The National Grange wrote to the Senate Committees on Finance and Commerce expressing full support for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization proposal that is currently being considered by the U.S. Senate. Congress must act now before crucially needed funding expires on September 30th of this year. Recently, the Senate Finance Committee, together with the Senate Commerce Committee, reached a reasonable and common sense compromise that would bring the FAA reauthorization bill to the Senate floor. 

In addition to improving air travel over the long term, a multi-year bill would create jobs and generate significant economic activity for our rural communities, including many long-term airport projects in rural and underserved areas.  If this legislation is not adopted this year, we will have to start over again with a new Congress and a new Administration. The aviation industry as well as the farming and rural communities that depend on reliable, cost effective general aviation services that operate from our nation’s 2500 community airports simply cannot afford to wait that long.

The 109 members of the Agriculture Energy Alliance (AEA) including the National Grange wrote to Appropriations Committee members urging them to vote in favor of amendments removing the moratorium on natural gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf.

Experts say that food production will need to double in the next 20 years to meet rising global demand. Today, tight natural gas supplies have driven U.S. farm inputs and energy prices to all time highs, increasing farm production costs. The U.S. farm sector is being weakened by constraints on onshore and offshore natural gas development, even as global demand for food is growing every year. By wisely developing and utilizing our own national resources, Congress can help ensure that farming remains an economically viable occupation. Onshore and offshore natural gas production is a vote for food security. The farm sector depends on significant amounts of natural gas for food processing, irrigation, crop drying, heating farm buildings and homes and the production of crop protection chemicals and fertilizer. We urge you to support amendments allowing for additional offshore natural gas production. Additional supply of American energy resources is critical to maintaining a competitive agricultural sector.

The National Grange along with other groups, wrote to the House Finance Committee members expressing grave concerns about H.R. 5546, the so-called Credit Card Fair Fee Act. The legislation seeks to grant a giant antitrust exemption to over 15 million retailers for the purpose of negotiating lower “interchange fees” – the fees charged for the use of credit and debit cards at retail outlets. While the intent of the legislation was to find innovative ways to deliver relief to consumers struggling with high food and gas prices, the group fears that this legislation will provide no such relief. Further, this legislation could do considerable harm to consumers. For starters, the legislation does not include provisions guaranteeing that consumers will benefit in any way should retailers succeed in negotiating lower interchange rates. Instead, this legislation seems to guarantee only higher profits for retailers. Second, the granting by Congress of antitrust exemptions to large numbers of horizontal competitors invites collusion and other abuses which are, after the fact, hard to police and prosecute. Third, credit card services are a critical lifeline for community banks and credit unions that must compete against the larger financial institutions. Congressional mandates enabling retailers to set interchange rates will likely result in many community banks and credit unions exiting the marketplace for these services. Finally, by giving retailers the unilateral authority to set terms and conditions for retail credit, this legislation will limit the availability of such credit services in many middle and low-income communities where the dollar volume of retail credit card transactions is lower.

National Grange, along with other groups recently wrote to USDA Secretary Ed Schafer with respect to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s implementation of the Conservation Stewardship Program.

By enacting the 2008 Farm Bill, Congress made substantial changes designed to streamline and improve the former Conservation Security Program. The Coalition urged the Secretary to support a program that will achieve broad participation of farmers and ranchers and substantial, lasting conservation gains on America’s private lands.

The Coalition believes it is very important for America’s farmers and ranchers to have an opportunity to enroll in new Conservation Stewardship Program contracts during the winter of 2008-2009. To the extent farmers have ‘down time,’ it is generally during the winter months, and they will be much more willing and able to navigate new program requirements and handle enrollment paperwork if they can do it before planting season starts in the spring. The Coalition also believes it is in the interest of the Department – from the standpoint of effective use of personnel and effective program delivery – to handle the major contract offer evaluation and participant selection process earlier rather than later in the fiscal year.

The group appreciated USDA’s commitment to meeting the requirements of Section 2904 of the 2008 Farm Bill to promulgate regulations on a 90-day timeline. However, they also recognized that it is a substantial challenge to move through the process of developing rules and seeking public comment. They urged the Secretary to move ahead with this process with all deliberate speed, issuing a proposed rule by September and an interim final rule by December.

National Grange wrote to members of Congress strongly urging them to vote for H.R. 6604, the Commodity Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2008. This important legislation would benefit farmers and the entire economy by ensuring that the nation’s commodity futures markets are utilized for their original purpose – to serve as a marketplace where producers and users of commodities can hedge their commercial transactions free of manipulation.

Production agriculture relies on smoothly functioning futures markets for risk management and price discovery. Unfortunately, in recent months concerns about agricultural futures market performance have grown, and the ability of producers and processors to use those markets for hedging has in some cases been seriously compromised. At the same time, agricultural producers have a strong interest in transparent and efficient energy futures markets, since so many input costs are directly related to U.S. and world energy prices.

H.R. 6604 addresses National Grange concerns about both agricultural and energy markets in a balanced, responsible, and bipartisan way. It will require transparency and improved access to market critical information, as well as establishing reasonable requirements to limit speculative positions. It would require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to set trading limits for all agricultural and energy commodities, in order to prevent excessive speculation. The bill will strengthen the CFTC with both new legal authority and increased staffing as it grapples with complex and important new issues of oversight, surveillance and regulation.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation bolstering the ailing Highway Trust Fund (HTF) with $8 billion in general revenue by a vote of 387-37, or 91%. The National Grange is now urging the Senate to consider S. 3335, which includes the House legislation.

In 1998 Congress transferred more than $8 billion from the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) account to the General Fund in response to concerns that the Highway Account's $16.5 billion balance was too large. Now that the HTF faces major shortfalls in 2009 and beyond, legislation was introduced to restore the $8 billion. Doing so would provide sufficient balances to allow for the full $41.2 billion in guaranteed funding for the highway program for FY 2009.

Forecasts indicate a shortfall of several billion dollars to the HTF in FY 2009, resulting in many states losing significant highway dollars. In addition, the Federal Highway Administration recently reported that estimated miles traveled on U.S. public roads dropped 11 billion miles between March 2007 and March 2008, the first year-to-year reduction since 1979. If Americans drive less than expected and purchase less fuel, the HTF’s shortfall will continue to worsen.

Because the proposed $8 billion transfer is intergovernmental, the Congressional Budget Office indicates that this fix does not constitute a spending outlay, and thus would not violate pay-go. Likewise, the Joint Committee on Taxation confirms that this transfer will have no revenue effect.

The National Grange, in conjunction with 30 other organizations, sent a letter of support to the Senate Commerce Committee and House Committee on Energy and Commerce for their support of Congressional action to promote greater availability and adoption of broadband high-speed Internet services.

The leading bills pending before Congress (S. 1492, the Broadband Data Improvement Act and H.R. 3919, the Broadband Census of America Act of 2007) would improve information gathering about current broadband deployment and assist in targeting resources to areas in need of such services. A recent Federal Communications Commission order requires more focused broadband data collection from broadband providers but does not address other important broadband mapping elements contained in the pending legislation.

The letter calls on Congress to adopt legislation this year that provides federal government support for state initiatives using public-private partnerships to identify gaps in broadband coverage and to develop both the supply of and demand for broadband in those areas. The ability to accelerate deployment and adoption by bringing together government, broadband providers, business, labor, farm organizations, librarians, educators, and consumer groups in public-private partnerships is greater than the ability of these diverse players standing alone.

The coalition believes that adopting a national policy to stimulate where it is already available, and deployment where it is not, could have dramatic and far-reaching economic impacts. For example, a Connected Nation study released February 2008 estimated the total annual economic impact of accelerating broadband across the nation to be more than $134 billion. In addition to the $134 billion total benefit, the study found that increasing broadband adoption by another seven percent could result in:

• $92 billion through an additional 2.4 million jobs per year created or retained;
• $662 million saved per year in reduced healthcare costs;
• $6.4 billion per year in mileage savings from unnecessary driving;
• $18 million in carbon credits associated with 3.2 billion fewer pounds of CO2 emissions per year in the United States; and
• $35.2 billion in value from 3.8 more hours saved per year from accessing broadband at home.

“We cannot afford to let another year go by without adopting policies that will stimulate the economy in such ways,” the letter explained, “while expanding use of the networks that are already deployed and providing broadband in previously underserved areas.”

David Donley, Illinois State Grange President, recently distributed the following letter to the Editor:

Sweeping legislation introduced in this session of Congress could have significant impact on private property rights and economic growth both here in Illinois and across the country. Representative James Oberstar (D-MN) and Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) have sponsored H.R. 2421 and S. 1879, titled the Clean Water Restoration Act. These bills seek ostensibly to “restore” protections under the Clean Water Act lost due to Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006. Unfortunately, the bills as introduced would expand the scope of the Clean Water Act far beyond its original intent while increasing the confusion over what aquatic resources are supposed to be protected by the federal government. The legislation has major implications for water quality programs administered by local and state governments, as well as for retirees, families, farmers, ranchers and owners of small businesses in Illinois and across the nation– many of whom have a significant portion of their net worth tied up in homes, farms or other real estate. But these impacts may never be fully considered by Members of Congress before they vote if the normal legislative process is circumvented as proposed by powerful special interests in Washington, D.C.

The Clean Water Act was originally enacted to prevent pollution of “navigable waters” of the United States. Congress determined that “navigable waters” deserve federal protection because of the important role they play in facilitating interstate commerce. Congress explicitly left the authority to regulate non-navigable waters with state and local governments. Since the passage of the law more than 30 years ago, however, there has been considerable uncertainty over exactly what water resources are subject to federal regulation. The absence of consistent standards in the Act has led to abuse by federal bureaucrats who have disregarded the important role in environmental protection played by state and local governments in their on going efforts to expand their regulatory jurisdiction over our nation’s water resources and private property.

Two U.S. Supreme Court cases, 2001’s Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and 2006’s Rapanos v. U.S. have significantly reduced potential abuse under the Act, restored the original intent of Congress and reinvigorated the role of state and local governments in natural resource protection. The Court’s decisions provide clear boundaries on the federal government’s previously unchecked latitude to define “navigable” and exert federal authority over private property. Isolated, non-navigable waters, for example, are no longer subject to federal regulation. The Clean Water Restoration Act would restore the virtually limitless regulatory power federal agencies had assumed in contravention of the original intent of the law. Further, the bills’ references to “activities affecting these waters” could give federal agencies further ability to assume nearly limitless regulatory authority over not only water, but land and the air as well.

Recently, special interest lobbying pressure in Washington, D.C. to pass the Clean Water Restoration Act has included proposals to bypass normal subcommittee and full committee procedures and debates. The Congressional committee system is designed to assure that all legislation receives a full and fair hearing and a factual public record is available for review before Members of Congress cast their final votes. It provides for using amendments to correct flaws in legislative language. The National Grange, the nation’s oldest general farm and rural public interest organization representing family farmers and rural citizens, has strongly urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to oppose circumvention of the legislative process in consideration of the Clean Water Restoration Act. We support a full and open discussion on amendments to keep the current definition of navigable waters in the statute and we urge caution before Members of Congress decide to arbitrarily overturn the clear guidance of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the scope of federal authority to regulate private land and non-navigable waters.