City folk be carrying you!

So the BIL is taking me to task:

I've noticed an inevitable Fed-hating theme lately, please post these facts to your blog:

1. A Federal system of government is one in which the central govenment is weak and power is dispersed to the slack-jawed yokels. They feature largely in counties of large geographical area but also in Germany (because the US played the largest role in fixing it up post war, hence the FRG).

2. city folk be carrying you!

And here's the link to a report on federal spending capita per state, showing that Utah, for instance, gets $1.19 for every $1.00 paid in taxes, while California gets $0.78.

I say: All the better reason for you to support stronger regionalization. I'm not "fed-hating" as put it. I want to see the scale of responsibilities revised. I want to see regional economic self-reliance to reduce everyone's vulnerability to natural and man-made (economic, political, social) disasters. I want to not depend on getting lettuce from the Central Valley, and I want to have electricity that I use generated near where I live, so that the money spent on it stays within the regional economy to benefit my community and encourage stronger regional relationships.

I do not want to be disconnected from the national grid - in case of emergency or unforeseen need, that backup is useful. But it should be just that: a backup, or redundant, source. Same with all the other basics of life: food, shelter, textiles, etc. The vision is that trade, of which tourism is one kind, brings in things that certainly enhance our quality of life (coffee comes immediately to mind), but don't necessarily make or break our existence.

The whole idea is not black and white like you seem to want me to make it out to be - it's an adjustment of scale.

And based on your definition, we don't reside in a "federal" system of government, because the local/state/regional proportion of control and power is much weaker than that of the federal, particularly in the intermountain west. Over 60% of the land in Utah is federal. I never would have said this before moving out here 10 years ago, but after living in this kind of dynamic, my simplistic views on the conflicts between and roles of local and federal authority have definitely changed. I certainly don't trust local politics for all the answers, but the local process has merit.

"Hope and Gloom Out West"

Patricia Nelson Limerick writes the first in a series of guest editorials in the New York Times today on what I'm guessing is the nature of the Intermountain West. Good stuff - she came over to Moab a few years ago to present at a planning conference with Terry Tempest Williams here, and few are better at communicating the underlying character of the conflicts of the west:

...we live in an era in which we are told daily, if not hourly, about the intense and draining polarization of our political world, and the West has its own well-developed version. Environmental conflicts - energy production and consumption, water allocation, wildfire management, land-use planning, growth control - provide fine battlegrounds for the display of the rattier aspects of human nature....Could anyone have created better conditions for the production and proliferation of conflict, tension, bitterness, litigation and reciprocal demonization?

But now, as many of the various contenders look back at years of energy-draining contention, many of them yearn for a better code of conduct among opponents, a more productive manner of dealing with conflict and a more effective way to distinguish substance from noise in these under-refereed debates.

And with that yearning, hope returns home.

No help from the feds on regional energy independence

Despite questions from western governors, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman would not discuss efforts to develop renewable energy. It's just not a priority for the federal government. But for western states, it's becoming one.

Most interesting, however, is this quote from the Salt Lake Tribune article:

A panel discussion on energy independence featured presentations by Bret Clayton of Kennecott Energy, a coal mining corporation based in Wyoming, and Robert Ebel, who served with the CIA for 11 years and the Department of Interior's Office of Oil and Gas for seven years.

An expert analyst on world oil and energy issues, Ebel's blunt assessment of American energy independence is that it won't happen unless some unnamed event forces renewal of a lost sense of responsibility.

Americans don't care where oil comes from as long as it's available and priced right, he said. In the 1970s, people were willing to accept both high prices and limits on purchases.

"We have lost that political will," Ebel said. "Every energy decision our government makes has a trade-off. These trade-offs carry their own costs, their own risks, but rarely do we consider that."

Damn right

This whole episode jaded me with regard to CNN, ABC and the other mainstream news outlets. Shame on all of you, especially Diane Sawyer. You were not even there.

At Atrios

A step toward economic sovereignity in the Intermountain West

Regional federalism: this is one important example of how it happens.

Western states, and even areas within these states, are developing their own relationships with each other and with other regions. As Governor Huntsman implied, trade agreement between western states and China is perhaps less desirable than one with the Guangdong province.

The more immediate and explicit innovation is that the Intermountain West states are working together to develop such relationships and agreements in the first place; they are 1) moving faster and more efficiently than the federal government, and 2) as a bloc of states, have a much greater economic clout than as individual states:

The Western Governors' Association says that if the West were a separate country, its economy would be the third largest in the world, behind the United States and Japan. The combined value of the West's merchandise trade exports in 2004 was approximately $320 billion.

The federal government has its place, but it's becoming more evident every day that one economic policy does not work for the whole country. Regional initiatives are the evolution of our economic reality. It may very well begin to translate to a political reality as well.

It can be Nice in Price

Here's a vignette posted over at New West.net on the "compromises" of the changing Intermountain West - Halliburton trucks and petroglyphs, coal mining and higher education.

Affordable housing in Moab: who should pay for it?

At last night's Grand County Planning and Zoning meeting, the spectre of affordable housing looomed darkly over the various discussions. (Statewide housing prices are going nuts.) The Commission's been looking at revising the Multi-Family Residential Zone (MFR), which as it now reads will allow up to 20 dwellings per acre. That's incredibly dense. A revision would essentially add two more zones, where all of the MFR characteristics would be the same (permitting duplexes, apartments, etc.) but with lower densities - 8 per acre and 14 per acre. The catch is that if the County is to effectively address affordable housing, most likely it's within the MFR zone(s) that such housing would exist.

Therefore: should developers bear any of the burden to provide affordable housing, as a condition of developing within the MFR?

Federalism works here...

Montana's legislature and governor show us, again, how it can be done. David Sirota reports on how that state took the lead on country-of-origin labeling for meat, with the full support of the Montana Cattlemen's Association, and despite intense lobbying by national special interest groups:

The Meat Promotion Coalition, including Cargill, Tyson Foods, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Pork Producers Council, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, hired a lobbying firm to make the case that country of origin labeling is too costly to implement.

“The notion country of origin is too expensive to implement is ridiculous,” said [Montana Cattlemen's Association Executive Director John] Lockie. “Independent review of COOL by the University of Florida ’s trade research center revealed the cost to be less than one-tenth of a cent per pound."

So....state legislature races do matter. A good thing to remember next fall.

Kane County Commissioner on lawsuit: Bring It!

The simmering "Them's us'ns roads" conflict in Kane County has gotten a bit more national with Illinois Sentor Durbin's help (from the Salt Lake Tribune):

"The department's lack of enforcement of BLM policy has emboldened the county and these individuals to increase their defiance of federal law," [Durbin] wrote.
Durbin asked the department to report what legal steps it intends to take to force the county to remove the signs, when the action will take place and what consequences will face those "who remain in defiance of federal law."

(Natch, Norton's DOI had no comment.)

After meeting with the Lt. Governor, BLM officials, and the state AG's office,

Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw said afterward that he welcomes litigation to solve the dispute.

One last thing: My admiration goes out to State BLM Director Sally Wisely, who, it appears, is not ducking from her federally-mandated responsibility.

Tell It, Schweitzer - then get it done.

Montana governor Brian Schweitzer is not afraid. His comments on the roadless rule via Courtney Lowery at New West:

“They’ve given me a broke-down baler and a vice-grip and told me to bale hay,” Schweitzer told New West Tuesday afternoon...

"I get the responsibility, but not the authority," he said.

This whole thing, Schweitzer said, is a trend with the Bush Administration – turning over burdens to governors with no money to match.

“It’s just another unfunded mandate. ‘They say ‘you’re responsible but we’re not helping and we’re taking away your assets,’” he said. “This is an administration that has it all backward. Remember Truman? … This administration says ‘by the way, I’m passing the buck to you.”

Cases in point: Amtrak reform, roadless area, national security (Schweitzer points out that as the administration tells states they have to do their own homeland security and natural disaster relief, it simultaneously takes away the National Guardsmen and women and the aircraft the state uses to battle forest fires, an issue that has had the Governor hot under the collar more than once.)

He’s happy to have local control, but Schweitzer says the federal government is forgetting that states can’t just print up more money when someone has a new idea like the administration can in D.C.

“I have to deal with real dollars, real people, real problems and come up with real products,” he said.

As posted over at FrontierPAC, I like his pull-no-punches rhetoric.

He can, however, do one better: get it done.

Be, in this case, the better man, and actually exercise state control over the process. Communicate the hell out of how the Governor (or his office) is actually meeting with county officials and more importantly area residents to get their input on how to manage these forest lands. Schweitzer would then have an unprecedented upper hand in showing how states can manage themselves, their resources, and their own cultures. If (however unlikely) the USFS rejected his petition, the stink over "federal intrusiveness" and downright hyprocrisy would make Schweitzer a hero.

You can't buy that kind of mythos with 30-second spots.

The Scary Scary Religious Right

In an interview with Larry King that focused mosly on the Deep Throat revelation, Bill Clinton also addressed the danger in capitulating to the religious right:

When asked whether the Christian conservative movement -- which makes up much of President Bush's political base -- concerns him, Clinton replied: "I think they should be worried about it. Because I think whenever religious people try to exercise political power in God's name, and to say that they have the whole truth and they can impose it ... that's always hazardous.

"Our country is the most religious, big country on Earth, with more different faiths flourishing and more regular observance because we haven't had a state religion," he said. "And we haven't had politics as religion. And we haven't had politicians claiming to be in possession of the whole truth."

Until now, that is. It's the difference between consulting with your god and thinking that you are the sanctioned agent of your god.

The American Taliban indeed.

Small Farms, Regional Food Systems: Good for All (except Monsanto, et al.)

This is a long and excellent articulation of the value of local and regional food systems, by the interim managing director of the Regional Farm and Food Project:

May 16, 2005
New York State Assembly Public Hearing Testimony
By Billie Best, Executive Director of the Regional Farm and Food Project

“NEW YORK STATE FOOD AND NUTRITION POLICY”

Thank you for holding this public hearing and for inviting us to speak before you today. My name is Billie Best. I am the Executive Director of the Regional Farm & Food Project. The Regional Farm & Food Project is a member-supported, farmer-focused, non-profit organization founded in 1996 to promote sustainable agriculture and local food systems. Our core constituency of approximately 3400 individuals and organizations includes 1200 member contributors and more than 700 farms.

The Regional Farm & Food Project brings the relationship between sustainable agriculture and a healthy planet to the table of public opinion, raising awareness of the connection between the food system, the environment, culture and community. We produce an annual curriculum of farmer-to-farmer education programs to promote self-reliance, innovation and entrepreneurship, and we educate the public about how their food choices shape their world. The Farm & Food Show is our monthly radio program on WRPI-Troy. The Troy Waterfront Farmers’ Market and the New York State Farmstead & Artisanal Cheesemakers Guild were founded by and are sponsored by the Regional Farm & Food Project.

TODAY I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH YOU ABOUT SOME OF THE CHALLENGES OF SMALL FARM PROFITABILITY, THE REGULATORY BARRIERS TO A HEALTHIER AGRICULTURE ECONOMY, AND DEVELOPING A POLICY OF REGIONALISM AS A FRAMEWORK FOR OUR FOOD SYSTEM.

At the Regional Farm & Food Project, when we talk about sustainable agriculture, we mean the process of staying in sustained balance with nature; replacing and refreshing the natural resources —air, water and soil—consumed in the process of producing food. Unlike conventional industrial agriculture, sustainable agriculture does not externalize the cost of sales by dumping pollution into the environment or treating animals inhumanely. A food policy designed to improve human health would encourage innovations in sustainable agriculture and end subsidies to polluting industrial agriculture.

Our definition of “small farm” is one with annual revenues under $500,000. We believe small farms practicing sustainable agriculture are essential to a diverse, competitive food system where the goals are food security, self-reliance, self-sufficiency and good health. There are two main obstacles to small farm profitability: consumer price perceptions that food should be cheap, and oversized regulatory barriers to small-scale methods and markets.

A FOOD POLICY DESIGNED TO IMPROVE HUMAN HEALTH WOULD EDUCATE CONSUMERS TO UNDERSTAND THE HIDDEN COST OF CHEAP FOOD, AND REALIZE THEY ARE BEING SUCKERED INTO THINKING THEIR FOOD IS CHEAP WHILE TAXES, POLLUTION, ENERGY AND HEALTHCARE COSTS RISE.

We need to teach consumers to look holistically at the price of food. Public policy needs to emphasize the social, environmental and economic benefits of paying a fair price for locally grown products. Consumers need to learn the impact of their food choices on their total quality of life. We need a consumer awareness campaign that teaches the connection between cheap imports and the triple malaise of lost jobs, environmental pollution and social injustice around the world.

A food policy designed to foster rural entrepreneurship and build rural economies would devise a system of food safety regulations that encourage diversity and competition in food processing markets without compromising public safety. Whether it is livestock, dairy or tomatoes, small batch food processing is essential to a vital agriculture and distinctive local cuisine. Yet today, our food processing regulations mandate equipment, facilities and processes which are cost-prohibitive to many small batch producers.

OUR FOOD PROCESSING REGULATIONS DISCRIMINATE AGAINST SMALL FARMS IN FAVOR OF LARGE FACTORIES, AS THOUGH LARGE BATCH PRODUCTION WERE INHERENTLY SAFER THAN SMALL BATCH PRODUCTION, WHICH WE KNOW IT IS NOT.

Federal livestock processing regulations in particular favor factory-scale production processes and prohibit or hinder farm-scale production processes—as though factories are cleaner and safer than farms, which they may or may not be. Market access should not depend upon how or where food is processed, only that it is safely processed. Preventing food from crossing state lines because it has not been federally inspected has more to do with bureaucracy than food safety.

Dairy processing regulations discourage the production and sale of raw milk, although humans have been drinking raw milk for thousands of years, raw milk is an increasingly popular health drink, and raw milk sales represent a lucrative market opportunity for some farmers. For the record, factories are not cleaner, safer or more efficient than farms. Factories do not produce higher quality food than farms. And the environment is better served when the by-products of food processing are composted or recycled on the farm rather than trucked to another facility.

Another particularly frustrating livestock processing policy allows uninspected on-farm custom meat processing if the customer first purchases the animal alive, but it is against the law for the farmer to sell the same meat processed under the same circumstances to another customer after the animal is dead. This kind of arbitrary regulation costs rural communities jobs. It restrains trade and discourages farming. Clearly, food safety does not depend upon when the animal was purchased. It depends upon the conditions under which it is processed. In many cases, on farm processing is preferable to factory processing.

It is far more humane to kill an animal in its own pasture than to truck it to a foreign place, and have it handled and killed by strangers. Adrenalin ruins meat. Farmers can make their life’s work raising quality animals only to have the product ruined by poor handling and undue stress in the last few seconds of the animal’s life. Small farmers should have the choice to kill and harvest their animals at home. On-farm processing limits should be set for beef, pork, lamb and goat as they have been for poultry. On-farm livestock processing can be equally as safe or safer than factory processing. It can be more humane, more cost-efficient, less polluting to the environment, and result in a higher quality product. USDA and New York State food policy should be encouraging on-farm processing, training and certifying farmers in on-farm food processing safety, certifying food safety inspectors who specialize in on-farm processes, and cultivating innovation in small batch food processing.

The food safety inspection process constrains the growth of rural economies by arbitrarily limiting production of local food products. Food processing inspection needs to accommodate a wider range of production facilities and processes. Food safety inspectors need to be more mobile and more accessible. Becoming a certified food safety inspector needs to be opened up to include non-government agencies and part-time service providers similar to the National Organic Program’s organic certifiers. And we should eliminate the redundancy in the system that requires small-scale producers already receiving state inspection services to also require federal inspection. As long as states meet minimum regulatory requirements, there should be a policy of reciprocity between state and federal inspection.

IN THIS TIME OF RISING ENERGY COSTS, FINANCIAL MARKET VOLATILITY AND LABOR MARKET UNCERTAINTY, THE MOST COST-EFFICIENT MARKETS FOR NEW YORK STATE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE BUSINESSES ARE THE MARKETS CLOSEST TO HOME.

NEW YORK STATE WOULD BENEFIT GREATLY FROM COLLABORATING WITH OUR NEIGHBORING STATES TO DEVELOP A NORTHEAST REGIONAL FOOD POLICY that focuses on broad import replacement and reducing regulatory barriers to interstate commerce. A frictionless regional market is essential to our regional food security and our regional economic growth.

Today, most of our food items travel an average of 1,500 “food miles” to our dinner table. We produce only about a third of the food we consume, and most of our farms sell their goods into an industrial food system where they are commoditized, packaged, branded and sold in a form unrecognizable as a local product. Most of our food dollar goes to manufacturing, distribution and retail shelf-space, not to the farmer, not to the farmer’s local economy. The price we pay for those layers of business between our farms and our dinner table is reduced economic vitality, loss of cultural identity, an increase in diet-related diseases, and of course, the fuel costs, traffic and pollution that come with global transportation systems.

We need a better return on the investment of our food dollars and our tax dollars. Our region contributes billions of dollars each year to USDA agriculture subsidy programs that do little to support the small and medium-sized farms that anchor the Northeast regional food system. A New York State food policy designed to generate economic growth and reduce taxes would teach consumers to oppose federal agriculture subsidies for commodity crops which amount to a $350 billion giveaway to rich industrial farm operations mainly outside the Northeast. The Northeast region legislative delegation could bring home a much larger piece of the next Farm Bill if we simply demanded our fair share of USDA funding and programs.

The Northeast is the most compact region in the country. We are just a day’s drive access to the densest string of population centers on the continent. REGIONAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY USED TO BE OUR CALLING CARD. BUT TODAY WE DEPEND UPON CALIFORNIA, CHINA AND SOUTH AMERICA TO FEED US. NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURE COULD DOMINATE THE MARKET FOR FOOD IN THE NORTHEAST. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey can’t possibly feed themselves. They are buying plane loads of food and flying them right over New York farms while television commercials tell them that California is the new dairy state.

REDUCING REGULATORY BARRIERS TO INTERSTATE COMMERCE WOULD SPUR REGIONAL ECONOMIC GROWTH, PARTICULARLY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES. THIS COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED BY FORMING A PACT WITH OTHER NORTHEAST STATES to standardize food transportation and safety regulations, especially those that impact small producers crossing state lines for farm-direct sales, such as farmers’ markets. Environmental management programs offer a precedent for this type of regional collaboration in that they enjoin government and non-government organizations to inventory regional resources, establish regional thresholds, standardize regulations, and manage regional assets.

The Northeast is geographically isolated and culturally distinct. A policy of regional collaboration would inspire the pride of place we know to be a powerful cultural influence over consumer food choices. A regional food policy would give food producers more confidence to invest in producing products for regional markets. Regional dairy policy would enable dairy farms to regain their independence from monopolistic processors and global pricing. Regional livestock policies would give livestock farmers incentives to grow their herds and diversify their product mix. Growing regional markets for cheese, wine, prepared foods and fiber products would make cottage industries more viable.

MOST IMPORTANTLY A REGIONAL FARM, FOOD AND NUTRITION POLICY WOULD PROVIDE A MORE HOLISTIC APPROACH TO DEVELOPING THE FOOD SYSTEM, RECOGNIZING THAT FARMS DON’T JUST PRODUCE FOOD, THEY PROVIDE JOBS, ECONOMIC GROWTH, OPEN SPACE, ECOLOGICAL SERVICES, SCENIC VIEWS AND COMMUNITY CHARACTER—AND THEY ARE A CRITICAL COMPONENT OF SUSTAINABLE HUMAN HEALTH.

Long time no blog

But that shall hopefully be an anomaly....

Coming up:

- Dominionist Fascists, or why anyone interested in personal freedom should go to the mat against the religious right

- More on local food systems and why they are good for 1) progressive politics and politicians, and 2) local economies.

- Utah and Colorado Plateau politics