EPA Acts without Congress & Beef Exports Still Struggling

EPA Acts without Congress & Beef Exports Still Struggling plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. While Mexico is still the No. 1 destination for U.S. beef exports, it is the only major market that is trailing last year's results. U.S. Meat Export Federation Regional Director Chad Russell says Mexico's economy has been slow to rebound from the global financial crisis that initially took hold in late 2008. RUSSELL: It is slowly recovering. The pace has strengthened a little bit over the last several months. I also think that ham prices are quite high and so there is some movement back to beef we think. So we believe as the economy continues to improve there will be a slow and steady return to getting back to where we were before the financial crisis. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will not wait on Congress to act on climate change legislation. A senior administration official says EPA will soon roll out more regulations on greenhouse gases and traditional pollutants like mercury emissions that will help cut planet-warming pollution and emissions that more directly hurt human health. The unidentified official says these new regulations will not be as strong as action by Congress. The senior official stopped short of saying the EPA alone would achieve President Obama's goal of about 17 percent reductions in greenhouse gases by 2020 from 2005 levels Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. I have voiced my feelings in the past over concern for the delisting of wolves and the strong probability of over hunting ensuing by every Tom, Dick, and Mary with a gun. At the same time, I strongly support legislation that affords farmers and ranchers the right to protect their livestock, their very livelihood, from wolf predation. Plus, programs that have been in place to compensate ranchers for livestock killed by wolves are not only essential, they are properly due. Now, with the creation of a federal wolf predation compensation program The Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group that agreed to compensate ranchers for livestock losses to wolves, has announced they will no longer do so. Instead, they hope to use that money to help ranchers learn to better prevent wolf predation. That is easier said than done. As any rancher will tell you, dealing with a wild predator is not akin to a Disney movie, "playing nice" and co-existing with wolves is not practical or probable. To expect ranchers to "just learn to live with wolves" is like expecting people to ignore an angry pit bull on a playground. It just isn't going to happen. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.