Every year the National Grange delegates gather and consider resolutions received from State Granges to set the upcoming year’s legislative goals and here comes the season again! This year marks the 139 th National Grange Convention being held in Columbus, Ohio, on November 15-19. More than 150 separate policy recommendations are expected to be submitted this year from 37 state Granges from across the nation.

One of the key strengths of the National Grange legislative program is that its legislative policies come full circle from grassroots generated policy recommendations that are debated and adopted every year by the National Grange delegates representing State Granges. Any Grange member has the right to present their concerns, in the form of a policy resolution, to their local Grange for consideration. Resolutions written by the local Grange addressed to the county, state or national level are referred to county and/or State Granges for further action, and from there to the National Grange when appropriate.

By October 14, seventy one legislative policy resolutions had been submitted to the National Grange office from Alaska, Delaware, Florida, North Carolina, South Caroline, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Washington, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming State Granges. This year's resolutions submitted so far represent a broad range of policy issues, as previous years, and most attention has been devoted to issues such as eminent domain, social security reform, Canadian cattle importation, illegal aliens and trade agreements.

Agriculture related policy proposals cover issues such as Katrina relief, animal identification, disease control, farm loans, farm equipment, genetically engineered crops, trade agreements and Canadian cattle. New policy recommendations in the area of Citizenship and Public Affairs include proposals on social security reform, the Pledge of Allegiance, federal government’s role in disaster relief, emergency inter-agency communications and qualifications for the U.S. Presidency. Conservation issues consist of support of biodiesel, healthy forests, and private property rights related to eminent domain. Policy recommendations on Education and Health include prescription drug price, stem cell research, Lyme disease, child obesity, and the No Child Left Behind Act’s educational accountability testing issues. Labor and Judiciary issues involve identity theft, World Trade Organization (WTO), border security, illegal immigrants, and U.S. sovereignty. In the area of Taxation and Transportation, the new policy proposals covers issues such as sales tax deduction, estate tax, and EZ Pass lanes.

Policy resolutions adopted by the National Grange delegates in November will form the core for National Grange legislative policies in 2006.

In a September 20 letter sent to President Bush, the National Grange joined 21 agriculture groups requesting a temporary waiver of the Jones Act through the remainder of 2005, in order to provide additional transportation capacity for moving U.S. grains and oilseeds to ports in the Southeastern regions.

The Jones Act, a section of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, requires goods being transported entirely or partly by water between U.S. points to travel in U.S.-flagged, U.S.-built, U.S.-crewed and U.S.-owned vessels. However, due to the damage of transportation system caused by Hurricane Katrina, currently a very restricted number of such vessels are available for the use of agriculture industry. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s September 12, 2005 Crop Production Report pegged the corn crop at 10.6 billion bushels and the soybean crop at 2.86 billion bushels – the second largest on record. This year’s harvest will come on-line just as the export capacity hurt by Hurricane Katrina is beginning to recover. Therefore, U.S. agriculture needs additional transportation capacity to move U.S. grains and oilseeds to Southeastern regions traditionally served by domestic transportation modes that have been stretched beyond capacity.

“A temporary waiver of the “Jones Act” – as was done for the petroleum and gas industry – would ease some of the burden on an already taxed transportation system and assist in limiting the negative impacts of an extensive port and waterway recovery effort on U.S. agricultural producers,” the agricultural groups said in the letter. “Without such action, we are concerned that traditional U.S. grain and oilseed buyers in some regions will look to overseas suppliers – rather than U.S. farmers – to meet their demand needs because of constraints on U.S. domestic transportation movements.”

The National Grange commends the U.S. House for passing H.R. 3824, the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), on September 29 by a vote of 229-193, which will bring a dramatic change in species and habitat preservation.

The bipartisan efforts to reform the 1973 Endangered Species Act has been driven by the failure of the current program to actually save species from extinction. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, only 10 (or less than 1%) of the roughly 1300 species listed have actually been recovered in the Act's 32-year history. In the mean time, the Act has violated the rights of individuals, particularly property rights in the name of saving endangered species and caused economic and social damage especially to farmers and ranchers. The National Grange has called the 1973 Endangered Species Act a major impediment to sound environmental and natural resource management.

The National Grange has supported government compensation for private property owners for loss of usage of their property due to the ESA. TESRA will provide compensation to private property owners for the fair market value of the land lost when the government takes their property to protect endangered species. It will also offer property owners grants and incentives to cooperate in protecting species on their land to remove the unintended consequences of the original ESA that prompts landowners to engage in what is known as "shoot, shovel, and shut up."

The National Grange has asked the current law to be changed to focus on keystone species (organisms critical to the stable functions of entire habitats and ecosystems), not minor or reduced species. TESRA will clear out the law’s critical habitat designations because it does nothing but cause litigation and waste resources and instead require the government agency to prepare recovery plans that identify certain areas considered to be important to a species' recovery. The bill will set deadlines for the timely publication of recovery plans.

The Grange also has emphasized on the scientific decision in listing endangered or threatened species. TESRA will direct the Secretary of Interior to issue regulations to establish criteria for determining which data constitute the “best available scientific data” and require the federal government to give greater weight to peer-reviewed science and empirical data, rather than computer modeling of the populations of endangered species.

“H.R. 3824 updates and modernizes the ESA so that federal agencies use the best available science in decision-making, incentives exist to encourage landowners to participate in recovery efforts, and local, state and tribal governments are directly involved in the recovery process,” National Grange Legislative Director Leroy Watson said in the letter sent to Rep. Richard Pombo on September 20 to ask for the bill’s passage. “The Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005 is critical reform that will help save countless endangered species, while strengthening the rights of those most directly affected by the act, landowners.”

(Rep. Pombo (center) with Bill Steel, National Grange President (right) and Leroy Watson, National Grange Legislative Director at the Grange Fly-In in March, 2005)

The bill is now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, but discussion or a vote has not been scheduled yet.

The National Grange has worked hard with Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) who chairs the House Resources Committee to reform the ESA.

As the FY 2006 reconciliation (budget-cutting) bill is being considered by Congressional committees to cope with the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, the Senate Agriculture Committee voted on a budget reconciliation proposal, to cut agriculture spending by $3 billion over five years on October 19. The plan included a two-year extension of the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program that expired last month at reduced levels. The MILC payment will be reduced by 27.5% from the previous program.

The National Grange is disappointed with this decision. “ We are aware that finding $3 billion in savings over the next five years will be an extremely difficult task for the committee but a scaled-back MILC program is the wrong approach to deal with this difficulty,” National Grange President Bill Steel said. However, Steel also recognized that one of the options seriously considered by the Senate Agriculture committee was the complete elimination of the MILC program for FY2006 and 2007. “A reduced MILC program is still better than no MILC program at all for the thousands of family dairy farmers who may need financial assistance due to low milk process in 2006 and 2007,” Steel concluded.

The MILC program authorized by the 2002 Farm Bill pays dairy farmers on their first 2.4 million pounds of milk production whenever the price of Class 1 fluid milk in Boston falls below $16.94 per hundredweight. The MILC program has been a critical safety net for dairy producers especially in 2002 and 2003 when farm milk prices were at historic lows.

The Grange has sent a letter on September 27 to the Senate Agriculture Committee leadership to urge support of the program through the remainder of the current Farm Bill. “One of the most hard pressed sectors of agriculture today for family farm sized operations is the dairy industry,” the letter said. “Currently, farm milk prices have improved, but if they were to fall in the future, the MILC program would ensure that our dairy farmers would receive payments to help cover their production costs. The MILC program not only provides important financial support to dairy farmers, it is critical to the economic well-being of many rural communities.” Senator Saxby Chambliss, Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee replied to the Grange letter and said he is well aware of the benefits that the MILC program and other dairy support programs have provided to America’s dairy farmers, but with a challenge to find $3 billion in savings, he is confident that American farmers and ranchers are willing to play their part in deficit reduction.

The National Grange policy indicates that the federal government should extend the MILC program beyond the September 2005 cut off date with the intent of supporting dairy farmers during times of low prices without encouraging increased production.

The Senate Agriculture Committee’s reconciliation proposal still has to be approved by the full Senate and the House. The whole FY 2006 budget reconciliation package aims to reduce federal spending by $34.7 billion over five years.