EPA Awards $4 Million in Grants to Research the Impact of Drought on Water Quality

EPA Awards $4 Million in Grants to Research the Impact of Drought on Water Quality Washington-Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $4 million to four institutions to conduct research to combat the effects of drought and extreme events on water quality in watersheds and at drinking water utilities. “As a nation we are witnessing the harmful effects of droughts and extreme events, such as wildfires and flooding, that often follow drought conditions," said Thomas A. Burke, EPA Science Advisor and Deputy Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Research and Development. "This research will provide innovative strategies to help local communities, states, tribes, and the federal government better understand the impacts of these problems, and better protect our nation's water and the health of our friends and families who rely on those water resources." These grants will provide innovative strategies for protecting water quality and public health during periods of drought. Increasing demands on the nation’s water resources, climate change, population growth and aging water infrastructure systems pose substantial threats to these resources. The following institutions received funding through the EPA’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program: • Clemson University, Clemson, S.C., for investigating the effects of different forest fire reduction management techniques, such as prescribed burns or mechanical thinning, in experimental forested watersheds associated with rainstorm events following droughts and the impact on treated drinking water supplies. • Water Research Foundation, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colo. for developing an integrated modeling and decision framework to evaluate adaptation strategies for sustainable drinking water utility management impacted by drought and climate change. • Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco, Calif. for synthesizing the current drought situation and its effects on water supply and quality, and conducting an assessment that examines the drought response by federal, state, and local institutions to develop innovations needed for sustainable drought management. • University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah for developing and integrating tools, models, and educational materials that can be used by stakeholders to improve planning efforts related to water supply, forecasting demand for water, and nutrient reduction. More information about the STAR grants and recipients: www.epa.gov/research-grants/water-research-grants R303

NMSU part of strategic plan for resiliency in state’s food and ag industries

NMSU part of strategic plan for resiliency in state’s food and ag industries DATE: 11/04/2015 WRITER: Jane Moorman, 505-249-0527, jmoorman@nmsu.edu CONTACT: Michael Patrick, 575-202-4253, jmpat@nmsu.edu New Mexico’s agriculture and food processing industries face many challenges and are looking to the future. The combination of agriculture and food processing is an important part of New Mexico’s economy. Together, the two broad industries accounted for $10.6 billion, roughly 12.3 percent of New Mexico’s $85 billion gross state product in 2012. The future will bring opportunities to these industries that are important to the state’s economy, ranging from expanding sales to out-of-state markets to supplying New Mexico consumers with locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. It will also bring the challenges of an aging agricultural workforce and the growing demand for water in a period of prolonged drought. New Mexico State University and New Mexico First are joining forces to develop a strategic plan to help maintain a resilient New Mexico food and agricultural system. The Thornburg Foundation is coordinating the funding of the project. “The Thornburg Foundation, along with other funders, have recognized that the threats facing the economic, social and environmental resilience of agriculture in our state are large, complex and immediate,” said Micaela Fischer, Thornburg Foundation policy officer for food and agriculture. “They are also likely too far-reaching for any group, business or government agency to handle independently. “However, we’ve found that many of these threats, such as uncertain water and natural resource availability and paltry producer income, are not unique to New Mexico, and other states have bolstered their agricultural sector through common plans of action,” Fischer said. “We hope to see the same success in increased health and wealth of New Mexico’s producers, eaters and working lands through the implementation of a state-wide plan for agricultural resilience.” A two-year timeframe has been set for developing the plan. “The plan will foster a food and agricultural system capable of withstanding new challenges,” said Michael Patrick, NMSU’s Cooperative Extension Service economic development specialist, “while advancing a strong and growing export-oriented commodity agriculture sector and a robust local food system of small to medium-sized family farms and ranches producing locally grown food to meet the growing consumer demand in the state,.” NMSU’s extension service will assist New Mexico First in gathering information from a broad range of stakeholders at the grassroots level. “New Mexico First is very good at gathering grassroots recommendations,” Patrick said. “The extension service is good at getting people together to share their opinion on issues being faced by this sector.” Regional meetings are scheduled beginning in December and running through March. The information will be complied into a background report on the state of New Mexico agriculture, which will be used by a task force to develop the Resilience in New Mexico Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan. “Once the information is gathered, NMSU College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences will be directly involved in interpreting the results that will be provided to a task force,” Patrick said. “The long-term, collective impact of this initiative will necessitate the formation of multi-stakeholder groups who are committed to implementing the plan in order to ensure the resiliency of the food and agriculture system in New Mexico,” said Heather Balas, New Mexico First president. “It will take a a diverse network of farmers, ranchers, processors, distributors and market organizers to make a difference in the future of an agriculture industry that is capable of withstanding new challenges and advancing to new successes.” Meeting in 11 communities across the state will begin in December. The discussion in Albuquerque will be from 9:30 a.m. to noon, Wednesday, Jan. 13, at the Mid-Region Council of Government, 809 Cooper Ave. NW. SIDEBAR: Resiliency in New Mexico Food and Agriculture Regional Meetings •Roswell: Wednesday, Dec.2, Roswell Convention & Civic Center, 912 N. Main St. •Las Cruces: Thursday, Jan. 7, New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, 4100 Dripping Springs Road •Albuquerque: Wednesday, Jan. 13, Mid-Region Council of Governments, 809 Copper Ave. NW. •Southern Pueblos: Thursday, Jan. 14, Route 66 Casino & Hotel, Interstate 25, Rio Puerco Exit. •Silver City: Friday, Jan. 15, Grant County Extension office, 2610 North Silver St. •Northern Pueblos: Wednesday, Feb. 10, Espanola, Santa Claran Hotel & Casino, 460 North Riverside Drive •Taos: Thursday, Feb. 11, Juan I Gonzales Memorial Taos County Agricultural Center, 202 Chamisa Road •Farmington: Wednesday, March 2, Farmington Civic Center, 200 W. Arrington St. •Crownpoint: Thursday, March 3, Navajo Technical University, Lowerpoint Road and State Highway 371. •Shiprock: Friday, March 4, Dine College, 1228 Yucca St. •Tucumcari: Wednesday, March 9, Tucumcari Convention Center, 1500 W. Historic Route 66. All meetings begin at 9:30 a.m. Lunch will be served. - 30 -

WHAT IS IN A COTTON BALE?

WHAT IS IN A COTTON BALE? It is that time of the year when Cotton producer harvest their crop. This year the price is higher than ever recorded in history. Agriculture people talk about bales of cotton. So while eating breakfast at a local café I was asked what is a bale of cotton, is it like alfalfa? Which reminded me how far most Americans are removed for the production of product they use or eat every day? Over the past 6,000 years or so man (most likely it was really a woman) has tamed the cotton plant, like all our crop and livestock cotton has a wild beginning. Much like the common dandelion cotton produced lint to help disperse the seeds to other areas. Some time in ancient time someone in the Egyptian part of the world spun this lint to make a thread. So though genetic manipulation and selection which continues to this day, cotton now produces a lot more lint than it need for seed dispersal. Modern cotton production has evolved in time to become highly mechanized and is grown on every continent except Antarctica. It is truly a worldwide market. I thought I would go briefly over the process from plant to pants. Cotton is picked or striped form the plant. In eddy county most is picked using a cotton picker that has rotating spindles that catch the lint and attached seed and pull it from the plant and blows it in to the picker basket. This is called seed cotton and it can be dumped either in to a cotton trailer or into a modular builder. A module builder is a lot like a garbage truck, it collects the seed cotton and compacts to make it more efficient to transport to the cotton gin. These big bread loaf look modules setting in the field are not a bail of cotton. Once it is transported to the Gin either by module or trailer it is sucked up by a big vacuum device. Gin is short for Engine. Once it is picked up in the gin the lint and seed is separated from the sticks, green bolls, and other trash. The gin in Eddy county are saw tooth gins and can gin upland cotton pulling the lint from the seed, the seed fall to the bottom and goes one direction the lint goes another. The seed can be sold as livestock feed, sent to Texas for acid deleting and future planting by the producer or seed buyer or it can be sent to a seed press where the oil is separated out and the remains are dried into cotton seed meal. Most vegetable oil has a lot of cotton oil, I like buy it exclusively for cooking. So you many not think of it but you eat cotton in a lot of different forms other than just oil. Cotton seed oil can be used as diesel fuel after treatment. The lint goes through some other process and is comb into a nice straight fiber and placed in a bale press to make a uniform size and weight product of 480 pounds, 54 inches long, 20 inches wide and a tie width of about 33 inches. This is roughly 17 cubic feet of cotton fiber. Sample are taken and analyzed for classing. The longer thinner and stronger the fiber the higher the value is. This can change by verity (genetics), growing conditions, and maturity at harvest. So based on the quality the producer price will change, if a bail has a contaminate in it like hay twine, plastic bags, which can end up in the final product of a shirt, jeans that bail is condemned, as is the bale in front and the bale behind. Each bale cotton can be traced back to the gin and the producer. Cotton can be traced from the finished product to the farm it was grown on. These bales are sold through a lot of different markets onto the international market. When I came to Eddy county we had 4 operating gins, in 1974 we had 14 operating gins and now we have 2. When the cottonwood gin was in operation, the ginner Mr. David Cloe had received a letter from a spinner in Germany. A spinner is a textile mill which manufactures thread. Stating that the cotton he had received from Eddy County NM was to highest quality he had ever had the pleasure of spinning. Once it is made into thread it is woven into cloth. One 480 pound bale of cotton produces 8,340 handkerchiefs’, 760 men’s dress shirts, 290 Men’s jeans, 900 Women’s blouses. 350 women’s jeans, 210 full size sheets and 3,670 men’s socks. The producers in Eddy County are truly helping to Clothe and feed the world. Once it is placed in a bale 100% of the cotton produce in Eddy County is exported out of the state, most out of the nation the money received for this product is economically speaking new money to the local economy and national economy to help with our trade deficit. Currently China is the largest international buyer. Eddy County Extension Service, New Mexico State University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and educator. All programs are available to everyone regardless of race, color, religion, sex, age, handicap, or national origin. New Mexico State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Eddy County Government Cooperating.

Opening Statement: Chairman K. Michael Conaway Committee on Agriculture Hearing: American Agriculture and Our National Security

Opening Statement: Chairman K. Michael Conaway Committee on Agriculture Hearing: American Agriculture and Our National Security Remarks as prepared for delivery: Good morning, and welcome to today’s hearing. Many of you may be wondering why the Committee on Agriculture would be holding a hearing on national security. A former Chairman of this committee, the Honorable Kika de la Garza, would often tell a story when he asked: “How long can a nuclear submarine stay under water?” The simple answer, until it runs out of food. With fewer and fewer Americans connected to production agriculture, many in Congress fail to recognize the importance of sound agricultural policy to our national security. Sitting on the Armed Services Committee and now chairing the Agriculture Committee, I find myself in a position to highlight this important relationship. Agriculture and national security are intertwined in many different ways – whether it is ensuring that food is available to meet nutritional needs for both those within our own borders as well as those around the world, or ensuring that food coming into our borders is disease and pest free, or guaranteeing that farmers and ranchers have the needed policy tools in place to continue producing food and fiber. It is my hope in this hearing we can begin to examine the threats and vulnerabilities to agricultural security, as well as discuss the economic significance associated with those threats. The food and agriculture industry in the United States is not only crucial to the public health and welfare of this nation, but is an important force in the economic, social and political fabric here AND abroad. The US food and agriculture industry is almost entirely under private ownership and is composed of an estimated 2.2 million farms, which are the foundations of our nearly $1 trillion food and fiber business with over $150 billion in exports for FY 2014. In 2013, 16.9 million full and part time jobs were related to agriculture, which is approximately 9.2 percent of total U.S. employment. From a security standpoint, there are an array of sectors ranging from farms with relatively open croplands to highly secure food and dairy processing facilities. At the retail end, small neighborhood cafes operate in markets with large supermarket chains and nationally franchised restaurants. Continuous changes in the way that food is produced, distributed, and consumed present new challenges for ensuring its safety and security. While increasing global trade presents opportunities for raising food safety and quality standards to levels commensurate with those of the United States, it also means increasing the amount of food coming into this country. In fact, the total volume of U.S. food imports has increased 60% over the last decade. This heightens the importance of ensuring that products entering our borders meet our quality and safety standards. Near-term threats to food security include weather, conflict, diseases, resource constraints, and environmental degradation. For example, large exportable supplies of key components of food production—such as phosphates, potash, and fuel oil—come from states where conflict or government actions could cause supply chain disruptions that lead to price spikes. In addition, monitoring and controlling outbreaks of agricultural diseases will become increasingly difficult as the world becomes more integrated, disease vectors shift, and domestic animal populations grow and become more concentrated. Historically, our food safety, plant protection and animal health regulatory systems have assumed the accidental contamination of food or inadvertent introduction of animal disease or plant pest. The prospect of an intentional, or terrorist, attack on our food and agriculture industry raises grave concerns that present challenges for producers and policy makers alike. We intend to dive deeper into the federal role and responsibility for preventing, detecting and responding to emergencies in future hearings. I want to thank our distinguished panel for joining us today to discuss the role U.S. agriculture plays in maintaining a strong U.S. economy and stability around the world. Today we will hear from Ambassador Negroponte who served as the first ever Director of National Intelligence. Prior to this appointment, he served as the US Deputy Secretary of State and had several appointments as US Ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations, and Iraq. He has first-hand experience protecting the national security of this country, and I want to thank him for his service and leadership. I also look forward to hearing from Dr. Tammy Beckham, Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University. Dean Beckham has also has served as director of the Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases; director of the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory; director of the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Plum Island Animal Disease Center; and she served as a captain in the U.S. Army where she served at the Army's Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. While much of today’s hearing will focus on threats and vulnerabilities to domestic and international food security, we must remember the importance of our producers here at home. America has the safest, most affordable, most abundant food supply in the history of the world, and that is not by accident – it is by design. Sound agricultural policy has been an integral piece of our ability to feed and clothe not only our nation, but the world. Agriculture is the backbone of the economy, and throughout history America has been able to not only survive, but thrive because our agricultural safety net helps farmers weather the bad times. We must never forget that there is no food without the farmer. President George W. Bush eloquently summed it up when he said “We’re a blessed nation because we can grow our own food. A nation that can feed its people is a nation more secure.”

USDA Announces Commodity Credit Corporation Lending Rates for November 2015

USDA Announces Commodity Credit Corporation Lending Rates for November 2015 11/02/2015 07:57 AM EST Release No. 0178.15 USDA Announces Commodity Credit Corporation Lending Rates for November 2015 WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2015 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) today announced interest rates for November 2015. The CCC borrowing rate-based charge for November is 0.250 percent, down from 0.375 percent in October. The interest rate for crop year commodity loans less than one year disbursed during November is 1.250 percent, down from 1.375 percent in October. Interest rates for Farm Storage Facility Loans approved for November are as follows, 1.750 percent with seven-year loan terms, down from 1.875 percent in October; 2.125 percent with 10-year loan terms, unchanged from 2.125 percent in October and; 2.250 percent with 12-year loan terms, down from 2.375 percent in October. The interest rate for 15-year Sugar Storage Facility Loans for November is 2.375 percent, down from 2.500 percent in October. Further program information is available from USDA Farm Service Agency's (FSA) Financial Management Division at 202-772-6041. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Office of Adjudication, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (866) 632-9992 (Toll-free Customer Service), (800) 877-8339 (Local or Federal relay), (866) 377-8642 (Relay voice users).

How the widening urban-rural divide threatens America

How the widening urban-rural divide threatens America Chickens roam free on an organic ranch in Tres Pinos, Calif. Eighty percent of rural San Benito County is devoted to agriculture. (Los Angeles Times) Victor Davis Hanson Of all the growing divides in America, none is sharper than that between city and country. For rural residents, existential issues on the national level are seen as magnified versions of personal considerations: Does the country have enough food, fuel and minerals? Can America defend itself, protect its friends and punish its enemies? These concerns differ markedly from the urbanite's worry about whether the government will provide services to take care of vulnerable populations or whether those of different races and religions can get along in such a crowded environment. Add all this up and rural residents are more likely to be conservative and thus Republican, their urban counterparts liberal and logically Democratic. Most hot-button issues — deficit spending, defense, same-sex marriage, amnesty, affirmative action, gun control, and abortion — break along rural or urban lines. But what, exactly, causes this division? Rural living historically has encouraged independence, and it still does, even in the globalized and wired 21st century. Autonomy and autarky, not narrow specialization, are necessary and are fueled by an understanding that tools must be mastered to keep nature in its proper place. Such constant preparedness nurtures skeptical views about the role and size of government, in which the good citizen is defined as someone who can take care of herself. The founders and early observers of American democracy reflected a classical symbiosis, in which even urban thinkers praised the benefits of life in rural areas. - The urban ideal tends to be just the opposite. Looking to cement his lead among urban unmarried women during his 2012 reelection campaign, Barack Obama ran an interactive Web ad, "The Life of Julia." Its dependency narrative defined the life of an everywoman character as one of cradle-to-grave government reliance — a desirable thing. Julia is proudly and perennially a ward of the state. She can get through school only thanks to Head Start and federally backed student loans. Only the Small Business Administration and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act enable her to find work. In her retirement years, only Social Security and Medicare allow her comfort and the time to volunteer for a communal urban garden, apparently a hobby rather than a critical food source. The urban-rural divide can be experienced within hours. I live half the week in a 140-year-old farmhouse in the rural Central Valley, the other half in a studio apartment in Palo Alto near the Stanford University campus. At my house, I worry about whether the well will go dry. I lock the driveway gate at night, and if someone knocks after 10 p.m., I go to the door armed. Each night, I check the security lights in the barnyard and watch to ensure that coyotes aren't creeping too close from the vineyard. I wage a constant battle against the squirrels, woodpeckers and gophers that undermine the foundation, poke holes in the sheds and destroy irrigation ditches. At my apartment, I have few concerns about maintenance and more time to read, brood and mix with others. Urbanites may work long hours at the office among thousands of people, but they often remain in a cocooned existence shielded from the physical world. Essential to the neurotic buzz of 24/7 cable news, Twitter and Facebook is the assumption that millions of Americans are not busy logging, hauling in a net on a fishing boat or picking peaches. These differences wouldn't matter so much if it weren't for the fact that the nation's urbanites increasingly govern those living in the hinterlands, even as vanishing rural Americans still feed and fuel the nation. The elite that runs the country in politics, finance, journalism and academia is urban to the core: degrees from brand-name universities, internships at well-connected agencies, residence in New York or Washington, power marriages. The power resume does not include mechanical apprenticeships, work on ships or oil rigs, knowledge of firearms or farm, logging or mining labor — jobs now regulated and overseen by those with little experience of them. Few in Silicon Valley know where in the High Sierra their Hetch Hetchy water comes from or where in the bay their sewage is dumped. Food, too, is an abstraction. I doubt that most of my Stanford colleagues know that a raisin is typically a dried Thomson seedless grape, or whether a peach or plum needs to be cross-pollinated. Feinstein-Boxer water bill offers real drought relief A comparison between how California used to confront environmental challenges and how the state deals with them now illustrates the dangers of having a clueless urban population call the shots. Once the state grew to more than 10 million people, California legislators, along with federal officials, created the federal Central Valley Project and, later, the California State Water Project. These joint ventures helped turn the scenic but dry corridor along the coast from sparsely populated to the most densely inhabited in the United States, and helped transform semi-arid desert terrain in the southwestern Central Valley into productive farmland. Because city and country were once seen as complementary, most state residents supported the planning for additional dams, reservoirs, canals and pumping stations to match population growth. How did the new Californians deal with the drought? Not as in the past. Enthralled by a fantasy of a pristine 19th century California that has it all — from daily fresh organic tomatoes to schools of fish jumping amid white water, without understanding what it takes to grow those tomatoes — urbanites have argued that farmers can make do with less but wildlife needs ever more. Millions of acre-feet of precious stored water were released out of rivers as urban environmentalists hoped to increase the population of 3-inch delta smelt and to restore salmon to the upper San Joaquin River. Despite millions of acre-feet of released water, both fish projects have so far failed. Meanwhile, under pressure from environmental groups, the state canceled water projects such as the huge Temperance Flat reservoir on the San Joaquin River. Common sense would have warned that droughts are existential challenges, the severity and duration of which are unpredictable. Droughts are times to bank water, not to release it for questionable green initiatives. Such common sense would assume, though, that millions of Californians had seen a broccoli farm or a Flame Seedless vineyard and had made the connection that what they purchased in supermarkets was grown from irrigated soil. The founders and early observers of American democracy, from Thomas Jefferson to Alexis de Tocqueville, reflected a classical symbiosis, in which even urban thinkers praised the benefits of life in rural areas. Jefferson famously wrote: "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe." Get your free weekly take on the most pertinent, discussed topics of the day >> From Hesiod's "Works and Days" to Virgil's "Georgics," the connection between farming and morality was always emphasized as a check on urban decadence and corruption. What was gained by the city's great universities and pageantry was often lost through the baleful effects of being cut off from nature and defining success through intangibles such as transient goods, status and material luxuries. Physical and mental balance, practicality, a sense of the tragic rather than the therapeutic — all these were birthed by rural life and yet proved essential to the survival of a nation that would inevitably become more mannered, sophisticated and urban. Rural folks didn't romanticize the city but rather, like characters in Horace's "Satires" or the rustic mouse of "Aesop's Fables," saw it as a necessary evil. Yet urbanites idealized the farm — if certainly from a safe distance. The 21st century may at last see the end of a venerable consensus that rural citizens prizing liberty and freedom provide a necessary audit on the dependent urbanites. We have left for good the world of Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower and entered the age of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump — and likely with worse to come. Victor Davis Hanson is a contributing editor of City Journal and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. This essay was excerpted from the 25th anniversary issue of Manhattan Institute's City Journal.

Next president must shape up federal land agencies

Next president must shape up federal land agencies • By CY JAMISON Cy Jamison, of Billings, was U.S. BLM director from 1989-1993 • Oct 30, 2015 A land deal brokered by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation secured a parcel that helps improve access to BLM land just south of the Bears Paw Mountains close to the Chouteau-Blaine county border. I am a fourth-generation Westerner. I've spent my career managing natural resources. In 1989, when I became the director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, my leadership team and I spent considerable time maintaining and attempting to improve the relationships between Washington, D.C., and Western communities. By its nature, the distance from our nation's capital and the bulk of BLM's footprint, not just measured in miles but also differences in culture and point of view, requires constant attention. Now, 25 years later, that relationship has become a nightmare for many Westerners. The Forest Service and BLM are failing the West. There are at least three reasons for this: planning, environmental reviews and decision making. The majority of each agency's employees try to do a good job, but because of overlapping laws, endless regulatory requirements and stifling litigation, they have become paper pushers and hand wringers. The planning system defies logic. Constant and unnecessary delays so hobble the process that when a plan is finally approved, it has cost too much to complete and is already out of date. Rather than helping people and the land, these plans become handcuffs. From getting a permit to drill on an existing oil and gas lease or approval to stage a fishing contest in a national forest, if an otherwise routine and desirable activity is even slightly different from that envisioned in the plan, you either need a lot of good luck or years of patience to obtain an amendment to the plan. Invitation to sue The same holds true in obtaining environmental reviews. Today environmental reviews are simply an invitation to sue with the results decided by lawyers and judges years after the review starts. Public land management decisions need to be returned to professional land managers. Finally, the management decision process has deteriorated to the point where many managers are no longer held accountable for results. Poor performers are just shuffled around while the rest of us pay for their mistakes. Given this increasingly intolerable situation you'd think the various candidates who want to be our next president would be addressing these issues. Many of them, like many Westerners, are angry at the dysfunction plaguing Washington, D.C., but, as I learned long ago, anger, while sometimes a necessary condition for change, doesn't fix things. Only one candidate seems both angry enough to disrupt Washington, but also prepared to roll up their sleeves and rebuild trust between Washington and the West. Jeb's land plan Last week Jeb Bush laid out a detailed plan to better respect the West — to rebuild the federal land management process. Some of the fixes, like limiting government reviews to two years, will require bipartisan legislation. Others, like giving states and local governments more deference in planning, could be implemented immediately. Regardless, we need more of this: a candidate not only fed up, but willing to lay out exactly what they want to do to wake up Washington and end the nightmare. Will other candidates do the same? I hope so. We not only need a candidate who wants to be president, but one who can govern once they get there. A proven leader who not only understands the West, but also understands that being mad is not enough. Cy Jamison, of Billings, was U.S. BLM director from 1989-1993.