Want to help the farmers and ranchers recover from the disaster of Hurricane Harvey from afar? Please donate to the State of Texas Agriculture Relief Fund. The Texas Animal Health Commission has set up a Harvey Hotline: 512-719-0799 at the Animal Response Operation Coordination Center. If you or someone you know is looking to volunteer, donate, offer shelter for animals, report live or dead animals please call the Harvey Hotline. [node:read-more:link]
The Nevada regulators’ order was the most extreme example of a nationwide effort by corporate utilities — panicked about losing market share and profits — to roll back net-metering policies. It’s backed by the deep pockets of fossil fuel industrialists like the Koch brothers, conservative lobbying groups like ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the electricity industry’s own trade group, the Edison Electric Institute. [node:read-more:link]
In a radio interview in Iowa late last week, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt made pretty clear the rational that went into his agency proposing lower levels of cellulosic biofuels, advanced biofuels, and total renewable fuels that would be required for blending under the next Renewable Fuel Standard rule: “Production levels and demand matter.” Pruitt goes on to express his concern that his agency is being “used in setting those [RFS blending targets] in a way to encourage ‘blue-sky’ thinking.” He is referring to the concept that the standard’s annual blending targets (Renewable Volume Obliga [node:read-more:link]
About 1.2 million beef cows are in the 54 counties that have been declared disaster areas due to Hurricane Harvey, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The total is a “conservative estimate” and encompasses 27% of the state’s herd, according to Texas A&M University livestock economist David Anderson. [node:read-more:link]
While emergency responders work to ensure Houston’s residents are out of harm’s way, farmers and the Texas Animal Health Commission with the assistance of volunteers and police are doing what they can to keep livestock safe from Hurricane Harvey. Little is known about the number of cattle deaths so far as ranchers are cut off from parts of their land and groups like the Horseback Emergency Response Team, a group of volunteers who ride horses into affected areas, are waiting for waters to recede. [node:read-more:link]
But as the Trump administration sits down to renegotiate the 23-year-old free trade deal with Canada and Mexico, governors will be hoping for minor adjustments rather than the “very big changes” Trump has promised.Trump’s tough talk wins him applause from voters who blame trade deals for shutting down factories and reducing blue-collar jobs in their neighborhoods. [node:read-more:link]
Sununu, a Republican, joined officials from the Humane Society and the Wolfeboro Police Department on Thursday to sign an executive order expanding the duties of the 13-year-old Commission on the Humane Treatment of Animals. Sitting on a table in front of him was an eight-week-old puppy, born to one of Fay's dogs that had been surrendered to an animal shelter shortly before the other dogs were seized. Sununu said he looks forward to working with the panel to strengthen animal cruelty laws."We're not just re-establishing it ... [node:read-more:link]
Driven by wind credits, low gas prices and consumer demand, rural co-ops are finding new ways to grow renewables. [node:read-more:link]
With Monsanto Co's latest flagship weed killer, dicamba, banned in Arkansas and under review by U.S. regulators over concerns it can drift in the wind, farmers and weed scientists are also complaining that confusing directions on the label make the product hard to use safely. Dicamba, sold under different brand names by BASF and DuPont can vaporize under certain conditions and the wind can blow it into nearby crops and other plants. The herbicide can damage or even kill crops that have not been genetically engineered to resist it. [node:read-more:link]
Nine Mid-Atlantic and New England states have agreed to cut power plant greenhouse gas emissions across the region by 65 percent by 2030 through the nation's first cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon contributing to global climate change.New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have agreed to reduce the cap on power plant carbon emissions an additional 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030. [node:read-more:link]
