07/18/08 Judge will limit CRP critical feed use

Washington Ag July 18, 2008 U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour has extended until next week his temporary restraining order preventing critical feed use haying and grazing of Conservation Reserve Program land. At a hearing Thursday Judge Coughenour said he plans to issue an injunction next week limiting how much CRP land can be opened to USDA's Critical Feed Use program. USDA was allowing haying and grazing on 24 million acres nationwide to provide relief to cattle producers from high feed costs. The judge called USDA's environmental review for that decision a "joke." As Rod Hamilton with the state office of the Washington Farm Service Agency previously told us, the bird nesting season in the state has not yet ended so the critical feed use of CRP had not yet started here. Hamilton; "This wasn't going to be allowed to start until August 2nd. So no one had actually put cattle out or started cutting hay on their CRP yet." But that doesn't mean ranchers haven't already incurred expenses. In a friend of the court brief filed by a coalition including the Washington Cattlemen's Association and Washington Cattle Feeders Association, the story is told of an Asotin County rancher who purchased 40-thousand dollars of haying equipment instead of hay in anticipation of haying CRP. The suit to stop the Critical Feed Use program was brought by the National Wildlife Federation. I'm Bob Hoff.