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Natural Gas Industry Execs Tell Colleagues to Employ Military Psychological Warfare Techniques Against Citizens in Fracking Zones

November 9, 2011 By Ron Sylvester Leave a Comment

Range Resources Exec Says Tactics Have Been Used in PA

I’m not one prone to the conspiratorial ramblings of the tin-foil hat wearing crowd. There’s enough evil and injustice in the world of reality to process in any given day to get too carried away with 9/11 Truthers and the like.

Evidence of that is in a story broken yesterday by CNBC which bills itself as the network for people of high net worth – not exactly an anti-establishment organization.

According to CNBC’s story, the network was contacted by Sharon Wilson an environmental activist affiliated with Earthworks‘ Oil & Gas Accountability Project who paid to attend a natural gas industry conference on media and community relations in late October. At the conference, Wilson heard executives from some of the key U.S. companies involved in fracking for natural gas in places like Pennsylvania suggest during presentations that military-style ‘psy ops’ be used to combat environmental and other fracking concerns.

From the CNBC story:

In a session entitled “Designing a Media Relations Strategy To Overcome Concerns Surrounding Hydraulic Fracturing,” Range Resources communications director Matt Pitzarella spoke about “overcoming stakeholder concerns” about the fracking process.

“We have several former psy ops folks that work for us at Range because they’re very comfortable in dealing with localized issues and local governments,” Pitzarella said. “Really all they do is spend most of their time helping folks develop local ordinances and things like that. But very much having that understanding of psy ops in the Army and in the Middle East has applied very helpfully here for us in Pennsylvania.”

At another session, Matt Carmichael, the manager of external affairs for Anadarko Petroleum, spoke on the topic of “Understanding How Unconventional Oil & Gas Operators are Developing a Comprehensive Media Relations Strategy to Engage Stakeholders and Educate the Public.”

He said he had several recommendations for the oil industry media professionals at the event, one of which, he said, involved the military.

“Download the U.S. Army-slash-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, because we are dealing with an insurgency,” Carmichael said. “There’s a lot of good lessons in there and coming from a military background, I found the insight in that extremely remarkable.”

Range Resources is a publicly traded company with a market cap over $11 billion. Anadarko Petroleum, also a public company, possesses market capitalization of $40 billion. These companies can afford to communicate with rural landowners, farmers and small town America in any ways they please. Using tactics that the U.S. military uses against terrorist and Taliban insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan is the choice they are making in Pennsylvania.

I wonder what their operational plan is for Ohio?

You can read the entire CNBC story and listen to audio from the conference here. 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Anadarko, Fracking, Marcellus, Natural Gas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Psy Ops, Range Resources, Shale, Utica

Natural Gas Boom: Should You Lease Gas Rights on Your Land Now? Or, wait …

October 24, 2011 By Ron Sylvester Leave a Comment

Here are a few headlines from the last several weeks regarding the beginning of the natural gas rush in Ohio:

  • Lowball gas drill leases haunt Pa., Associated Press
  • In North Dakota, Flames of Wasted Natural Gas Light the Prairie, New York Times
  • Rural Ohio is the Wild West as gas and oil companies compete for drilling rights, The Plain Dealer

If you are a farmer or a landowner in eastern Ohio, it’s likely that if you haven’t had a visit – or several – from a gas company, they’re probably just now pulling into the driveway. They will have a deal for you, maybe even a signing bonus. There are two questions to ask yourself. First, if they drill, do you understand all of the impacts to your land and its water supply. Second, will there be better deals down the road?

From the Associated Press story cited above:

The Beinlichs are among thousands of residents living atop the gas-rich Marcellus Shale who signed lowball leases in the years leading up to the boom in Pennsylvania. In those early days a half-decade ago, virtually no layperson had even heard of the rock formation, let alone knew that drillers had found a way to access the huge reservoir of natural gas locked inside it.

An untold number of industry-friendly agreements are now approaching their expiration dates. But landowners who expected to sign new leases — and reap windfalls of thousands of dollars an acre — are facing the reality that energy companies with billion-dollar investments in the Marcellus are not about to let their prime acreage slip away.

As landowners in Ohio and New York prepare for their own round of Marcellus leasing, high-stakes battles are developing in law offices and courtrooms throughout Pennsylvania. Landowners who signed early for pittances are trying to get out of their leases, and gas companies are trying just as hard to keep them shackled to the original terms. In some cases, landowners say they were fraudulently induced into signing by high-pressure sales agents known in the industry as landmen. In others, residents contend that companies failed to abide by the lease or act in good faith.

Perhaps we in Ohio are where the Beinlich family was a few years ago in Pennsylvania. From the Plain Dealer linked above:

Only a handful of shale gas wells — about 14 — have actually been drilled in Ohio, state records show. But a gusher of money has already been pumped into the state in the form of bonuses when landowners sign lease deals. It totals more than $1 billion so far, said David Mustine, head of JobsOhio, Gov. John Kasich’s new privatized department of development.

The billion-dollar gusher is sure to grow.

Those who signed leases 18 months ago received $500 per acre and a guaranteed royalty of 12 1/2 percent of the value of the gas produced from their acreage.

The competitive frenzy has since pushed the bonus offers to about $5,000 per acre and a royalty of 19 1/2 percent.

One would think that the natural gas market must literally be screaming for supply. We’re hearing a a great deal of cheerleading out of the politicians in Columbus about billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs. I was thinking about the natural gas market this morning because natural gas is dirt cheap – near a historic low in price – and I was starting to feel feverish about the boom in Ohio. Should I invest in something now? Buy low! Sell high!

Then I remembered this from the New York Times just a few weeks ago (also cited above):

NEW TOWN, N.D. — Across western North Dakota, hundreds of fires rise above fields of wheat and sunflowers and bales of hay. At night, they illuminate the prairie skies like giant fireflies.

They are not wildfires caused by lightning strikes or other acts of nature, but the deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rushing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field and take advantage of the high price of crude. The gas bubbles up alongside the far more valuable oil, and with less economic incentive to capture it, the drillers treat the gas as waste and simply burn it.

Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.

The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.

All told, 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the practice is still common in countries like Russia, Nigeria and Iran.

Something is not computing. There’s a guy at the door and he says we need to get this matter of a lease handled right away. But, the stuff that they’re going to spend millions of dollars per well on to extract from the ground is being burned as waste as a matter of course in North Dakota.

There are many reasons for Ohio to proceed with caution when it comes to the gas boom. I just gave you three more.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Farmers, Leases, Marcellus, Natural Gas, Ohio, Shale, Utica

Video: Nat Gas boom – busy laundromats & increased homelessness

September 29, 2011 By Ron Sylvester Leave a Comment

I spent a few hours at the Farm Science Review at Ohio State University’s Molly Caren Agricultural Center in London last week. Along with OFU President Roger Wise and OFU Executive Director Linda Borton, I attended a panel discussion put on by four OSU faculty members whose research and teaching revolve around rural economics, development and environmental issues. I hope to post, in this space soon, the entirety of the panel discussion after I get a few audio things fixed with the recording.

After the panel, I asked OSU Assistant Prof. Mike Lloyd who is based in Noble County as part of the OSU Extension Service. Lloyd has seen the natural gas boom begin in Ohio with an increase in mineral rights lease activity. Since he and others knew the gas rush was coming, he has also observed what has happened on the other side of the border in Pennsylvania and has spent time talking to local officials there about the economic impacts of the gas industry. Lloyd has also been providing some educational opportunities for eastern Ohio landowners on what to expect from the process of negotiating mineral rights on their land.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Farm Science Review, Fracking, Mike Lloyd, Natural Gas, Ohio, Ohio Farmers Union, OSU Extension

Ag News Update – September 29, 2011 – Fracking, Big Ag, & Other Matters …

September 29, 2011 By Ron Sylvester Leave a Comment

Dispatch does in-depth on Ohio natural gas drilling

The Columbus Dispatch has just finished a three-day series on the natural gas boom that is just beginning in Ohio. As politicians are hellbent for jobs at seemingly any cost and friendly representatives from multinational oil and gas corporations knock at rural landowners’ doors, precious few of us are taking a moment to consider the long view regarding the exploitation of the Marcellus and Utica natural gas formations deep below much of the eastern half of Ohio. As evidence that some newspapers are still willing to expend resources on investigative or in-depth coverage of an important issue, the Dispatch has run a series of stories shedding light on the gas industry and its record in other states, what’s happening in Ohio with mineral rights and leasing, the hows and whys of hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking,’ and what oversight (actually, lack thereof) we can expect from state and federal officials.

Click Here for The Columbus Dispatch Series: Deep Pockets – Oil and Gas Deposits in Ohio

Ohio’s livestock care standards take effect today

Hannah Report

Comprehensive livestock standards created by the 13-member Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board will become effective Thursday, Sept. 29 when Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Jim Zehringer signs the final administrative order at a special ceremony starting at 2:30 p.m. in Fort Recovery. This will conclude two-months of outreach efforts by the agriculture department and Ohio’s farm organizations to inform Ohioans raising or caring for livestock about the new rules.

The Ohio Constitution required the establishment of comprehensive livestock care standards following passage of state Issue 2 in 2009. The ballot initiative specified creation of the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board with the responsibility of obtaining industry and public input in developing livestock rules for alpacas, beef, dairy, goats, horses, llamas, pork, poultry, sheep and veal.

The board sought to create comprehensive livestock care standards that also support the state’s overarching policies to promote safe and affordable food, help prevent the outbreak of both animal and human diseases, and encourage local food production.

Members of the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board and representatives of Ohio’s agricultural community devoted 18 months to developing and vetting the most comprehensive livestock care standards in the nation, said Zehringer.

“States from around the country are now looking towards Ohio’s leadership in developing these new standards,” he said.

All rules affecting the care of dairy, beef, swine, turkeys, broilers, sheep, goats, alpacas, llamas, and equine standards were approved by the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) before the summer legislative recess.

Group fighting “Big Ag” label is — Big Ag

New York Times

LAST week, a new public-relations campaign about agriculture got off to a splashy start. With full-page ads in newspapers and panel discussions live-streamed on the Internet, the newly formed U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance began what it called a bid to “reshape the dialogue” about the American food supply.

“When did agriculture become a dirty word?” the Alliance asks on its Web site.

Chris Galen, a founding member of the group and head of communications for the National Milk Producers Federation, said, “There is a feeling across the board in agriculture that Americans have concerns about the food supply, and those are best addressed by farmers.”

To assure Americans that food is safe, abundant and affordable, farmers can use their voices and faces to fight the label “Big Ag,” the organization’s leaders say. But the group’s members include the largest agriculture marketing groups in the country, with billions of dollars to spend. They include the American Egg Board (“The Incredible Edible Egg”), the National Milk Producers Federation (“Got Milk?”) and the National Pork Board (“The Other White Meat”).

Its $11 million annual budget will come partly from mandatory marketing fees that the Department of Agriculture helps collect from farmers, and from corporations like Monsanto, the producer of genetically engineered seed, and DuPont, a major producer of chemical pesticides. Each company has committed to an annual contribution of $500,000.

Yet Bonnie West, a spokeswoman for the American National Cattlewomen, a booster group for beef consumption, said her members felt like “small potatoes” in the national debate over food.

The “big potatoes” for the group seem to be advocates and authors like Eric Schlosser (“Fast Food Nation”) and Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”), and the filmmaker Robert Kenner (“Food, Inc.”), whose work has criticized industrial agricultural practices like huge feedlots, tight confinement of animals, the widespread use of hormones and antibiotics and the billions of dollars in federal subsidies that they say support an otherwise unsustainable system.

It is a source of pride for their allies that there is now a perceived need for an organized response to their critiques.

Read More

ISU meteorologist says expect cold winter

agriculture.com

It’s not far off…and, if you were a fan of last winter’s weather, you’re in luck. But, if your snowblower needs repairs, you might want to get those taken care of before Old Man Winter arrives.

Many signs point to a likely repeat of last winter’s conditions, with cold temperatures and above-average precipitation in much of the Midwest and drier conditions in the Plains, says Don Keeney, meteorologist with MDA EarthSat Weather. Look for one difference from last year, though.

“It should be noted that the coldest conditions should occur earlier in the winter, with December and January being the colder time periods,” Keeney says.

The reason for the repeat in the winter outlook: The La Nina system that was supposed to be gone by now will likely stay in place through March, says Iowa State University (ISU) Extension Ag meteorologist Elwynn Taylor. La Nina is characterized by colder winter temperatures and the potential for a lot more volatile swings in the mercury than normal.

“A year ago, we had one of the 3 strongest La Ninas in the last 100 years. It did a lot of the things we expected it to do, both in the summer and winter,” Taylor says. “Now, we’re seeing it restrengthening. Not as harsh or extreme, but similar to last year.

“So yes, the probability looks like a replay of last year, maybe just not as extreme. But, let’s just say it wouldn’t be smart to do without your snowblower if you are a person who gets tired of shoveling snow.”

Read More

Report: Emergency food pantries have become a mainstay in many people’s diets

Associated Press

Rosalinde Block receives $241 a month in food assistance for her and her 18-year-old son, to add to the money coming in from the piano lessons she teaches and the art commissions she gets. In one of the world’s most expensive cities, it’s not enough.

“That goes pretty fast,” said Block, 59, of the amount she got for September, “it was already gone by the 12th or the 15th.”

So Block, who lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, adds to it with visits every other month to a food pantry in nearby Harlem, where she’ll get some chicken or milk, or some ingredients for soup or a few other meals. It’s been like this for a couple of years.

A report released Wednesday by Feeding America, a hunger-relief organization, finds that food banks that were originally created to serve as stop-gap emergency food providers are now taking a long-term, chronic role for Americans turning to them routinely to get enough to eat.

The organization’s Hunger in America 2010 report, the “Food Banks: Hunger’s New Staple,” found through data compiled in 2009 that 18 percent of those surveyed said they used food pantries six to 11 months of the previous year, while 36 percent they used them every month.

The survey also found that among those 65 years and older, 56 percent went to a food pantry every month. And even those receiving aid in the form of supplemental nutrition money still needed more help, with 58 percent of them being frequent or monthly users. “Those dollars don’t go very far,” said Vicki Escarra, president of the Chicago-based Feeding America.

Read More

Crackdown on excessive speculation in commodities markets stymied at CFTC

Reuters

The U.S. futures regulator delayed a final vote on controversial measures to crack down on excessive speculation in commodity markets because it lacks the three votes needed for approval, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced on Tuesday it was delaying by another two weeks to October 18 its meeting to consider the long-awaited rule on position limits. It was the second time a vote had been postponed.

The disagreements hinge on some of the smaller, seemingly less-contentious elements of the plan, not on the areas in which the CFTC has yielded to industry complaints.

This may suggest that Chairman Gary Gensler does at least have in principle an agreement on the need to impose limits on energy and metals markets, something several commissioners have questioned.

Two sources familiar with the agency’s rule-making said the CFTC commissioners and staff were working on ironing out a myriad of differences, including details of conditional limits — which allow for a higher limit in the spot month in a cash-settled contract than in a physically deliverable contract — as well as the timing of imposing the limits.

“He doesn’t feel like he has the votes,” one source familiar with the CFTC’s thinking told Reuters.

Read More

 Farmers group backs plan to overhaul dairy policy

Associated Press

A leading dairy farmers group threw its support Monday behind a proposed overhaul of federal milk subsidies after its creator agreed that participation in a program limiting milk production in hard times would be voluntary.

The plan developed by Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson would replace current federal dairy programs with new ones intended to do a better job of protecting farmers from the kind of crisis they suffered during the recession in 2009, when milk prices plunged, feed costs skyrocketed and hundreds were forced out of business.

Peterson’s original plan called for limits on how much milk farmers could produce when the difference between milk prices and the cost of producing milk, as determined by feed prices, fell to a certain level. The intent was to balance supply and demand.

Some farmers objected to the federal government limiting how much milk they could produce, saying the answer to problems facing the dairy industry was less government interference, not more.

After getting feedback for several months, Peterson, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, agreed to make participation in the so-called dairy market stabilization program voluntary.

But, farmers would have to participate in that program to qualify for another, more popular one that works like an insurance system. In effect, dairy producers would pay premiums in good times that would enable them to collect more generous government payouts in bad times. If they chose to pay nothing, they would get a minimal subsidy.

Read More

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Columbus Dispatch, Commodities Markets, Fracking, Hunger, Natural Gas, Ohio

NE Ohio Farmers Union Leaders to Hold Informational Meeting on Fracking Tonight

September 26, 2011 By Ron Sylvester Leave a Comment

Family Farmers Sponsor Public Meeting on Fracking in NE Ohio

COLEBROOK – Leadership of the Ashtabula, Geauga and Lake Counties Farmers Union and the Trumbull County Farmers Union will hold an information sharing meeting tonight on the subject What Fracking Will Mean to Us.

The meeting will be held at the Colebrook Community Center at the corner of SR 322 and SR 46 in Ashtabula County from 7 to 9 p.m. There will be a question and answer period. The event is free and open to the public.

Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing – a drilling method employed to extract natural gas or oil from wells in hard rock strata thousands of feet below the ground. Fracking will be used during the drilling of the Marcellus and Utica shales in Eastern Ohio for natural gas extraction.

Joe Logan, Trumbull County Farmers Union president and director of agricultural issues for the Ohio Environmental Council will discuss possible impacts of fracking on agriculture and natural resources with a focus on fresh water supplies.

Vanessa Pesec, president of the Network for Oil and Gas Accountability and Protection (NEOGAP), will present a detailed lecture on what fracking will mean to us as individuals, landholders and communities. Pesec will also talk about what landholders should look for in a fair lease should they decide to lease their mineral rights.

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Ashtabula County, Fracking, Joe Logan, Mardy Townsend, Natural Gas, NEOGAP, Vanessa Pesec

Event: NE Ohio Farmers Union Members to Hold Fracking Information Meeting

September 23, 2011 By Ron Sylvester Leave a Comment

What Fracking will Mean to Us

Monday, September 26, 2011

7-9pm

Colebrook Community Center

Colebrook (northeast corner of state routes 322 and 46)

Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake Counties Farmers Union and Trumbull County Farmers Union are presenting a joint educational meeting: What Fracking will Mean to Us? Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing – a drilling method employed to extract natural gas or oil from wells in hard rock strata thousands of feet below the ground. Fracking will be used during the drilling of the Marcellus and Utica shales in Eastern Ohio for natural gas extraction.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Ashtabula, Fracking, Geauga, Joe Logan, Lake Counties Farmers Union, Mardy Townsend, Natural Gas, NEOGAP, Ohio Farmers Union, Trumbull County Farmers Union, Vanessa Pesec

Ag News Roundup – September 23, 2011 – Harvest, Fracking among topics

September 23, 2011 By Ron Sylvester Leave a Comment

A few things of interest from the national & Ohio media:

Kasich advocates switching state vehicles to nat gas, says “We cannot stop fracking”

Columbus Dispatch

Ohio might join with neighboring states and convert government vehicle fleets to run on natural gas, which would boost demand for gas from the region’s shale formations, Gov. John Kasich said yesterday.

The governor spoke about the plan in the closing address of his two-day energy conference. He also said his office will announce a comprehensive energy policy by spring, although he gave few details about what it might include.

Kasich said he spoke with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett about the natural-gas-fueled vehicle idea, and members of his staff have brought up the idea with counterparts in Indiana and Michigan.

Read More

Nat Gas industry says 200,000 jobs could result from Ohio shale gas

 Dayton Daily News/AP

Natural gas trapped in two shale formations beneath Ohio could mean thousands of new jobs, if activity in other states is any indication.

In Pennsylvania, which sits on one of the same shale formations as Ohio, gas and oil industries hired 72,000 people between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2011, according to Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry statistics.

The number of new hires for the core gas industries — extraction, drilling and pipeline work — is smaller but still doubled to 18,837 from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2010.

Tim McElhinny, an analyst with the Pennsylvania Labor Department, said all hires can’t be attributed to new drilling, but there are so many of them that a portion must be caused by work on the Marcellus shale.

Read More

Industry says gas boom could produce economic miracle

The Plain Dealer

… The new jobs study, contained in a 92-page economic impact analysis, was prepared by economic research company Kleinhenze & Associates of Cleveland for the Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Education Association.

The conclusions are based on propriety information obtained from large gas and oil corporations that jockeyed for months to lease mineral rights from rural land owners. Marietta College, Ohio State University, Central Ohio Technical College and Zane State College contributed to the data analysis.

Among the study’s main conclusions:

• Over the next five years, oil and gas producers are expected to spend $34 billion in exploration and development, pipelines, royalty payments to landowners and other leasing expenditures.

• New jobs would start slowly — 4,614 jobs this year, increasing to 22,297 next year — and then mushroom by tens of thousands from 2013 through 2015, culminating at an estimated 204,520 jobs by 2015.

• Wages, salaries and personal income attributable to the production would soar to an estimated $12 billion per year, including $1.6 billion in royalties, by 2015.

• Annual tax revenues, including income, property, commercial activity and “severance” taxes or royalties tied to the production would total $478.9 million by 2015.

Read More

Corn Yields Coming in Mixed

agriculture.com

Combines are rolling in the Corn Belt. So, what’s the crop making so far?

Yields are all across the board as harvest gets rolling in corn and soybean country. Corn moisture levels are still on the high side in a lot of areas, though, keeping harvest progress a little on the slow side.

“Things are moving slow. Corn is not drying down very fast, if at all it seems,” says Benton, Illinois, farmer Kelly Robertson. “Working on odds and ends between trying to haul some corn out and it doesn’t seem like I am getting much accomplished.”

But, where harvest activity has been able to pick up, the results are mixed.

“We are running here in northeast Kansas. Corn is pretty good — above average from what I was expecting,” says Seneca, Kansas, farmer Rod Tangeman says. “So far, we have had fields go 168 [bushels/acre], 170, 105, 142, 163 and 158.”

Read More

Obama would cut ag programs

agriculture.com

When it comes to farm policy, Congress often ignores White House proposals. It passed the 2008 Farm Bill over President George W. Bush’s veto and it’s possible both parties will ignore some of the ideas put forth Monday in President Barack Obama’s Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction Plan,

Obama didn’t ignore agriculture, however. He wants to eliminate or reduce these ag programs:

  • Eliminate Direct Payments. The White House says they’re not needed at a time of high farm income, adding that “Economists have shown that direct payments have priced young Americans out of renting or owning the land needed to enter into farming.” It would save $3 billion per year.
  • Crop Insurance. The Administration is looking for more cuts here. It says currents costs are $8 billion per year, with $2.3 billion going to insurance companies and $5.7 billion to farmers as premium subsidies. USDA has already trimmed $600 million a year from support for insurers and hasn’t touched subsidies of farmer premiums. Obama’s deficit cutting plan would trim another 200 million a year from insurance companies, arguing that they would still have a return on investment of 12%. Farmer premium subsidies for coverage at the 50% catastrophic level would not change but premium subsidies on higher levels over coverage would be shaved by two basis points, or $200 million per year (a 3,.5% cut from current levels).
  •  Conservation. Obama would cut conservation programs by $200 million a year “by better targeting conservation funding to the most cost-effective and environmentally- beneficial programs and practices.” Even with those cuts, conservation assistance is projected to grow by $60 billion over the next 10 years.

Read More

Farm lobby’s power withers as programs face cuts

Politico

Washington’s debt crisis brings American agriculture to a crossroads this fall and no other sector of the economy may have more to gain or lose from the debate in Congress over deficit reduction.

With record exports predicted for 2011, farmers begin with a proven self-interest in stable world markets, but their very success makes them all the more vulnerable now to deep cuts from the federal subsidies so synonymous with agriculture for decades.
Read More

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Fracking, John Kasich, Natural Gas, Ohio, Rural Economic Development

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