Progress in first year of implementing Food Safety Working Group recommendations USDA, HHS, Washington, D.C. – On Friday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius commended federal food safety agencies for their accomplishments supporting the charge of President Obama’s Food Safety Working Group, which […]

Senate Agriculture Committee Holds First 2012 Farm Bill Hearing By National Association of Wheat Growers Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) began the hearing by outlining the five principles she intends to guide her Committee’s process: that farmers’ and ranchers’ work is valuable and should be appreciated; that farm bill ideas should […]

Natural Resource News Oregon State University, July 6, 2010 – An incidental discovery in a wood products lab at Oregon State University has produced a new pressure-sensitive adhesive that may revolutionize the tape industry – an environmentally benign product that works very well and costs much less than existing adhesives […]

Natural Resource News, Called one of Oregon’s biggest environmental ballot measures in history, supporters of the Water, Parks, and Wildlife measure have almost doubled the amount of signatures needed to place it on November’s ballot. On Friday, almost 200,000 signatures (approx. 10% of Oregon’s registered voters) were submitted to the […]

The Best of Oregon Editorials: Hasso Herring, Democrat Herald, 6/20 Members of Congress are getting a well-deserved taste of what it means to let carbon dioxide be regulated by a federal agency that is out of control. The Environmental Protection Agency decided last year that it had the power to […]

Local Governments will Receive $358 Million To Compensate for Tax-Exempt Federal Lands (PILT) Department of Interior Washington, D.C.—At the end of last week, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that more than 1,850 local governments around the nation will be receiving their Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT).  Even […]

Only you can prevent a forest fire. Oregon Department of Forestry—More and more Oregonians are living in what is known as the wildland-urban interface – where homes and other structures are built in or near forests.  This population expansion into rural areas has increased the risk of human-caused fires in […]

LED BY LEAHY AND DEFAZIO, 56 MEMBERS OF HOUSE AND SENATE ASK USDA TO KEEP RULES ON GENETICALLY ENGINEERED ALFALFA WASHINGTON – Sen. Patrick Leahy and Rep. Peter DeFazio, joined by 49 other representatives and five other senators, are asking USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to retain the regulated status of genetically […]

Soy Transportation Coalition June 14, 2010 – An analysis performed on behalf of the Soy Transportation Coalition documents the strong relationship between our nation’s freight transportation system and individual farmer profitability. The study provides compelling evidence that farmers, more than any other segment of agriculture, are responsible for paying the […]

Greg Walden presses for action on forest health, rural jobs, biomass energy By Congressman Greg Walden WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) renewed the bipartisan effort to create jobs for rural Oregonians this week by asking once more for congressional hearings on forest health and renewable biomass energy […]