Covering Up & Deadline On Capital Hill

Covering Up & Deadline On Capital Hill plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The City of Portland is giving up...and covering up. For eight years the city council has been fighting with the EPA over a plan to cover the city's open-air reservoirs. Portland is one of a small handful of municipalities with open water reservoirs. According to the new plans, two new, covered reservoirs will be built at Kelly Butte and Powell Butte. The work is expected to begin in 2015. When the new reservoirs are completed. the reservoir at Mt. Tabor will be disconnected.

Senate Ag Leaders face a looming deadline this week to finish the Senate Farm Bill - or risk having to pass another farm bill extension. The key is an agreement to limit amendments to say 50 rather than some 180. National Farmers Union’s Chandler Goule says without such an agreement - the farm bill might have to be delayed until after must-do immigration reform.

GOULE: If any Senator objects to the end block or objects to their amendment not being brought up, technically yes, one Senator could hold up the entire farm bill to be postpone to after the immigration consideration. Therefore ultimately increasing the chances of an additional extension significantly which would be very detrimental to U.S. farmers and ranchers.

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

It is easy to take pot shots at politicians, sometimes they just make it so darn easy. But the truth is, it is much, much easier to tell someone how to do their job, than to do that job yourself. As Congress struggles to reauthorize a comprehensive five year Farm Bill, the pressure to to cut bloated federal programs such as SNAP without hurting the people who really truly need the program, all while continuing to please their constituents must be immense. Throw into that mix the struggle to reform an antiquated conglomeration of immigration laws, while not shutting down ag production in this country in the process, and you start to wonder why anyone would want to be a senator or congressman. How do we secure the border and still find a way to keep the over eleven million illegal immigrants in this country doing the jobs that keep affordable food in our stores and on our tables? I don’t have the answers. Obviously, at this point in time, neither does Congress. Hopefully though in the near future they will. They should remember what everyone’s favorite President once said, “ The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.”

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