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May 12, 2017 CapitalPress.com 15 Livestock Subscribe to our weekly livestock email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters Cattlemen encouraged by focus on monuments By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press President Donald Trump’s executive order last week call- ing for a review of national monuments created under the Antiquities Act in the past 21 years is welcome news to cat- tle ranchers who rely on public lands grazing. “We are very excited he has made this a priority and is going to look at the abuse of this act,” said Marci Schlup, associate director of the Public Lands Council and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association federal lands. The review by Interior Sec- retary Ryan Zinke involves monuments designated since 1996 in excess of 100,000 acres or monuments that were expanded without adequate public outreach and coordina- Courtesy of Bob Wick, BLM Pilot Rock is seen in Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument near Ashland, Ore. President Donald Trump has called for a review of how presidents have used the federal Antiquities Act during the past 21 years to set aside national monuments. tion with stakeholders. “The Antiquities Act allows a president to designate large swaths of land with a stroke of a pen. There is no oversight by Congress or approval by Congress and most of the time input is not given from local stakeholders,” Schlup said. Former President Bill Clin- 80 years later, great-grandkids follow in rancher’s footsteps By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press SPOKANE — Bill Ben- nett fi rst showed a steer at the Junior Livestock Show of Spokane in 1937. Eighty years later, his great-grandchildren are following in his footsteps. “I was actually only 9 years old,” said Bennett, now 89, as he sat in a chair watching youths from around the region show their cattle. Two of his great-grand- children, Anna Geddes, 11, and Kaine Geddes, 9, showed steers this year. They are part of the Footloose 4-H club in Connell, Wash. Anna and Kaine said they showed to mark the 80th anni- versary of their great-grandfa- ther’s fi rst time at the event. “I talked them into it,” Ben- nett said with a smile. Did he give them any help- ful tips? “I always give them advice but they won’t take it,” he said with a grin. Anna said her great-grand- father told them to smile, keep their head up and do their best. Bennett ranches near Con- nell and raises Hereford and Angus cattle with his son, grandson and granddaughter at the BB Cattle Co. His father at one time owned the largest shorthorn cattle herd in the world, with 600 cows, Bennett said. The fi rst animal Bennett showed was a shorthorn steer Matthew Weaver/Capital Press Anna Geddes, 11, and Kaine Geddes, 9, with their great-grandfa- ther, Bill Bennett, a Connell, Wash., rancher, before showing their steers May 4 at the Junior Livestock Show of Spokane. Bennett fi rst showed a steer at the event 80 years ago. that weighed 690 pounds. His favorite memory is having a grand champion steer at the show in 1945, as well as grand and reserve champion pens of fi ve. “We’ve showed a lot of steers here,” he said. “I went ... until they wouldn’t let me come any more.” It’s important for youths to show animals, Bennett said. “It makes them grow up (and learn) responsibility,” he said, noting children in his family learn at a young age to show animals. Anna said her favorite part is having fun. Her least favorite part is halter breaking, teaching an animal to respond to cues and move its head in a desired di- rection. “It’s easier to get hurt,” she said. She speaks from ex- perience. “I didn’t really get hurt-hurt, but I still got drug around.” Halter breaking is also Ka- ine’s least favorite part. “They can spook easily sometimes,” he said. Anna and Kaine hoped to get $1.30 per pound for their animals. “That $1.30 compares to the 10 cents per pound I got for mine,” their great-grandfa- ther said. It makes Bennett feel good to have the kids follow in his footsteps. “I like to have them be suc- cessful,” he said. ton’s designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah reduced grazing allotments from 106,000 AUMs (animal unit months) to 35,000 AUMs. “So it really has had a sig- nifi cant impact on the ranch- ers and the local economies,” she said. Trump’s action is a great fi rst step, but Congress needs to act as well, she said. PLC and NCBA are encouraged that the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands held a hear- ing on the issue on Tuesday, she said. “It’s really reassuring that this soon in the president’s administration this has been brought to light and Congress is paying attention as well,” she said. A lot of good information came out during the hearing, she said, adding that she’s optimistic about the issue. “We need Congress to pass legislation that reins in the Antiquities Act and curbs the abuse that we’re currently seeing,” she said. On Tuesday, Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, intro- duced a bill that would re- quire approval by Congress and any state with a proposed national monument before a presidential designation. It would also require public input. In introducing the bill, Lab- rador commended Trump for “highlighting excessive presi- dential power that ignores the states and the people closest to the land,” but said “we must change the law to achieve last- ing reform.” His bill is a companion to one introduced by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, in January. It is similar to a measure in- troduced by Senate Energy Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Labrador noted that 16 presidents have designated 157 monuments that include 840 million acres of land and marine habitat since the Antiq- uities Act was passed in 1906. Former President Barack Obama alone designated more than 30 national monuments including more than 550 mil- lion acres of land and water, Schulp said. “These shouldn’t be pen- stroke designations. There should be input and consent from Congress,” she said. And there should be input from local stakeholders and the people who live in the communities that will be im- pacted, she said. Air emissions exemption for farms overturned By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press A rule exempting livestock farms from reporting certain air pollutant emissions to the U.S. Environmental Protec- tion Agency has been over- turned by a federal appeals court. However, the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is most likely to affect large livestock oper- ations or those with dispro- portionately high emissions, experts say. In 2008, the EPA exempt- ed most farms from reporting ammonia and hydrogen sul- fi de emissions from animal waste to EPA under the Com- prehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA. The EPA had determined that requiring such emissions reports from farms is “unnec- essary because, in most cases, a federal response is impracti- cal and unlikely.” The agency issued a simi- lar exemption to the Emergen- cy Planning and Community Right-to-know Act, or EP- CRA, which requires report- ing of those pollutants to state and local governments. However, the EPCRA ex- emption didn’t apply to large facilities, such as those with more than 1,000 cattle or 10,000 sheep. The Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental group, fi led a lawsuit against the exemp- tions while the two agricul- ture groups — the U.S. Poul- try and Egg Association and the National Pork Producers Council — challenged the provision that excluded large confi ned animal feeding op- erations, or CAFOs, from the exemption. The appellate court has now agreed with Waterkeeper Alliance that EPA’s exemp- tions were invalid, ruling that concerns about effi ciency “don’t give the agency carte blanche to ignore the statute whenever it decides the re- porting requirements aren’t worth the trouble.” In response to toxic levels of emissions, the EPA could require livestock operations to make changes to their waste management practices, the ruling said. Even though the EPA es- timated the exemptions will save farms $68 million in compliance costs and more than 1 million hours of work over a decade, those savings don’t justify the rule, the court said. Since the rules are invalid, the farm industry’s objection is rendered moot, the ruling said. Due to the ruling, concen- trated animal feeding opera- tions releasing more than 100 pounds per day of ammonia or hydrogen sulfi de must re- port the emissions, said Tarah Heinzen, an attorney at Food & Water Watch, an environ- mental group tracking the case. Most CAFOs don’t emit enough hydrogen sulfi de to trigger the requirement, but bigger facilities will likely have to report ammonia emis- sions, she said. It’s unlikely many oper- ations will install air emis- sion monitoring devices to comply with the report- ing requirements, she said. CAFO operators can calcu- late emissions based on the number of animals and their type of waste storage sys- tem, Heinzen said. Gaining more informa- tion about emissions is nec- essary for the EPA to better regulate pollutants, Heinzen said. “It should increase the total universe of information about emissions quite a bit.” While the reporting re- quirement is most likely to apply to large CAFOs, small- er operations with manure management practices that increase emissions may also be required to report, said Jonathan Smith, an attorney with Earthjustice who litigat- ed the case for Waterkeeper Alliance. At this point, it’s unclear how EPA will enforce the emissions reporting require- ment due to the ruling, he said. Win a $200 Gift Card Share your opinion about Capital Press and CapitalPress.com and you’ll be entered into a drawing to receive a $200 VISA gift card 19-7/#8 From now until May 31, 2017, you may access the survey online at CapitalPress.com/ readersurvey SAGE Fact #142 Intermodal container barges transport steel shipping containers loaded with a wide range of products. 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