State Senator on ag and the recent legislative session

Washington Ag Today June 20, 2011 Participants at last week’s WSU Lind Field Day got a review of this year’s legislative action from State Republican Senator Mark Schoesler. In an interview the Ritzville farmer talked about the state’s budget and agriculture.

Schoesler: “Well, the Department of Agriculture because it is largely user-fee driven came out pretty well. Programs like the fair funding came away clean. We came away with the Conservation Commission in pretty good shape. So natural resources were not hit as bad as they might have been.”

The House had wanted to eliminate the WSDA’s marketing programs. Schoesler explains the compromise that was reached.

Schoesler: “We looked at it and said domestic marketing people can be replaced very quickly. International marketing takes time to develop those people, those ties. So we said we will let the domestic portion go but not the international because of the time to develop people and we are such a trade dependent state.”

Schoesler said it wasn’t a very good year for higher education and Washington State University, which saw state support reduced again.

Schoesler: “The good news was we weren‘t prescriptive about where they had to take their cuts. We are going to let President Floyd and Dean Bernardo work a lot more of these things out themselves.”

Schoesler said agriculture didn’t ask for any favors this past session pointing out that the ag burning tax exemption expired with no complaints as did the Dairy Nutrient Program.

Schoesler: “There was no efforts to keep it because we felt we had to do our share and we certainly did.”

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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