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Friday, May 20, 2022
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Opinion
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com | CapitalPress.com/opinion
Our View
Taylor is good choice to lead USDA trade effort
hen Alexis Taylor was
top trade official. He has made a fine
choice.
appointed director of the
In her new role, Taylor will
Oregon Department
be
responsible for oversee-
of Agriculture in 2016, we
ing international negotiations
suspected that the next Demo-
related to agricultural trade,
crat in the White House would
developing USDA’s trade pol-
ask the former head of USDA’s
icy, facilitating foreign mar-
Farm and Foreign Agricultural
ket access and promoting U.S.
Services branch back to serve
Alexis
agriculture.
Taylor
in Washington.
Taylor grew up on her fam-
Last week, President Biden
ily’s farm in Iowa. After a stint
nominated Taylor to be USDA’s
in the Army, Taylor worked as a con-
undersecretary for trade and foreign
gressional staffer who specialized
agriculture affairs, the department’s
in farm policy. At USDA, she spent
W
years traveling the world in that role,
looking for ways to open new markets
and improve the competitive posi-
tion of U.S. farm goods in the global
marketplace.
When she first came to Oregon,
some in the ag community were anx-
ious to see how an Iowan raised in
corn and soybean country would
acclimate to the state’s diverse and
specialized farm and ranch industry.
Quite well, it turned out.
She made a point during her first
year to get to every county and see
the width and breadth of Oregon agri-
SEC overreach
could put family
farms at risk
Our View
O
Getty Images
The Surface Transportation Board is requiring railroads to come up with recovery plans because of their poor perfor-
mance.
Railroads need to do better
I
t’s been a rough couple of years for ag shippers.
Truck and driver shortages, port delays in the U.S.
and Asia and spotty service from railroads. The list
goes on.
Except for one thing. While the supply chain has
always been subject to longshore union slowdowns or
other factors, the ability of railroads to provide adequate,
on-time and consistent service had been suspect long
before the COVID pandemic or other supply chain prob-
lems happened.
This year, an American Farm Bureau analysis showed
the seven Class I railroads, which handle 94% of the
nation’s freight, had 137,000 unfilled orders for grain cars
in the first three months of this year.
This is not an isolated incident. In the first three months
of last year, 93,000 orders were unfilled and other orders
were 11 or more days overdue, resulting in lost contracts,
flour and feed mill closures and other fallout, according to
the analysis.
That’s not all. The railroads’ performance is so incon-
sistent that some customers can count on them only to be
late.
“If our expectation is that they’re 10 days late, but
they’re consistently 10 days late, we can plan,” Paul
Katovich, general manager of Highline Grain Growers
in Waterville, Wash., told Capital Press reporter Matthew
Weaver. “If we think it’s going to be 10 days late, but then
it’s 40 days late, that’s a big problem.”
You bet it is.
Berkshire Hathaway, a rich conglomerate that owns
PacifiCorp, Geico Insurance and a bushel basket of other
corporations, bought BNSF Railway — then known as
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. — in 2009 for $44
billion. At the time, it was Berkshire’s largest acquisition,
but within five years the railroad’s profits had more than
covered the cost of the purchase, according to a Business
Insider article headlined, “Warren Buffett Made A Deal In
2009 That Was So Good You Could Say He Stole It.”
Berkshire is managed by Buffett, one of the rich-
est men on the planet. Early on, he spoke at length about
investing billions of dollars in BNSF to improve it.
However, in his annual letter to Berkshire shareholders
in 2018, he conceded that he and his managers had come
up short.
“During the year, BNSF disappointed many of its cus-
tomers,” the Berkshire CEO wrote. “These shippers
depend on us, and service failures can badly hurt their
businesses.”
Now, four years later, it’s the same old story, even as
BNSF continues to rack up profits as one of Berkshire’s
cash cows.
Last year, BNSF had net income of almost $6 billion.
To its credit, BNSF plans to spend $3.55 billion this year
on maintenance and upgrades.
But what about other railroads? Union Pacific also
serves much of the West. A publicly traded company,
Union Pacific reported net revenue last year of $6.5 bil-
lion. It also spent $7.3 billion to buy back shares from
investors, according to Zacks Equity Research.
At the same time, railroads have cut their payrolls “to
the barebones in order to reduce costs,” according to Mar-
tin Oberman, chairman of the Surface Transportation
Board, the federal agency investigating the performance
of the nation’s railroads. That’s 45,000 employees laid off
in the past four years, or 29% of the total workforce.
While both BNSF and Union Pacific have been invest-
ing in improvements, they still fall short of providing ade-
quate, on-time service.
The Surface Transportation Board, which oversees
railroads, has a big job on its hands.
It not only has to coax well-heeled railroads to do a
better job serving their customers, but it has to make up
for the years in the past the board itself let service
deteriorate.
At stake is the U.S. economy as a whole — and
the financial well-being of every farmer, rancher and
food processor in the nation.
READERS’ VIEW
There’s more
to wolf stories
Recent coverage on the wolf/cattle sit-
uation in Wallowa County, Ore., omitted
significant facts.
It failed to mention that taxpayers
compensate ranchers for confirmed and
probable losses at full fall market value,
and for confirmed and probable injuries.
It failed to mention that taxpayers
pay ranchers for extra work in protect-
ing their stock. This year some ranch-
ers will be paid directly to do their own
range-riding, but taxpayers also pay for
hired range-riders. Last year one rancher
received $11,713 from taxpayers for extra
work and was the primary beneficiary of
$5,000 paid by a conservation group for
range-riders. Oregonians also pony up for
nonlethal tools and equipment, including
ATVs.
Oregon wolves are not a non-native
species and were not introduced to Ore-
gon. They came on their own from Idaho
and are the same species as those extermi-
nated in Oregon.
There’s an ethical side to the wolf
issue. Thousands of wolves were shot,
trapped, poisoned, strangled, and blud-
geoned by livestock producers and their
agents until extinct in Oregon. This sav-
agery lasted 100 years and continues
today. The landscape was denuded of an
apex predator and cattle proliferated at
great cost to the environment.
The cattle are bred for weight and
lack horns and the physical agility for
culture first hand. She built a lot of
bridges and won over many with her
commonsense approach to the issues.
So much of what is grown here is
destined to be consumed elsewhere.
With that in mind, Taylor has been
a tireless advocate for Oregon farm
products abroad.
Farmers and ranchers through-
out the Pacific Northwest will bene-
fit from having someone familiar with
the broad range of crops produced in
the region in the top USDA trade job.
We are sure that Taylor will do an
excellent job in that role.
defense against predators. They are wolf
bait. Especially on public land, common
breeds should be replaced by horned,
agile cattle such as Corrientes, a success-
ful commercial breed. Putting wolf bait
out on public land and then killing wolves
for eating it is a crime.
Wolves are due thousands of cows
(and sheep) in compensation for the thou-
sands of slaughtered wolves. In expiation
of their sin, livestock producers should
themselves bear the cost of compensa-
tion. The Oregon and national cattlemen’s
associations should collect funds from
their own members for their own com-
pensation fund. Taxpayers should not be
responsible.
Wally Sykes
Joseph, Ore.
ver 2 million farms dot our nation’s land-
scape, across all 50 states and in territo-
ries like Puerto Rico. You can find farm-
ers and ranchers raising nearly every type of crop
and livestock to keep our nation fed. You can
find us serving our neighbors and communities
and employing the latest innovations to improve
sustainability.
But there’s one place you will not find us,
and that is on Wall
Street. So why is
the Securities and
GUEST
Exchange Commis-
VIEW
sion about to grant
Zippy
itself authority to
Duvall
functionally regu-
late our family farms
and ranches, when in
fact we have never
been under the SEC’s authority? It’s an alarm-
ing question, and one we are facing head-on right
now.
A little background here — recently the SEC
proposed a new rule, “The Enhancement and
Standardization of Climate Related Disclo-
sures for Investors,” which would require pub-
licly traded companies to provide climate-re-
lated information from their entire value chain
in their filings and annual reports. This would
mean that businesses not owned or controlled
by the public company would fall under these
extensive reporting requirements. As farm-
ers and ranchers know, there are few products
in the supply chain that don’t trace their begin-
nings back to a farm or ranch. And those farm
and ranch products already face extensive reg-
ulations at the local, state and federal level.
With this rule, it is likely the reporting require-
ments would pile on farms and ranches of all
sizes and could even force farmers and ranchers
to disclose personal information and farm busi-
ness data.
This is overreach — plain and simple — by
a federal agency that was never designed or
intended to regulate farms. What’s more the
entire action lacked transparency and oversight.
The SEC released its proposed rule, all 510
pages of it, with initially just 39 days for pub-
lic review and comment. The American Farm
Bureau joined with 119 other agriculture organi-
zations in calling the SEC to extend its comment
period to allow time for meaningful public review
and input. Just recently, the SEC announced an
extension for public comment until June 17.
The fact that the SEC budged at all on the com-
ment period is a testament to the importance of
standing together across the agriculture community
to make our voices heard.
It is difficult to fully grasp the far-reaching
impact of this rule, but it will no doubt place
many American farms and ranches at risk —
98% of which are family businesses. Unlike
the large corporations currently regulated by
the SEC, family farms and ranches don’t have
teams of compliance officers. Onerous report-
ing requirements could disqualify small, fami-
ly-owned farms from doing business with public
companies, or companies that supply those value
chains.
The SEC’s rule could place a greater strain on
our food system at a critical time and lead to fur-
ther consolidation of agriculture as family farms
and ranches lack the resources to meet require-
ments designed for major corporations.
Finally, the rule undermines decades of sus-
tainability efforts and achievements by America’s
farmers and ranchers who have led the world in
reducing agricultural emissions and adopting prac-
tices that improve soil health and water quality.
Farm Bureau and our partners across agricul-
ture will continue to engage with the SEC, and our
representatives on Capitol Hill, to urge the agency
to take into account the burden they are placing on
farmers and ranchers, who are critical to the value
chain, our economy and our nation’s food security.
We also encourage you to join in making your
voices heard on how this rule will affect your farm
or ranch. Together, we can stand strong to protect
our nation’s sustainable food, fiber and renewable
fuel supply.
Zippy Duvall is president of the American
Farm Bureau Federation.