The rapid ka-ching at the gas pump, the dreaded mortgage payment, and the price of food are drowning out all the debates in Congress. When C-SPAN shows us elected officials squabbling over the federal budget, our eyes glaze over and we switch to “World’s Dumbest Criminals.” Don’t our lawmakers ever leave the Beltway and talk to real people? Well, yes they do. According to the House of Representatives calendar, the 435 members are “back in the district” that elected them about one-third of the time.
That’s not time off — staff remains on the job — and much “district time” is spent listening to constituents of all political persuasions, often in one-on-one talks about whatever is on their minds.
Some of that time is spent trying to detect district problems before they become national disasters. Last week, one such session notice hit my inbox, part of an endless string of congressional messages.
What caught my eye was a roundtable discussion — a price-of-food-type discussion — hosted in Washington state by two representatives from widely separated regions: Spokane Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Jack Kingston, Republican from Georgia and chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture.
The economic mainstay of McMorris Rodgers’ Eastern Washington district — second only to Fairchild Air Force Base — is a cornucopia of more than 325 agricultural commodities including forest products, wheat, barley, corn, potatoes, asparagus, peas, apples, wine grapes, sweet Walla Walla onions — plus the scientific research that keeps America’s food production abundant, cheap, safe and reliable.
Kingston’s appearance was a surprise. He had mentioned to McMorris Rodgers that he and his wife were coming to her Spokane bailiwick for a friend’s wedding. It didn’t take long to add a work session to the wedding.
The resulting roundtable gave two dozen Eastern Washington farmers, packers, suppliers and research leaders from Washington State University the chance to tell two important leaders about impending train wrecks and emerging technical triumphs.
Everyone at the session was concerned about increased Environmental Protection Agency intervention, with duplicate pesticide permit regulations and near-impossible dust control regulations.
Kingston, an appropriator, noted that next year the farm bill is up for revision — and the whole government is up for budget cuts. Last year’s farm bill cost taxpayers about $100 billion, with $12 billion supporting production agriculture. Most went to programs that help families buy food. All that will be reduced.
Professor Howard Grimes, WSU vice president of research and dean of the graduate school, pointed out that most government agencies are set to lose about 7 percent of their budget, but the Department of Agriculture is slated for a 12 percent cut. “We understand the need for cuts,” Grimes said, “but there’s also need for equity in those cuts.”
WSU already has a big money saver in place: its close integration with the federal Agricultural Research Service, which is housed on campus in shared buildings instead of in a remote and expensive separate facility. And the scientists collaborate, avoiding adversarial jealousies.
The arrangement has produced an astonishing breakthrough: a successful aviation biofuel for military and commercial aircraft. Their experimental fuels don’t freeze at cruising altitude in actual test flights, and they don’t replace food crops with fuel crops: They use woody biomass, oilseeds, industrial and municipal solid wastes, and algae. Development comes next.
However, Kingston’s subcommittee Wednesday slashed $354 million from last year’s $2.8 billion funding level for agricultural research. It now goes to the full House.
I asked Grimes if he thought the two influential legislators got the point. “Oh, yes,” he said emphatically. “We laid the foundation for further discussions on this important issue. Now we all work to find a path forward in tough times.”
Examiner Columnist Ron Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.
