TPA Goes to the House & Sharp-Tailed Grouse

TPA Goes to the House & Sharp-Tailed Grouse. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

The Senate recently passed Trade Promotion Authority or TPA which according to experts would expedite congressional consideration of free trade deals, including continuing negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership between the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim nations. Congressman Dan Newhouse says he expects the House will take up TPA this coming week.

NEWHOUSE: All of you understand how important trade is to the State of Washington. We are "the" most trade reliant stat in the country. Fully 40% of the jobs in our state are tied in some way to international trade, 900-thousand jobs. We exported just agricultural goods that I know a little bit about, almost $9-billion dollars worth of agricultural products from our state last year. We really depend on opening new markets, maintaining the markets we have.

Yet another small bird species has been struggling here in the northwest. Idaho has released a draft management plan for the sharp-tailed grouse. The sharp-tailed grouse is not on the Endangered Species List even though is has been petitioned twice. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game also filed a request with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to add 20,000 acres to a program that in Idaho pays farmers to convert fields into sharp-tailed grouse habitat. In Idaho the bird now occupies less than 5 percent of its historic range in the U.S.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.