A Simple but Great Idea and Free Trade Needs Attention

A Simple but Great Idea and Free Trade Needs Attention. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Washington Congressman Doc Hastings knows the importance of agriculture in the NW and says that it's imperative that free trade agreements like the one with S. Korea come to fruition. HASTINGS: Listen I have been a proponent of enacting this free trade agreement since it was agreed upon. All it needs is ratification from Congress but we also need to pass the Columbia Free Trade Agreement and the Panama Free Trade Agreement. Those will help our agriculture community immediately, especially Columbia. While I'm pleased at least the President is talking about this we need to ratify all three of those agreements. It is a simple idea that has been a huge success in Europe. Solar panels on homes wired to the grid. Yesterday Portland General Electric, Pacific Power and Idaho Power began accepting applications from Oregon customers for a pilot project that could produce enough solar energy to serve the equivalent of 2,500 homes in a year -- funded by electricity-rate increases of perhaps one half of 1 percent. It has been a touch and go project that may need some fine tuning along the way...but we'll be watching. Now here's today's Washington Grange Report. (GRANGE) That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.