martha does not live on the farm, she owns a home in another location. The conservation easement she signed said she could have a small 1,600square-foot residence on the property. She never used the facility as a residence.

The Fauquier County planning board suddenly issued notice that Martha would be fined for selling items that were not produced on her farm, something she never actually did, and that she needed another permit in order to use the facility for events.

She was immediately threatened with fines of $5,000 for each violation brought by the county. The evidence used against her by the county was a photo of a children’s birthday party that Martha had posted on her Facebook page, allegedly proving that she had rented out the barn for a party. in fact, it was a private party for friends.

No money exchanged hands for the facility, but the battle was on.

Martha began to learn what a powerful weapon conservation easements can be in the hands of those who wanted to control her actions. The easement gave the PEC the right to occasionally inspect the property for “violations’ of the easement. Suddenly Martha was informed that PEC inspectors would visit the farm to investigate the “living quarters.” Rather than a random occasional or annual visit, PEC came back again and again; demanding to look into her private closets; even banning her right to videotape the inspections on her own property.

The PEC found fault with a simple water nozzle Martha had purchased to use in washing her animals. Somehow that was a violation. There is an old cemetery on the property dating back to 1832. In it are buried the families of former residents of the area and black slaves. To keep the farm animals from walking though the cemetery, Martha installed a simple fence.

“Violation,” said PEC, “It damages the view shed.” On and on went the harassment over such idiotic claims. Along with it came thousands of dollars of legal expenses as Martha fought to defend herself.

Eventually, as a result of non-stop pressure and the threat of fines from the county, plus the pressure from PEC, Martha was forced to close her farm store, seriously damaging a major part of her ability to earn

continued from page eight

income from the farm.

What was her real crime? She had challenged county planning restrictions. And in doing so, she had become a threat to their authority and that of the PEC, which is the driving force behind county controls over private property.

Non-Governmental Control = Government Corruption Every American, especially farmers, should learn this lesson from Martha’s story: Conservation easements, comprehensive planning, and controls over private property, while always sold as a way to help, are actually a Trojan Horse of corruption.

If there is a poster child in this story it is the government of Fauquier County. Corruption begins with the absolute influence and power unleashed by a non-governmental organization like the Piedmont Environmental Council. It is aided by an elite few who seek to use government power for their own personal gains. And it is enforced by a compliant county Board of Supervisors that will use that power as a weapon to crush anyone who dares stand up against them.

Beware America! Unfortunately, Martha’s story is not unique. Every community has its own version of the Piedmont Environmental Council calling the shots behind the scenes.

Their very agenda of power, and the corruption it brings, is now showing itself in every local and state government — all under the overused and unsubstantiated excuses of environmental protection and “local planning.”

Tom DeWeese is one of the nation’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence. Go to americanpolicy.org for more information

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New Arizona National Livestock Show Steer & Heifer Jackpot Show he Arizona National Livestock Show is pleased to announce the addition of a Steer and Heifer Jackpot Show set for December 31, 2013.

This event will take place during the 66th annual Arizona National Livestock Show which will be held December 27-31, 2013 at the Arizona State Fairgrounds in Phoenix.

The Jackpot Show is open to all youth exhibitors from any state and will also be sanctioned by Southern Arizona International Livestock Association (SAILA).

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“Our vision is to create an elite jackpot show for beef exhibitors which gives young people an opportunity to showcase their animals,” Dean Fish, President-Elect and Co-Chair of the Jackpot Show shared.

Exhibitors may enter upon arrival and cattle that are purchased in the Show’s Feeder Steer and Heifer Sale are also eligible to participate. Weigh-in begins at 8 a.m. on December 31 and cattle will be released after the Show is completed.

State Receives Funding for Livestock Loss Prevention

BY JILL JAGELSKI, WWW.BEARTOOTHNBC.COM

or the first time ever, the state of Montana has received a federal grant to fund preventative work for wolf-livestock conflicts.

The money will not only go toward non-lethal projects, but it will also pay ranchers for lost livestock.

Since wolves were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park in the late 90s, property owners and environmentalists have been trying to find a compromise.

Ron Aashiem with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks says, “How do you address the livestock loss thing? Those folks have every right to protect the resources they manage and the livestock they’re growing.”

The Montana Livestock Loss Board formed in 2008, and survived solely on donations for 2 years. Since 2010, the board has managed to get by with a one-time federal grant, as well as some additional state funds.

Now, thanks to a $170,000 federal grant, the board can breathe a sigh of relief.

George Edwards: “This is the first meaningful amount of money that the board has ever had since their inception to fund a loss prevention

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project so this is huge for our board.”

Montana’s Fish Wildlife and Parks has helped in removing wolves that have harmed cattle, and supports the federal grant.

Aashiem: “We’re always looking for ways to prevent depredation.”

The money will go toward nonlethal preventative projects, like carcass removal, and will also help pay verified wolf damage claims. Edwards says there is potential for counties suffering the greatest loss to receive the most amount of money.

“This grant will allow us to possible fund some, say the carcass removal program and get on started in say Lewis and Clark County.”

In 2012, the board reported 11 livestock deaths in Lewis and Clark County, costing more than $10,000, and ranking the county third in the entire state. But with sequestration cuts, the potential for similar grants in the future looks grim.

“Our board will be going to the next legislative session with a funding bill to try to fund these prevention activities and try to keep this as an ongoing process.”

But the board has its work cut out, last session, state lawmakers failed to pass an essential funding bill for wolf projects.

Livestock Market Digest

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October 15, 2013

RANGE magazine receives Freedom Of The Press Award he Nevada Press Association recognized journalistic excellence September 28, during its annual convention in Elko, and conveyed major awards upon RANGE magazine.

RANGE received 20 awards: 12 first place, four second, and four third. The first place awards include the coveted Freedom of the Press and Outstanding Journalist and Outstanding Visual Journalist awards. The Arizona Press Association judged the competition.

RANGE is devoted to issues that threaten the West, its people, lifestyles, lands and wildlife.

No stranger to controversy, for more than 20 years RANGE has presented thought-provoking, commonsense stories on the environmental and political problems facing westerners and their lands and families.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS is a major editorial recognition awarded for upholding the principals of the First Amendment and protecting the public’s right to know. The judge commented: “RANGE went above and beyond to make sure an important story that fell between its quarterly publication dates was not overlooked by the press.”

The important story dealt with the Hage ranch family’s legal battles with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

RANGE had been following the Hage saga since its inception, including a Reno court appearance in summer 2012, which was summarized in three editorial pieces in the magazine: “Justice for Hage,” writer Julian Stone (www.rangemagazine.com/Fall 2012). “Up Front: Storming the beaches of the Toiyabe,” writer C.J. Hadley (www.rangemagazine.com/Fall 2012). “Eye of the Storm,” writer Ramona Hage Morrison.

2012. “Eye of the Storm,” writer Ramona Hage Morrison (www.rangemagazine.com/Winter 2013).

“The Freedom of the Press award means a great deal,” says RANGE publisher Caroline Joy “CJ” Hadley. “Freedom can only exist when media outlets protect the public’s right to know by diligently pursuing and relating the truth. We discovered during the process of keeping the public informed that it is also imperative that we look at the value of government news releases and the process by which the media can sometimes be manipulated by official sources.”

Rather than a daily publication, RANGE, a quarterly magazine, was there when Chief Federal District Court Judge Robert C. Jones chastised the federal government for more than three hours in a Reno courtroom about its conspiracy to deprive the Hages of their ranch and

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referred the agencies for a criminal investigation.

“Instead of waiting for our next issue, which was not due out for many weeks,” Hadley says. “I felt the public had a right to know immediately what had transpired and disseminated an account of the court proceedings to print and electronic media. In a sense, RANGE acted as a pool reporter for other news organizations. Sometimes in the competitive news cycle, we need to remind ourselves that we are here to serve the public and be vigilant in our need to protect Freedom of the Press.”

EDITOR’S NOTE & BACKGROUND: The Hages, a Tonopah, Nev., ranching family, have been fighting a 35-year-old battle in two major cases: U.S. v. Hage, a 22year-old case involving the Constitution Fifth Amendment “taking” of their vested water rights and improvements on their 750,000 acre ranch by the BLM and USFS. On appeal the Hages prevailed in defending their property rights and much of the $14 million judgment awarded them by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

The summer 2012 courtroom action covered in RANGE’s Freedom of the Press Award primarily deals with a retaliatory 2007 case brought by the BLM and USFS, U.S. v. Hage, which alleged “trespass” charges against the Hages. In a widely circulated BLM press release, the agency’s view of earlier events involving the Hages were erroneous, misleading and presented a skewed version of the government’s conduct.

In the court’s published decision and a separate contempt of court hearing, both agencies and employees have been told they clearly overstepped their authority in what has been called a history-making battle, and one that could have consequences for producers who use public lands across the West to raise food for supermarket shelves—and consequences for the consumer’s pocketbook.

In the Nevada Press Association competition, the newspaper contestants were divided by circulation and frequency and included the Las Vegas Review Journal, Las Vegas SUN, and Reno-Gazette Journal. Electronic submissions and magazines were judged in a separate category.

The magazines are a diverse group, with the majority falling in the lifestyle or travel editorial.

RANGE is a national publication devoted to sustainable resources and environmental issues. Produced in Carson City, Nev., it is often controversial, political, and has been described as “the voice of reason amidst a cacophony of madmen.”

Amish Recycling he Amish have many admirable traits; generosity, a work ethic, a Godly discipline, thriftiness and a small footprint on the ecology.

Talk about recycling!

They put us glass, tin can, cardboard, energy-hungry practitioners to shame. We use so much diesel, gas and oil driving, hauling, mashing, crushing and condensing the messes we make it’s probably not an even trade!

The Amish don’t make a mess in the first place.

An example of their “leave no mess” philosophy was demonstrated when Amish Joe decided to sell a cull cow at the local sale barn in rural Indiana. Joe hired a man to haul her. Joe’s son Jack and his brother-in-law, Amos all wanted to go. They could only fit three in the pickup so Amos climbed in the stock trailer with the cow. It was November, the trailer was a solid body gooseneck with full doors so there was no danger of Amos getting

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cold.

Once they reached the auction and parked in the unloading line, Joe and Jack went into the barn to visit. Amos waited patiently for them to come back, till finally he beat on the side of the trailer. This racket woke the driver, who came back and opened the trailer gates.

Amos stepped out into the daylight, paused, and the cow ran out over the top of him! She trotted through the parking lot and as truck doors opened she showed them all her tail! Out onto the four lane highway, she looked back with pride, and was blindsided by a well-used faded gray Toyota Camry!

When Joe reached the scene of the collision he noted that the hood was dented and one headlight had a black eye. Joe offered to take the victim’s information, but he took one look at the dazed cow and said, “No thanks!”

Before anybody could grab a

rope, the cow struggled to her feet and ran into a newly harvested soybean field. The chase was on! The pursuers never had a chance, bogged down, slinging mud and stumbling over each other. Then, the Indiana State Police arrived! One officer stayed to monitor the radio, the other, Officer York, had just come on duty. His hat was clean, his shirt was starched, his brass was polished and his shoes were shined. “I ain’t goin’ out der,” said Officer York, “but with your permission I will restrain the cow.” He drew his Glock 22, chambered for .40 S&W and began firing at the cow 20 yards away.

After a few stray shots he handed the pistol to Joe, who brought him down with one bullet. The policeman asked about disposal of the carcass. Joe said he would take care of it. After a 30 minute trip to WalMart he returned to the scene of the gun battle with a roll of plastic, Coleman lantern, meat saw and some butcher knives. By 2 am they were putting a cowful of wrapped primal cuts in his propane freezer back home in the milk barn.

We can all learn a lesson about real recycling from Joe. As to what Joe learned, he remarked that if he was ever being pursued by the state police he’d prefer it be Officer York, especially if gun fire was involved.

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“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

October 15, 2013

Page 11

Australian Coalition takes axe to climate programs

BY SID MAHER AND

R.G. DAVIS, BROKER • 530/347-9455 JEFF DAVIS, REALTOR • 530/604-3655 TONYA REDIMONTI, REALTOR • 530/521-6054

LAUREN WILSON, THE AUSTRALIAN

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INTEREST RATES A S L OW A S 3% Pay m en t s Sch ed u l ed o n 25 Year s

J o e Stu b b l ef i el d & A s s o c i at es 13830 Wes ter n St ., A m ar i l l o , TX 806/622-3482 • c el l 806/674-2062 joes3@suddenlink.net Mi c h ael Per ez A s s o c i at es Nar a Vi s a, NM • 575/403-7970

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UNION CO. NM Amistad area, 976.42 ac. w/612 ac. formerly under pivot irr., presently enrolled in new CRP contract @ $45.60 per acre, per year, for 10 yrs., irr. wells & pivot points all connected w/UG pipe. PRICE REDUCED! HORSE MOTEL – TUCUMCARI, NM Known coast-tocoast and in all parts in between – 4 ac. +/- on the edge of town. Nice metal frame horse stables w/pipe-rail pens.

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Come see this 3 Bedroom, 2 bath home in Melrose. Complete with garage, carport and 30x40 barn. Arena style pen for boarding horses and/or roping. All on 2.2 acres.

TUCUMCARI • 7351 QUAY ROAD AI Enjoy country living and spectacular views in this beautiful 3100 plus square home containing many custom features overlooking the far west reaches of Ute Lake on 33 acres, or build your own dream home on choice of eight 40 +/- acre lots.

Paul Stout, Qualifying Broker (575) 760-5461 pkstout@gmail.com Missouri Land Sales ■ 675 Ac. Excellent Cattle Ranch, Grass Runway, Land Your Own Plane: Major Price Reduction. 3-br, 2ba home down 1 mile private lane.

New 40x42 shop, 40x60 livestock barn, over 450 ac. in grass. (Owner runs over 150 cow/calves, 2 springs, 20 ponds, 2 lakes, consisting of 3.5 and 2 ac. Both stocked with fish. Excellent fencing. A must farm to see. MSL #1112191

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Cattle/horse ranch. Over 150 acres in grass. 3/4 mile State Hwy. frontage. Live water, 60x80 multi-function barn. 2-bedroom, 1-bath rock home. Priced to sell at $1,620 per acre. MLS #1204641 ■ NEW LISTING - RARE FIND - 226 ACRES 1.5 miles of Beaver Creek runs along & thru this "Ozark Treasure." Long bottom hay field, walnut grove, upland grazing, excellent hunting, deep swimming hole, 4 BR, 2BA older farm house. Don't snooze and loose on this one. Call today! MLS #1303944

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ublic servants are drawing up plans to collapse 33 climate change schemes run by seven departments and eight agencies into just three bodies run by two departments under a substantial rewrite of the administration of carbon abatement schemes under the Coalition.

Coalition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt briefed public servants on the dramatic restructure of the federal climate change bureaucracy before the election was called and yesterday confirmed the Coalition was committed to proceeding with the plan.

Under the simplification, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Resources and Energy will run all of the climate change programs under the Coalition’s directaction program.

The move is forecast to save the government tens of millions of dollars. The Coalition budgeted for savings of $7 million this financial year rising to $13m in each of the next three years for a saving of $45m across the budget period.

The changes will see all carbon abatement schemes run by three bodies: the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which will be overseen by the Department of Resources and Energy; and the Clean Energy Regulator and Low Carbon Australia, which will be run by the Department of the Environment.

The Climate Change Authority, which sets emissions caps, the Climate Commission, which has conducted research into climate change, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which funds renewable technologies, are all slated to be abolished under the plans.

Treasury has responsibility for Low Carbon Australia and the CEFC, while the Industry Department has control over a range of clean technology programs. The Department of Agriculture runs a series of carbon farming programs, while the Department of Families runs household assistance packages, home energy savings programs and the remote indigenous energy program.

Under the Coalition, Low Carbon Australia will be responsible for purchasing emissions reductions under the Coalition’s direct action program.

“What we’ve said is we will commence the merger as soon as the process of appointing the ministry and swearing in the ministry has been complete,”

Mr. Hunt told the 2GB radio station in Sydney yesterday. “To be frank, during the course of the pre-election period, when we were allowed to consult with departments, we laid out the fact that there would be a merger.

We were express and clear and absolute about that, and we indicated we would like it to begin right from the outset. I imagine that the public servants are preparing to do that. Our agenda was clear and open and that is an official process we’ll go through as soon as possible.”

The moves came as Tony Abbott continued briefings with senior public servants, including the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Ian Watt, as he continued his transition-to-government plans.

The CEFC confirmed yesterday it had stopped making loans for energy efficiency and clean energy programs. Staff at the $10 billion green bank are seeking a meeting with the incoming Abbott government as a top priority.

“The CEFC congratulates the new government upon its election and will welcome the opportunity to consult with the incoming responsible ministers,” the bank’s chief executive Oliver Yates said. “The CEFC has approached the Coalition to engage in consultations about the transition and looks forward to engaging with the new government concerning how its activities can best be supportive of their policy priorities under Direct Action.”

The Coalition will need to legislate to abolish the CEFC, which has amassed a $560m investment portfolio and leveraged $1.6bn in private sector investment. But the bank is understood to be lobbying a Coalition government to utilise its staff and assets as part of its Direct Action scheme, and change its investment mandate so it could work within the framework of the Coalition’s policy.

An Abbott government will need to legislate if it seeks to abolish the Climate Change Authority, which is proceeding with work on a draft report about emissions reductions targets that is due to be completed next month. In the wake of Labor and Greens declarations that they would oppose the abolition of carbon pricing, Mr. Abbott said he expected the parliament to “respect the mandate that the new government has.”

“It will obviously be an issue (for the Labor Party) . . . whether it learns from its mistakes and whether it’s prepared to accept that it simply got it wrong when it came to these toxic new taxes,” Mr. Abbott said.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 12

Administration moves to protect drinking water for millions of Americans FROM WWW.WATERWORLD.COM

he Obama Administration proposed a rule to restore protections to small streams and wetlands under the Clean Water Act (CWA) after those protections were eroded following two Supreme Court decisions. The ruling has been supported by some environmental organizations, inlcuding American Rivers.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over 117 million Americans rely in whole or in part on public water systems fed by small streams — the same streams that were made more vulnerable to pollution and destruction following

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the confusing court decisions, unnecessarily narrow guidance and pressure from polluters.

The proposed rule, which is now under review by the Office of Management and Budget, is based on a scientific synthesis report released on 9/17 by the EPA that clarifies and quantifies the connection between the health of small streams — regardless of size and frequency of flow — and wetlands to the health of larger rivers. The report builds on robust scientific evidence linking protection of small streams and wetlands to clean water, fish and wildlife, and flood control, and provides the foundation for the rulemaking.

Bob Irvin, president of American Rivers, said, “Small streams and wetlands are essential to the health of our environment and communities, just as veins and arteries and tiny capillaries are essential to the health of our bodies. That is why, when Congress passed the Clean Water Act more than 40 years ago, it protected all of the nation’s waters.”

“Restoring Clean Water Act safeguards for streams and wetlands, and the people who depend upon them, means our families and communities will enjoy safer drinking water, reduced flood damage, and healthier rivers for fishing and recreation,” he said.

Ranchers Urge Congress to Pass the Water Rights Protection Act FROM HTTP://KTICRADIO.COM

estern ranchers hail the introduction of the Water Rights Protection Act (WRPA), H.R. 3189

by Congressman Scott Tipton (RColo.). The bipartisan bill was introduced recently with additional co-sponsors: Mark Amodei (RNev.), Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

This legislation provides a means to combat the recent directive that allows the USFS to seize private water rights without just compensation.

“The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has taken a page out of the Environmental Protection Agency playbook and continues to illustrate its disregard for property rights through its continued efforts to federalize all waters in the U.S.,”

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said Public Lands Council president and Colorado rancher Brice Lee. “The USFS has failed to provide adequate compensation; instead, they have attempted to acquire these rights in exchange for special use permits, likely in violation of a recent Supreme Court ruling in Koontz. It is clear this bureaucracy is grossly overstepping its bounds and has to be prevented from usurping our members’ private property rights.”

The USFS has recently attempted to require the transfer of privately owned water rights on federal lands to the federal government as a condition of issuing standard land use permits. The agency has not provided adequate compensation as required by Article V of the Constitution and has repeatedly ignored established state water laws in order to perform these tasks.

“With 40 percent of the western

cow herd spending some time on public lands, the ability to have secure water rights is imperative, not only to producers but to the economy,” said Scott George, a rancher and dairy producer from Cody, Wyoming, “This legislation is a commonsense bill that provides certainty to ranchers and leaves water management to the states where it belongs. The USFS must be accountable to citizens and the states and cannot, at will, circumvent state water laws at the expense of landowners.”

The legislation proposed would prohibit the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture from requiring the transfer of water rights without adequate and just compensation. Additionally, the bill supports long-established state water laws, clarifying that the federal government does not have jurisdiction.

October 15, 2013

EPA Study Could Be Used To Expand Reach of Law Over Waters

BY AMENA H. SAIYID, WWW.MODBEE.COM

ederal regulators may be able to assert Clean Water Act jurisdiction over more waters and wetlands than are now protected on the basis of a draft scientific study that links all streams and certain wetlands with larger, downstream navigable waters, attorneys and policy analysts say.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s draft study finds that all tributary streams, including perennial and the previously unprotected intermittent and ephemeral streams, are physically, chemically and biologically connected to downstream rivers.

The study, released September 17, also finds that wetlands and open waters in flood plains of rivers and riparian areas also are connected in the same way as streams are to downstream rivers.

The study, however, was unable to generalize that a connection exists between isolated wetlands and open waters, such as playa lakes and prairie potholes, that are located outside flood plains and downstream waters.

Instead, it said the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could, on a case-by-case basis, evaluate whether these isolated wetlands have an aggregate impact on downstream waters.

The EPA said the study provides the first comprehensive link between headwater streams, which make up the most abundant type of streams in the U.S., and downstream navigable waters.

The study, which the EPA Science Advisory Board is now reviewing, will serve as the scientific basis for a rule developed jointly by the EPA and the corps to clarify Clean Water Act jurisdiction over the nation’s waters and wetlands.

The EPA on Sept. 17 sent a proposed rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget for interagency review. At the same time, it withdrew draft guidance on the issue that had been at the White House since 2012 .

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Issue of Jurisdiction The issue of jurisdiction carries a great deal of significance. The fact that a water is covered by the Clean Water Act has implications for permitting of pollution discharges, filling of wetlands

and streams, certifications by states that activities such as dam-building or other federally permitted activities do not harm water quality and cleanup of oil spills.

Under the Clean Water Act, the EPA or responsible state authorities have responsibility for issuing permits under the Section 402 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program, while the corps issues Section 404 dredge-and-fill permits for construction and other development projects. The EPA oversees the Section 404 program.

Attorneys said the study could allow the agencies to assert jurisdiction in a blanket fashion over ephemeral and intermittent streams, rather than force them to try to find a significant nexus for each non-navigable tributary in question with downstream navigable waters. The socalled significant nexus test was established by the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715, 62 ERC 1481 (2006).

Scientific Justification Brian Glass, an attorney with Bryn Mawr, Pa.-based Warren Glass LLP, said the report “is plainly an attempt to provide scientific justification for finding that certain categories of waters possess a ‘significant nexus’ to navigable waters and for asserting jurisdiction over them.”

Glass added, “I would expect the joint draft rule that EPA and the Corps submitted to OMB to assert federal jurisdiction over all tributary streams and all wetlands and open-waters in riparian areas and floodplains.”

Brent Carson, a Seattlebased attorney and partner with Van Ness Feldman LLP, agreed.

“As you read the tea leaves, that’s exactly the conclusion we believe is likely—that the agencies will use the draft study to provide the scientific basis to argue all streams should be considered jurisdictional no matter the size or flow rate,” Carson said.

Don Parrish, senior regulatory relations director for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said that “the study appears to give EPA the justification to regulate all waters, not just those that are navigable waters. That is contrary to continued on page thirteen

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

October 15, 2013

EPA Study what Congress authorized.”

2008 Guidance Under current policy, as set out in joint EPA-Army Corps guidance issued in 2008, Clean Water Act jurisdiction extends to traditional navigable waters; wetlands adjacent to traditional navigable waters; non-navigable tributaries of traditional navigable waters that are relatively permanent, including those tributaries that typically flow year-round or have continuous flow at least three months of the year and wetlands that directly abut such tributaries.

As a result of the new study, the EPA and the corps could propose to bring all wetlands in flood plains and riparian areas, including those that abut ephemeral and intermittent streams, under federal protection. Ephemeral and intermittent streams also could fall under federal protection.

Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School, and Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Jon Devine pointed out that asserting jurisdiction over waters does not automatically translate into requiring permits for dredge-and-fill activities and discharges of pollutants.

“Even if a water is jurisdictional, there needs to be proof of addition of a pollutant, be it dredge and fill or discharges, before a state or federal regulator can even require a permit under the Clean Water Act,” said Parenteau, who was formerly the regional counsel of the EPA Region 1 from 1984 to 1987.

In general, Devine said in an e-mail, “an activity typically only triggers Clean Water Act permitting requirements if it results in an ‘addition’ of a ‘pollutant' from a ‘point source’ into a ‘water of the United States.’ ” Permitting cannot be sought for waters that aren’t under the act’s jurisdiction, they said.

Supreme Court Confusion Asserting jurisdiction over waters and wetlands and the question of what is considered a water of the U.S. have been sources of much uncertainty, litigation and confusion because of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions that attempted to circumscribe Clean Water Act jurisdiction. The first was Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159, 51 ERC 1833 (2001), and the second was Rapanos.

The court in SWANCC said the agencies couldn’t assert jurisdiction over geographically isolated wetlands as waters of the U.S. merely because they served as habitat for migratory birds.

In Rapanos, the Supreme Court split on defining a standard to establish jurisdiction.

continued from page twelve

Justice Anthony Kennedy issued a concurring opinion, which said the agencies must prove on a case-by-case basis that a particular water or wetland has a “significant nexus” to a navigable water. Meanwhile, Justice Antonin Scalia’s plurality opinion said the Clean Water Act should apply to waters and wetlands with a “continuous surface” connection to navigable waters.

Kennedy said he articulated the significant nexus standard to enable the agencies to assert jurisdiction over intermittent and ephemeral streams and wetlands without a direct connection to navigable waters because the two agencies had failed to promulgate a rule that would clarify and identify which waters fell under federal protection.

Response to Rapanos The two agencies have chosen to use Kennedy’s concurring opinion and Scalia’s plurality opinion as the bookends for jurisdiction, first asserting through the 2008 guidance document and then through the draft guidance in 2011. Developers, builders, and environmental groups have termed these documents vague and confusing and sought additional clarification as well as rulemaking.

The confusion also had an effect on government regulatory policy, according to the EPA Office of Inspector General.

The inspector general said in an October 2009 report that the EPA dropped 77 potential Clean Water Act Section 404 cases between July 2006 and December 2007 because it was uncertain whether it could establish jurisdiction.

“In some cases, the jurisdictional uncertainty that resulted from the Rapanosand SWANCC cases makes it unclear whether a §404 violation has even occurred,” the IG report said.

Significant Nexus Test Not Needed According to the attorneys, the draft connectivity study obviates the need for conducting a significant nexus test on intermittent and ephemeral streams.

“The draft report is clearly a response to Justice Kennedy’s concurrence in Rapanos,” Glass said, “What the report appears to attempt to do is provide the scientific justification for a rule asserting blanket jurisdiction over certain broad categories of waters (tributary streams and wetlands and open-waters in riparian areas and floodplains) without having to make case-bycase ‘significant nexus’ determinations for those waters.”

According to Carson, the main conclusion in the draft study concerning streams and wetlands and open waters in flood plains makes Scalia’s direct, continuous surface con-

nection test superfluous.

“EPA and the Army Corps may rely on this conclusion to create a ‘bright line’ test for regulating all wetlands located in flood plains and riparian corridors as being ‘waters of the United States’ and avoid the need for any ‘significant nexus’ analysis,” Carson and other attorneys with Van Ness Feldman wrote in a Sept. 19 issue alert.

One of the key aspects of the study that is causing much concern among home builders and farmers is the possibility that geographically isolated wetlands and waters located in uplands could be considered waters of the U.S. if regulators were able to demonstrate that those upland waters have a cumulative impact on downstream navigable waters.

Those waters were deemed not to be under Clean Water Act protection by the EPA and the corps in a 2003 memorandum following the SWANCC decision.

Wetlands Data Insufficient The draft connectivity study finds the data are insufficient to conclusively link isolated wetlands—though they provide flood retention and nutrient and sediment trapping benefits—to downstream waters. However, the study suggests that the agencies could evaluate these wetlands individually or consider their cumulative impact on downstream waters on a case-bycase basis.

Glass said he would not be surprised if the forthcoming rule proposed a set of factors for determining whether all other wetlands possess sufficient connectivity to downstream waters to assert federal jurisdiction over them.

Those factors would most likely be challenged in court, where the key question would turn on whether this study provides the necessary scientific justification to satisfy the significant nexus standard set by Kennedy, he said.

Devine said he expects there will be much discussion on the impact of waters that are physically removed from flood plains.

“Where all of the available science supports a finding that any of these kinds of waters collectively have a meaningful impact on other waters, they must be protected,” he said.

Parenteau doesn’t expect the EPA will make prairie potholes— freshwater marshes found in the Upper Midwest that provide the benefit of absorbing snowmelt and floodwaters--jurisdictional, even in the aggregate. Instead, he said, he expects the EPA will consider such waters on an caseby-case basis.

Devine said the study, after being fully vetted by independent scientists, would provide the

Page 13

EPA challenged on waters jurisdiction rulemaking NATIONAL COTTON COUNCIL, WESTERNFARMPRESS.COM

n late September it was reported that US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had announced that it had sent a proposed rule to the White House for interagency review and public comment. According to senior EPA officials, the rule, crafted by both the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, will provide greater clarity about which waters are subject to Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction and greater certainty about which activities require CWA permits. In particular, the rule is aimed at small waterways that may dry up during some seasons, exist only after rains or are adjacent to other waters.

Since then, the National

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science for a rule that would resolve the uncertainty over which waters are protected.

Moreover, “such a rule would remedy the current approach to

Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) sent a letter to the White House accusing EPA of neglecting key steps in proposing a regulation that could expand the government’s regulatory reach over small streams and wetlands. The group contends that EPA failed to perform an economic analysis required for all new regulations that will have a “significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.”

According to the NFIB, the agency also failed to convene a Small Business Advocacy Review Panel as is required by law for such regulations. The group is urging the White House to return the proposed rule to EPA to perform the analysis and convene the review panel.

law enforcement, for instance, where officials have largely abandoned efforts to enforce the law in the headwaters of watersheds,” he said.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 14

October 15, 2013

South 40 Committee Created to Empower Young Beefmaster Breeders eefmaster Breeders United (BBU) has welcomed a new committee to the organization. The South 40 (S40) committee will focus on empowering future BBU leaders and increasing membership in the Beefmaster breed of cattle.

The S40 committee was formed and designed to increase participation of Beefmaster enthusiasts and BBU members that are over twenty one years of age and south of, or younger than, forty years of age. It is not limited to people under the age of forty and all ages are encour-

B

aged to take part in the committee. S40 membership is free to current, financial BBU members and $25 for non BBU members.

“We encourage all BBU members and potential Beefmaster breeders to stop by the South 40 tradeshow booth at the 53rd Annual BBU Convention happening October 31 through November 2 in the Historic Fort Worth Stockyards,” said BBU Field Representative Jason Bates.

“Our convention events will be a great opportunity for people interested in the South 40 committee to learn more about

getting involved, how to join and as well as attend a committee meeting.”

The goals of the S40 committee are to develop leadership skills and to create fundraising opportunities for BBU programs and encourage cattlemen and women to become more involved in BBU, as well as introduce a youthful voice to BBU and the industry as a whole. This will be accomplished by fostering lasting relationships, sharing ideas and by educating the future leaders of our breed and industry through seminars and field days.

“This new committee has brought a lot of excitement to the Beefmaster breed and we have a great group of committee members that are dedicated to the Beefmaster breed and empowering the young ranchers,” said South 40 committee chairman Trey Scherer of Brenham, Texas.

The committee vice-chairman is Justin Williams of Savannah, Tenn.; the committee secretary is Justin Rhodes of Axtell, Texas and the committee treasurer is Lauren Lyssy of San Antonio, Texas. The committee also consists of four subcommittees

including education, communication, fundraising and membership. The S40 committee is a special committee that was approved by the BBU Board of Directors at the July 2013 meeting.

For more information about Beefmaster Breeders United and its South 40 committee please contact the BBU office at 210/732-3132 or visit: www.beef masters.org. Stay connected to BBU through Facebook, view our videos on YouTube, follow us on Twitter and receive our news updates through joining our mailing list.

IRS Chief Counsel Memorandum Addresses Conservation Easement Valuation

BY NONPROFIT BLOGGER, LAWPROFESSORS.TYPEPAD.COM

he IRS Office of Chief Council has published a memorandum (Number 201334039, Release Date 8/23/2013)* that provides guidance on valuing conservation easements in accordance with some of the more technical requirements of Treasury Regulation § 1.170A-14(h)(3)(i). The memorandum specifically addresses the “contiguous parcel” and “enhancement” rules.

Pursuant to the contiguous parcel rule (found in the fourth sentence of Treasury Regulation § 1.170A-14(h)(3)(i)), the amount of the deduction in the case of a conservation easement covering a portion of contiguous property owned by the donor and the donor’s family (as defined in § 267(c)(4)) is the difference between the fair mar-

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ket value of the entire contiguous parcel before and after the granting of the easement.

Pursuant to the enhancement rule (found in the fifth sentence of Treasury Regulation § 1.170A-14(h)(3)(i)), if the granting of a conservation easement after January 14, 1986, has the effect of increasing the value of any other property owned by the donor or a related person, the amount of the deduction must be reduced by the amount of the increase in the value of the other property, whether or not such property is contiguous. Related person has the same meaning as in either § 267(b) or § 707(b).

The Chief Counsel memorandum discusses (i) the meaning of the term “family” for purposes of the contiguous parcel rule, (ii) the meaning of “related person” for purposes of the enhancement rule, and (iii)

rules relating to constructive ownership and entity classification and their impact on both the contiguous parcel and enhancement rules.

The Chief Counsel memorandum also explains (in footnote 1) that, for purposes of the contiguous parcel rule, whether the entire contiguous parcel is valued as one large property or as separate properties depends on the highest and best use of the entire contiguous parcel.

The examples provided in the memorandum address the following scenarios.

Scenario 1(a). Contiguous Parcel Owned by Donor.

Scenario 1(b). Contiguous Parcel Owned by Donor’s Family.

Scenario 2: Contiguous and Noncontiguous Parcels Owned

by Donor.

Scenario 3(a). Contiguous Parcel Owned by a Limited Lia-

bility Company, of Which Donor Is the Single Member.

Scenario 3(b). Contiguous Parcel Owned by a Limited Liability Company, of Which Donor’s Child Is the Single Member.

Scenario 3(c). Contiguous Parcels Owned by Limited Liability Companies, of Which Donor and Donor’s Parent Are the Single Members.

Scenario 4(a). Contiguous Parcel Owned by a Limited Liability Company Classified As a Corporation, of Which Donor Is the Single Member.

Scenario 4(b). Contiguous Parcel Owned by a Limited Liability Company Classified As a Partnership, of Which Donor and Donor’s Family Are Members.

Scenario 4(c). Contiguous Parcel Owned by a Limited Liability Company Classified As a Partnership, of Which Donor’s

Spouse and Unrelated Individuals Are Members.

Scenario 4(d). Contiguous Parcel Owned by a Limited Liability Company Classified As a Partnership, of Which Donor and an Unrelated Individual Are Members.

Scenario 5(a). Contiguous Parcel Owned by a Limited Liability Company Classified As a Partnership, of Which Donor Is Considered to Own More Than 50%.

Scenario 5(b). Contiguous Parcel Owned by a Limited Liability Company Classified as a Partnership, of Which Donor Is Considered to Own Less Than 50%.

For an additional insightful discussion of some of the conservation easement-specific valuation rules in Treasury Regulation § 1.170A-14(h)(3), see Browning v. Comm’r, 109 T.C. 303 (1997).

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October 15, 2013

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Page 15

Ninth Circuit asked to stop USDA predator killing

BY SCOTT SONNER, ASSOCIATED PRESS, WWW.MODBEE.COM

nvironmentalists have appealed a federal judge’s rejection of their lawsuit in Nevada aimed at shutting down a federal program that spends more than $100 million a year to subsidize the killing of coyotes, mountain lions and other predators that threaten livestock.

The appeal filed in early October targets a ruling in March by U.S. District Judge Miranda Du, who dismissed most of the WildEarth Guardians (WEG) lawsuit that claims the Depression-era program of the U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) is illegal because it relies on scientific and environmental data that is nearly two decades old.

Among other things, Du said the harm cited by the conservationists would not be alleviated by shutting down the Wildlife

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Services operation in Nevada — where 6,000 coyotes are killed annually and federal officials spend about $1.5 million a year — because the state has said it would carry out the killings itself.

Lawyers for WEG said in its appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that Nevada doesn't have the resources to continue all the work. A state wildlife official agreed.

“We wouldn’t have the manpower,” Nevada Department of Wildlife spokesman Chris Healy said. “They are in some wild places in Nevada doing that kind of predator work where we have zero personnel. We already have a full plate.”

The environmentalists said the program that spent $127 million to exterminate more than five million animals in 2010 should be suspended nationally until USDA updates its scientific analysis that's based largely on an environmental impact statement conducted in 1994 when the program was much smaller.

In 1988, Wildlife Services spent $26 million to control 17 target species, compared to 2010 when it spent $126 million on a list of about 300 species, court documents state.

New research includes “scientific analysis on the critical ecological role of carnivores, the proven ineffectiveness of trapping and availability of nonlethal alternatives,” WEG lawyer Ashley Wilmes wrote in the appeal. She also said recent studies show it is more cost effective to compensate livestock producers for losses than to pay for expensive methods, such as aerial gunning.

The nonprofit group based in Colorado has failed to win similar lawsuits during the past 20 years mostly because courts have ruled they lacked legal standing due to failure to demonstrate actual harm.

Judge Du concluded a Nevada member of the group, Don Molde, had in fact established actual harm as a result of

a reduction in his ability to view coyotes, mountain lions and ravens. But she agreed with the government’s argument that “there’s no relief they can obtain that would redress their alleged injury.”

Brian Collins, a Justice Department lawyer representing USDA, likened it to a case involving the Goat Ranchers of Oregon in 2010, when the 9th Circuit held that the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife would trap and kill cougars if federal officials didn't do the job.

“Nevada has unequivocally stated its intent to carry out its wildlife management activities regardless of whether it receives assistance from Wildlife Services,” he said in court documents.

Du agreed, ruling that Molde’s “injuries” would continue to occur as a result.

She based her conclusion on a 2010 letter from then-Nevada Department of Wildlife Director Kenneth Mayer who stated that without federal participation,

Beef Industry’s Path Charted Demand for higher quality can support more cattle in coordinated supply chains rosperity for any industry depends on consumer demand, a Western Kentucky University animal scientist points out. Of course, that includes the beef industry or cattle community.

Nevil Speer, in a new white paper,“Consumers, Business and Breeding Systems: Charting the Beef Industry’s Path,”says the implications are clear.

“All business decisions on the ranch, as everywhere along the beef supply chain, should be made with an eye on consumer demand for beef,” he says.

Following a 2011 work that explored why crossbreeding is not more widely used, the latest paper details shifting market signals and a sometimes-volatile relationship between consumer demand and industry output since 1960. It suggests what emerging dynamics mean for an integrated business environment and outlook for the beef industry’s value chain.

Those expectations and fluctuations have always been tied to the consumer, the animal scientist points out.

“Traditional thinking leads commodity businesses to constantly face the same question: ‘What’s the market going to do?’”

Speers says. “That paradigm implies a price-taker mentality and fails to truly connect to the signals consumers send that establish those prices.”

In the face of increased demand for higher quality beef, tight supplies and tighter margins, being a “price taker” risks being left behind.

Within a new mindset, success means delivering “quality, consistency, efficiency and vol-

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ume across a whole realm of products and attributes,” Speer says. That requires moving from a“commodity-sorting system to growing adoption of more specialized production.”

There are six million fewer beef cows in the U.S. compared to 17 years ago, and the feeder cattle supply at 35.6 million head represents less than 2.5 times current feedyard capacity.

“That’s barely sufficient to provide normal turns of cattle, let alone provide opportunities for extended grazing or heifer retention,” Speer says. The shortage brings more focus on the opportunity to capture the “new dollars” derived only from consumers.

Following the retail grocer example of keeping costs low and profits high by stocking shelves and meat cases only with what’s selling, the beef industry ramped up alliances and certified beef programs. It took 20 years after the Certified Angus Beef® brand first became USDA-certified in 1978 for 10 more programs to come along.

In the 13 years since then, 129 new programs have been introduced.

“This points to ever-growing market differentiation,” Speers says, noting it has come in the face of a financial crisis.

USDA quality grades are associated with higher levels of marbling, which generally leads to an increased likelihood of a favorable eating experience. In particular, higher degrees of marbling are positively tied to USDA “A-stamp” percentages, with those cattle showing a higher probability of grading Choice or better.

“NDOW would, by statute, carry out the management of wildlife with existing personnel or contract the work to other capable entities.”

Healy said that wasn’t meant to suggest there would be no impact on predator management in Nevada.

Of the $1.5 million USDA spends on the program in Nevada, only about $300,000 to $400,000 annually goes to predator control aimed at protecting wildlife such as mountain lions feeding on mule deer herds or ravens ravaging sage grouse nests.

The state would continue to do its best to carry out that work with a portion of the money collected from big game tags because “we still have some statutory responsibilities we can’t ignore,” Healy said.

“But would we be able to fill the void? Not the whole void created by their actions,” he said.

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“The effect of establishing positive demand spells prosperity: more consumers buying more beef at higher prices,”Speer notes in the research paper.

Growth in that market speaks for itself: the value of weekly combined sales for USDA Prime and branded products (a function of both volume and price) has increased nearly 400 percent since 2003 and now represents nearly $4 billion per year.

“Given the outlook for evertightening supply, this emphasis and its influence upon the supply chain will likely be amplified,” Speers says. “Whatever the targets that evolve over time, there will be growing pressure to maintain genetics and breeding systems capable of delivering high-quality beef products coupled with synchronized supply chains that facilitate those

attributes, including ‘product story.’”

With research and market data proving that consumers identify with brands when shopping for beef, he says, those are the programs best poised to take advantage of integrated supply chains that can sway the industry away from that “price taker” mentality.

The virtuous loop is a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy, he says: “The production of higher quality, more desirable products establishes better consumer demand, and in turn, better consumer demand creates the need for even more high-quality beef.”

That means holding on to theoretical advantages without discipline can eat your lunch in terms of lost profit.

To read Speer’s research paper, visit www.cabpartners.com/news/research.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 16

October 15, 2013

Using ‘Sue and Settle’ to Thwart Oil and Gas Drillers The Endangered Species Act is being employed more than ever to block development.

BY STEPHEN MOORE HTTP://ONLINE.WSJ.COM

n late September the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) and an environmental advocacy group agreed to a legal settlement that will place nine species—including the Panama City crayfish, moccasinshell mussel and boreal toad—on the fast track for placement on the endangered species list. It is only the latest of many such listings.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has petitioned FWS to designate some 250 species as endangered since 2008. Many of CBD’s petitions—and lawsuits—are still in the pipeline. About 97 percent of the species that are designated as endangered never move off the list.

Next March, Fish and Wildlife will make a determination about whether to add the lesser prairie

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chicken, found in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Kansas to the list.

Harold Hamm, president of Continental Resources, says that the habitat for the prairie chicken overlaps “some of the most promising land for oil and gas leases in the country.”

Many Westerners suspect that this environmental activism isn’t only or even mostly about saving species and obscure subspecies.

Instead, it is about restricting land use on hundreds of thousands of acres of private and state land. The concern is that if these species are listed as endangered, their habitat could be placed off limits for economic development.

In the 1980s, environmentalists successfully used a listing of the Northern Spotted Owl as threatened to cripple the timber industry in Oregon and Washington, throwing many thousands out of jobs. This

is the playbook now being used by groups like the CBD—which boasts on its website of its desire to end most oil and gas production in the United States.

Since taking office, the Obama administration and its green allies inside and outside federal agencies have been making expanded use of a tactic called “sue and settle” to issue new and expensive regulations.

Groups like CBD and WildEarth Guardians (WEG), for example, petition Fish and Wildlife to list a species as endangered. Other environmental groups use a similar tactic to get new water and air regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Then, sometimes the very same day, the environmental groups file a lawsuit against FWS or the EPA to force the government to act—arguing that the regulatory process is too slow.

Amos Eno, a former FWS official who worked to save the grizzly bear and the condor, is critical of the tactic. Mr. Eno, who now runs Resources First, says the money wasted on these lawsuits could be used on conservation efforts to actually save species from extinction.

Because the federal agencies include former employees of green organizations, sue and settle can be a collaborative, not adversarial, process. The agency may be only too happy to sign a consent decree that courts then rubber stamp. Often, state and industry officials directly affected by the settlements have no opportunity to weigh in.

Increasingly, sue and settle is how rules are made in Washington.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has found that more than 60 times in the last four years the EPA agreed to settlements with environmental

groups to pass regulations that in some cases impose tens of billions of dollars of costs on industry and land owners. The feds have even paid green groups millions of dollars in legal fees for the favor of suing the government.

The Obama administration didn’t invent sue and settle, but the pace has increased dramatically since 2009—an era that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt calls “sue and settle on steroids.”

Last September Mr. Pruitt and 11 state attorneys general presented a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate the communications between the Obama administration and environmental litigants.

Their suspicion is that the two are secretly working hand in hand to grease the process of regulating industries it doesn’t like. A year has passed, but the EPA has refused to fully comply.

This summer Mr. Pruitt has joined with the other attorneys general—including from Texas and Utah—to sue the Obama administration to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Mr. Pruitt also believes that sue and settle “is an end run around the Administrative Procedures Act.” This is the law that governs how regulations are promulgated, and requires among other things transparency and a reliance on science to justify new rules. “An administration which claims to only want to ‘follow the science’ has exploited a litigation mechanism to enact new rules imposed on us without reviewing the science,” Mr. Pruitt says.

The attorneys general also cite new EPA regional haze rules— which came into being because of sue and settle—that could raise electricity costs in their states by as much as 20 percent. On behalf of his fellow attorneys general, Mr. Pruitt says that “we’re very worried that under Obama sue and settle will be used by the EPA to issue new regulations on fracking.” This could kneecap the oil and gas boom in Western states.

In its report “Sue and Settle: Regulating Behind Closed Doors,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has counted more than 100 new major rules “with estimated compliance costs of more than $100 million annually” that arose from this tactic.

The result is a giant tax on the economy brought to you by the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund with little or no input or oversight from Congress.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) and Rep. Doug Collins (R., Ga.) have introduced “Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act of 2013” that would require all proposed consent decrees to be posted for 60 days for public comment before being filed with a court—and allow affected parties to challenge them. Members of Congress in both parties who are worried about the Obama regulatory assault will need to take corrective action if they have any hope of a true economic turnaround.

Mr. Moore is a member of the Journal’s editorial boar