$112 MILLION SPENT - 40 CENTS OF EVERY DOLLAR BORROWED

SAW THIS ARTICLE IN CNS NEWS AND THOUGHT YOU'D LIKE TO SEE IT. NO WONDER AMERICA IS BANKRUPT. AND OBAMA SAYS HE NEEDS TO TAX MORE TO "BALANCE" OUR BUDGET. HERE IS ONE VERY GOOD REASON WHY THE DEBT CEILING SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN INCREASED. INSTEAD OF MORE SPENDING, SPENDING, SPENDING, WHY DON'T THEY TRY CUTTING, CUTTING, CUTTING?? NOWHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION DOES IT SAY THE GOVERNMENT HAS THE RIGHT TO TAX US TO SAVE A BIRD. AND REMEMBER, 40 CENTS OF EVERY ONE OF THE $112 MILLIONS DOLLARS IS BORROWED. A GREAT PRESENT FOR YOUR KIDS AND GRANDKIDS, DON'T YOU THINK? SOMETHING THEY WILL HAVE FOREVER!

Gov't Paying Farmers, Ranchers $112M to Protect Bird Too Numerous to be Threatened
Friday, August 19, 2011
By Tierney Smith

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is paying $112 million in tax money to farmers and ranchers in 11 Western states to restore the habitat of the Sage Grouse, a bird that has not been listed as either threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species law because the government says there are too many of them.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced last week that the USDA would dedicate $21.8 million to pay eligible ranchers and farmers in the state of Wyoming to encourage conservation practices that preserve the numbers of Sage Grouse.

That will bring to $112 million the total amount that the USDA has distributed over the last two years to eligible farmers and ranchers in 11 states as part of its Sage Grouse Initiative.

“Working with the Department of Interior, we are working together with our producers in the Western part of the United States to avoid having the Sage Grouse be placed on the endangered species list,” Vilsack said during a conference call briefing last Thursday.

“We’re doing this by working with landowners and identifying over 40 practices that will benefit the Sage Grouse, and encouraging landowners with the utilization of our conservation program to basically utilize a sweep of practices within those 40 identified practices,” he said. “In the past two years, we’ve committed $112 million to this Sage Grouse Initiative in 11 states, using five separate programs.”

The money is being paid to landowners through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program, Wetlands Reserve Program, Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program and the Grassland Reserve Program.

Vilsack said the greater Sage Grouse has lost approximately half of its habitat in recent decades, but can still be found in portions of Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, North Dakota, Utah, Nevada, Washington, Oregon and California.

The government is providing subsidies to farmers in these states to cover a portion--up to 75 percent, in some cases--of the cost of implementing certain conservation practices, technologies and techniques.

According to Vilsack, ranchers will be paid to implement practices such as: using “sustainable grazing systems” to improve hiding cover for birds; moving "high risk" fences near breeding sites to reduce bird collisions and removing invasive trees from grasslands to allow “re-colonization of otherwise suitable sage-grouse habitat.”

Vilsack said that farmers, ranchers and producers “don’t have to spend quite as much of their own money with the partnership, and at the same time they get some degree of certainty” that they won’t be stuck with much higher costs and prohibitions if the bird is ever added to the endangered species list.

Environmental groups have been petitioning the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the past decade to list the Sage Grouse as a threatened or endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act. However, despite these attempts, the federal government has continued to deny the Sage Grouse classification as a threatened or endangered species because there are too many of them.

“The Sage-Grouse population as a whole remains large enough and is distributed across such a large portion of the western United States that Fish and Wildlife Service biologists determined the needs of other species facing more immediate and severe threat of extinction must take priority for listing actions,” a 2010 Department of the Interior news release stated.

“Based on accumulated scientific data and new peer-reviewed information and analysis, the greater Sage-Grouse warrants the protection of the Endangered Species Act but that listing the species at this time is precluded by the need to address higher priority species first. The greater Sage-Grouse will be placed on the candidate list for future action, meaning the species would not receive statutory protection under the ESA and states would continue to be responsible for managing the bird.”

Moreover, most states do not treat the bird as if it were endangered. In fact, according to a 2010 notice in the Federal Register, state-regulated hunting of sage grouse is permitted in all but one state, Washington.

The agriculture secretary specifically distanced the current programs from past proposals, which had threatened to impose environmental sanctions on land-use if the grouse was placed on the Endangered Species Act--measures that land-use groups labelled as "draconian."

“These programs really are designed to focus on particular conservation practices and conservation techniques and technologies. They aren’t necessarily, like other programs, designed to limit, if you will, utilization of property,” Vilsack said.

Chuck Cushman, executive director of the American Land Rights Association, told CNSNews.com that land owners would welcome the USDA money, but not if it comes with strings attached or doesn't shield property owners from having to implement draconian conservation practices and technologies without government assistance in the future, if the sage-grouse is ever placed on the Endangered Species List.

“The problem is that the government always has difficulty delivering these kinds of services without hooks and trying to get control over the farmers in some way,” Cushman said. “But if they can work with the farmers in a genuine way and really help them and not impose a top down command-and-control will from Washington on them, then it’s a good thing.”

He added: “Any time you make land owners -- farmers -- partners rather than impose controls on them, the government is better off and the sage-grouse is better off and the country is better off, so we’ll hope that this works.”

Rick Krause, senior director of congressional relations at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said as long as the effort remains voluntary, it has Farm Bureau endorsement.

“We support voluntary cooperative efforts such as this to preserve species that are either listed under the Endangered Species Act or are about to be listed,” Krause said. “It must be truly voluntary on the part of landowners. We believe cooperation is more effective than regulation in saving species from going extinct.”

The Interior Department and the Commerce Department are actually responsible for placing species on the Endangered Species List, but the USDA manages much of the federally protected land in the United States.

SUBSIDY VS. GRANT - AN EASY EXPLANATION

Have you heard the left and even the right yowling about taking away the oil company "subsidies?" Here's an explanation of what a subsidy is. I believe the government is purposely redefining the term "subsidy." They are creating confusion over what the word "subsidy" has historically meant. A "subsidy" is something GIVEN to companies, like outright grants, a gift of money. That is what the green energy companies are getting right now from both federal and state governments. GRANTS, GIFTS, HERE IT IS, SPEND IT TO PUSH A POLITICAL AGENDA, GREEN ENERGY.

The oil companies, and hundreds of thousands of other big and small companies, do not get "subsidies" or "grants" for the production of fossil fuels. They get nothing more than accelerated depreciation, and the oil companies also get depletion breaks. The "subsidies" are nothing more than tax breaks, not gifts. And the government has forever used them to mold public policy like pushing wind and solar and green cars. By the way, ALL U.S. COMPANIES qualify for the depreciation breaks made available by tax law. And if you believe "these big companies do NOT pay their fair share of taxes," remember, Obama's pal, GE, has admitted they paid nothing. They took advantage of available tax breaks.

But Exxon oil, according to their first quarter filed reports, had a net profit of 10 billion dollars on 114 billion dollars in gross revenue. That is a profit margin of 9%, up very slightly from their last report. About 3% of Exxon's oil business is in the U.S. For every gallon of fuel they manufacture in the U.S. they earned 2 cents. That's not a typo. It is two cents. So while Exxon Mobile gets 2 cents from each gallon of gas, the federal and state governments take in between 40-60 cents in taxes. See who gets the biggest share of the fuel "pie?" It isn't the oil companies.

The real reason we have $4 per gallon gas and rising is the Feds printing money and monetizing the U. S. debt. That action, which I believe has never been done in the U. S., causes intense out of control inflation. That and the fact that Obama has virtually shut down oil production in the Gulf and Alaska. Do you remember during the campaign when Obama said because of his energy policies "energy prices would necessarily skyrocket." Looks like he meant it.

There is no one to blame for the price of gas except Obama and the Federal Reserve puppet Bernanke. But don't expect the increase in the price of fuel and food to show up in the "accurate" inflation figures coming out of Washington. In case you didn't know, the Washington number crunchers responsible for reporting the real inflation number don't include fuel and food in their calculations. What does that tell you about the accuracy and intelligence of the Washington calculators?

Ron Kind Listening Session Today

Today I attended Kind's listening session in Hudson. He has represented the 3rd Cong. District since 1996, 13 years. During the session today he talked about earmark reform and how it is long overdue. He said Social Security adjustments have been delayed for too long. He said large corporate farmers have received most of the farm subsidies and this has to change. He said "the deficit is unsustainable." He said he supports leaving the Bush tax cuts on anyone earning over $250,000, those "rich bankers and Wall Street types", because we need to raise revenue. But the gentleman in the audience who asked about the Bush tax cuts was certainly no "rich banker or Wall Street type."

He didn't get to my question, but if he had I would have asked him, Where were you for the last 13 years if you think these things have now gone on long enough? He's voted with Nancy Pelosi 93% of the time. That should tell you everything you need to know about Ron Kind. I believe Pelosi does not represent the values of Western WI, and according to his voting record, neither does Ron Kind.

I will mention one last thing. When I have attended these sessions in the past they have put the question sheets in order of your arrival so if you arrive early you have a good chance of getting called on. So I arrived very early and was one of the first to submit a question. Because of my early arrival I expected to be called on. However, I sat in the very front of the room and observed Mr. Kind's aide previewing the question sheets and separating them into two piles. At first I thought he was separating them by subject. But two piles wouldn't fit that agenda. He then handed Mr. Kind one of the piles and the aide kept the other pile. At that point I knew I would not be called on. Mr. Kind's office knows who I am.

They don't know me by face, but they certainly know my name because I email them and call them regularly, each time filling in my name. I was absolutely certain my question was put into the pile that the aide kept to himself. I can hardly wait until November, 2010 to throw him out of office. He's been there way too long.