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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 2018)
East Oregonian A4 Friday, December 21, 2018 CHRISTOPHER RUSH Publisher KATHRYN B. BROWN Owner DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor WYATT HAUPT JR. News Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OUR VIEW Size really shouldn’t matter on dairies S ome members of the Ore- gon Legislature and a coalition of environmental groups and small-farm advocates want the state to ban large dairy farms. Their argument: large dairy farms are bad. They also want tighter regulations governing dairy farms. The argument is the legislature and the state govern- ment know the best size for a dairy farm. Pardon our skepticism. This is the same state government that can’t build a much-needed Inter- state 5 bridge over the Columbia River, that can’t produce a website for its Affordable Care Act program, that can’t operate its foster care program, that can’t fix its out-of-control retire- ment plan ... Yet this coalition wants that same state government to tell farmers how to farm by dictating how big a dairy should be. The Oregon Senate Commit- tee on the Environment and Natural Resources last week decided to intro- duce two bills during next year’s ses- sion targeting dairies larger than 2,500 cows, or 700 cows if access to pasture isn’t available. One concept would classify a large dairy as an industrial facility and strip it of protections under the state “right to farm” law. That law allows Ore- gon farmers to use normal farm prac- tices, provided they follow the many rules and regulations already placed on them by the state and federal governments. Another legislative concept would ban more large dairies at least until the state comes up will a new permitting system. Neither proposal makes any sense. The fact of the matter is that all sizes of dairy farms in Oregon are already robustly regulated. Any farm- ers who don’t follow the rules will find themselves in deep you-know- what, both literally and figuratively. Whether a dairy has 20, or 200 or 20,000 cows matters not one bit. What matters is the quality of management. Large or small, a farm with good man- agement will meet the many regula- tory requirements placed on it. This coalition points to the Lost Valley Farm, a bankrupt dairy in East- ern Oregon that was poorly man- aged, implying that all large farms are equally bad. State regulators saw the problems when they occurred and took the owner to court, forcing him into bankruptcy and putting him out of business. That is exactly what regulators do. If someone screws up, tell him or her Capital Press File The size of a dairy farm doesn’t matter; the management does. to fix the problems. If the problems persist, take the owner to court. But the main argument — that big farms are bad — is simply not sup- ported by the facts. The way Lost Val- ley Farm was managed, it would have failed no matter how many cows it had. But the “big-is-bad” argument has even more holes in it. Only a few miles from the failed dairy farm, another larger dairy farm, Threemile Canyon Farms, is well-managed and recognized as a good steward of the land. They care for their 30,000 cattle and have an independent inspector check up on them, they have the largest manure digesters in the West to handle the waste and grow a variety of crops; they treat their 300 year-round employees well; and they are con- stantly innovating to do things bet- ter. They are good neighbors in every sense of the word and are a point of pride in the community. Those who are hung up on size ignore the realities of 21st century agriculture. A farm needs to be the right size for its market and to find economies of scale. To say a farmer is doing something wrong because he, or she, has been successful and sustainable and built a small family farm into a large family farm is illogical. The state of Oregon should not pick winners and losers in agriculture. It should see that all sizes of farms are well-regulated to protect the envi- ronment and produce safe food. If a farmer messes up, he or she should correct the problem, whether the oper- ation is 5 acres or 50,000 acres. When it comes to regulating farms, size really shouldn’t matter. OTHER VIEWS The rug comes out in Syria the caliphate comes back.” Mr. Trump has justified some of his most resident Trump’s sudden move to controversial decisions, including his con- tinued support for Saudi Arabia’s Crown yank U.S. troops out of Syria under- mined at a stroke several foreign pol- Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as needed icy goals he has championed. The president to contain Iran’s threat to the United States promised to finish the job of destroying the and its allies. But the Syrian withdrawal Islamic State, but the withdrawal will leave hands Tehran and its ally Russia a wind- fall. Iran has deployed thousands of fighters thousands of its fighters still in place. He and allied militiamen to Syria and aspires to vowed to roll back Iran’s aggression across the Middle East, but his decision will allow create a corridor to Lebanon and the Med- iterranean, as well as a new front against its forces to entrench in the country that Israel along the Golan Heights. In reaction is the keystone of Tehran’s ambitions. He to that threat, Mr. Trump’s national secu- promised to protect Israel, but that nation rity adviser, John Bolton, announced Sept. will now be left to face alone the buildup 24 that “We’re not going to leave (Syria) as by Iran and its proxies along its northern long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian border. The president’s top national security borders, and that includes Iranian proxies advisers had carefully developed and artic- and militias.” ulated a strategy of maintaining a U.S. pres- U.S. ambitions in Syria have never been ence in Syria until the Islamic State was backed by adequate resources, and a case beyond revival and Iran withdrew its forces could be made that neither Congress nor the — a plan they were defend- American public were pre- MR. TRUMP HAS pared to support the mission ing up until this week. Mr. by Mr. Bolton. Trump has again demon- JUSTIFIED SOME suggested strated, to them and to the But Mr. Trump’s decision world, that no U.S. policy OF HIS MOST appears to have been precip- itated by the bellicose rheto- or foreign commitment is CONTROVERSIAL ric of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip immune from his whims. Mr. Trump claimed the Erdogan, who last week DECISIONS Islamic State had been threatened — not for the first defeated, but that is not the view of the time — a military operation against Syrian Defense and State Departments. Thousands Kurds, even though U.S. troops are posi- of jihadist fighters are still in Syria and con- tioned around them. The autocratic Turk- ish ruler appears to have extracted multi- trol splotches of territory in the Euphra- ple favors from Mr. Trump in recent days, tes Valley. A U.S. withdrawal will give the including the sale of U.S. Patriot missiles extremists an opportunity to reconstitute, and a promise to reexamine the possible as they did in Iraq following the prema- ture U.S. withdrawal ordered by President extradition of his rival, Fethullah Gulen, Barack Obama. from Pennsylvania. If Mr. Trump received Until Wednesday, a prime talking point anything in return, he hasn’t disclosed it. of senior national security officials was The Syrian Kurdish forces, which have that, “if we’ve learned one thing over the fought alongside the United States and years, (the) enduring defeat of a group like played a crucial role in liberating most of this means you can’t just defeat their phys- eastern Syria from the jihadists, will be per- haps the foremost victims of Mr. Trump’s ical space and then leave,” as the State decision. Betrayed by Washington, they will Department’s special envoy for the global now be subject to a military offensive by campaign against the Islamic State, Brett Turkey. The stab in the back will send an McGurk, put it last week. Defense Secre- tary Jim Mattis said it another way in Sep- unforgettable message to all who are asked tember: “Getting rid of the caliphate doesn’t to cooperate with the United States in the mean you then blindly say, ‘Okay, we got fight against terrorism: Washington is an rid of it,’ march out, and then wonder why unreliable and dangerous partner. The Washington Post P Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. Affordable Care Act ruling a political trap Wall Street Journal N o one opposes ObamaCare more than we do, and Democrats are now confirming that it was designed as a way-station to government-run health care. But a federal judge’s ruling that the law is unconstitutional is likely to be overturned on appeal and may boomerang politically on Republicans. Judge Reed O’Connor ruled for some 20 state plaintiffs that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is no longer legal because Republicans repealed its finan- cial penalty as part of the 2017 tax reform. Recall that Chief Justice John Roberts joined four Justices to say ObamaCare’s mandate was illegal as a command to indi- viduals to buy insurance under the Com- merce Clause. “The Framers gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it,” he wrote. Yet the Chief famously salvaged ObamaCare by unilaterally rewriting the mandate to be a “tax” that was within Con- gress’s power. Never mind that Democrats had expressly said the penalty was not a tax. Majority Leader Roberts declared it to be so. Enter Texas Attorney General Ken Pax- ton, who argues in Texas v. U.S. that since Congress has repealed the mandate, the tax is no longer a tax, and ObamaCare is thus illegal. Judge O’Connor agreed with that logic, and he went further in ruling that since Congress said the mandate is cru- cial to the structure of ObamaCare, then all of ObamaCare must fall along with the mandate. We’ll admit to a certain satisfaction in seeing the Chief Justice hoist on his own logic. But his ruling in NFIB v. Sebel- ius was in 2012 and there is more at issue legally now than the “tax” issue in that opinion. One legal complication is that Con- gress in 2017 repealed the financial part of the individual mandate, not the structure of the mandate itself. Republicans used bud- get rules to pass tax reform so they couldn’t repeal the mandate’s express language. The Affordable Care Act has also been up and running since 2014, which means so-called reliance interests come into play when considering a precedent. Millions of people now rely on ObamaCare’s subsi- dies and rules, which argues against judges repealing the law by fiat. Judge O’Connor breezes past this like a liberal Ninth Circuit appeals judge handling a Donald Trump appeal. He’s right that Democrats claimed the individual mandate was essential to the Affordable Care Act. But when Congress killed the financial pen- alty in 2017 it left the rest of ObamaCare intact. When judging congressional intent, a judge must account for the amending Con- gress as well as the original Congress. In any case, the Supreme Court’s “sever- ability” doctrine calls for restraint in declar- ing an entire law illegal merely because one part of it is. Our guess is that even the right-leaning Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judges will overturn Judge O’Connor on this point. As for the politics, Democrats claim to be alarmed by the ruling but the truth is they’re elated. They want to use it to fur- ther pound Republicans for denying health insurance for pre-existing conditions if the law is overturned. Democrats campaigned across the country against Mr. Paxton’s lawsuit to gain House and Senate seats in November, and they will now press votes in Congress so they can compound the gains in 2020. President Trump hailed the ruling in a tweet, but he has never understood the Affordable Care Act. His Administration has done good work revising regulations to reduce health-care costs and increase access, but the risk is that the lawsuit will cause Republicans in Congress to panic politically and strike a deal with Demo- crats that reinforces ObamaCare. This is what happens when conservatives fall into the liberal trap of thinking they can use the courts to achieve policy goals that need to be won in Congress. The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 9780, or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
