Federal Change

Idaho Lieutenant Governor Brad Little spoke to Idaho Farm Bureau members about the changes he hopes to see at the federal level.

"The day after the election I had five meetings and in every one of them, we talked about a problem that radiated from the federal government. We now have a window of opportunity to make changes. The one agency you can change the fastest in a new administration is the Department of Justice. If we had a different Department of Justice in the state of Oregon, they would not have put those two ranchers in prison on a terrorism charge. There is one of the first places that changes will take place quite rapidly. The other agencies, USDA, it's always a little slow. We still have rules and regulations that have to change. With the forest service, we have actually made some progress in the fact that we are getting some of these forest grounds that they haven't been doing anything with, we are getting management turned over to the states but we have to put that plan on steroids if we are going to keep this mill full of wood going forward and keep the timber industry going forward. The BLM, those changes will be slow too. Obviously the EPA, I think WOTUS that I have been dreading, that was about the third epiphany that I had was what is going to happen with WOTUS. Another big issue is endangered species. We came up with a good plan on sage grouse and the Department of Justice and US Fish and Wildlife Service, after everybody said that is a good plan, said no it is not."