Proposed Immigration Change & Vilsack Talks to Lawmakers

Proposed Immigration Change & Vilsack Talks to Lawmakers plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Lawmakers got to hear from Ag Secretary Vilsack last week and during his comments about the budget cuts he made a plea to Senators.

VILSACK: And the plea is for and understanding that we need time and flexibility during these difficult times. We need time to absorb the reductions that have taken place. We need time to fully implement our plans for additional savings which includes a very top to bottom review of our administrative functions and we need to have the opportunity ands flexibility to build on the success that we’ve experienced at USDA in the recent past.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has posted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register  that would reduce the time U.S. citizens are separated from their spouses, children, and parents (i.e. immediate relatives) who must obtain an immigrant visa abroad to become lawful permanent residents of the United States. This rule would allow certain immediate relatives of U.S. citizens to apply for a provisional waiver of the unlawful presence ground of inadmissibility while still in the United States if they can demonstrate that being separated from their U.S. citizen spouse or parent would cause that U.S. citizen relative extreme hardship.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

Biofuels have garnered much attention recently, and rightly so. With the soaring costs of gasoline, aviation biofuels are the obvious choice for airlines to replace fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from air travel. One of the major concerns though is being able to keep up with supply and demand when it comes to crops grown for biofuel production, and the land use this would require. This is why many airports are now exploring the potential of developing airport-owned property for bioenergy production. In fact, last year MSU partnered with Wayne County Airport Authority to grow, harvest, and process biomass crops on airport owned land. Many of those opposed to biofuel production cite that farmers would need to devote vast amounts of acreage to crops such as oilseed rape, maize, sugar cane and oil palms; severely limiting or completely deleting land used for food crops. Using nontraditional lands such as the fallow land running alongside airports and highways to grow crops to produce biofuels could potentially alleviate such concerns and eventually provide new business and employment opportunities, while freeing us from foreign oil use.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.