On Wednesday, Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) called for a bipartisan effort to spur job creation by cutting government spending to 2008 levels.  Smith also called for freezing current tax rates for the next two years – preventing the $3.8 trillion tax hike set to take effect on January 1, 2011. 

Unless Congress acts, on January 1, 2011, the average Nebraska family will see their federal income taxes skyrocket from $3,461 to $5,090 – an increase of $1,600.  I am especially concerned the Death Tax will re-emerge at a punishing 55 percent – hitting our family farms, ranches, and small businesses,” Smith said.

Smith said the country won’t solve our fiscal challenges until we cut spending, stop the growth of government, and extend current tax rates. 

“Our country needs real economic growth – which can’t happen if Washington keeps raising taxes on farms, ranches, and small businesses.  Employers need assurances their costs will not increase before they start hiring again,” Smith said.

But Smith’s Democratic opponent, Rebekah Davis, said the U.S. deficit ($13.4 trillion) could cut by a one-third by allowing the Bush tax cuts sunset.

“If these tax cuts had been good for our country in the first place, which they weren’t, legislators would not have played games to get around PAYGO rules when these temporary tax breaks whose benefits overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, were passed in 2001 and 2003,” Davis said. “The painful truth is: these tax cuts were never good for working Americans then, and they most certainly aren’t in our best interests now.”

She said two massive tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest fraction of Americans and two unfunded wars, one of which was a war of choice, have left the nation’s economy in shambles and uncomfortably reliant on China to finance our debt.

“We need to call a spade a spade,” Davis said. “Letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year means not relying on China to finance this segment of debt it would entail to re-authorize this entitlement to our nation’s most financially secure.”

Davis said that “If we listen to the Wall Street tycoons and their minions who want to make Middle America subsidize their lavish lifestyle, our nation will continue to be duped by the false narrative that we can cut our deficit by cutting taxes. Reducing our deficit is in Middle America’s best interest; subsidizing tax breaks to the wealthiest 2% is not. We are Nebraskans, not lemmings.”

According to Farm Futures, “U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will not wait on Congress to act on climate change legislation.  A senior administration official says EPA will soon roll out more regulations on greenhouse gases and traditional pollutants like mercury emissions that will help cut planet-warming pollution and emissions that more directly hurt human health. The unidentified official says these new regulations will not be as strong as action by Congress.”

According to the report, “Senior officals  stopped short of saying the EPA alone would achieve President Obama’s goal of about 17% reductions in greenhouse gases by 2020 from 2005 levels. The official noted that with legislation you almost certainly get more emissions reductions than you get with existing authorities. Analysts say the EPA will not be able to achieve the far deeper cuts needed to help prevent the worst effects of climate change.”

According to Farm Futures: “Energycompanies, from wind and solar power makers to utilities, are concerned about the regulatory uncertainties, with some analysts saying billions of dollars of investments are stymied by the lack of direction in Washington. The administration official believes the EPA rules would provide regulatory certainty that could help businesses get loans to build new plants.”

Increasing ethanol use approving cars to use E15 will postively address air pollution concerns. EPA should first okay E15 use for all vehicles before implementing climate change rules, which Congress cannot accomplish.

Harvest time in Nebraska is nearing. While this year’s crop looks like good quality, erratic weather patterns again has impacted the crop, though in a positive way. A lot of this has to do with excellent hybrids and GMOs that produces and protects crops in ways that increases yield and able to withstand smaller erratic changes in climate. But other places around that don’t have the excellent technology that U.S. farmers enjoy are having trouble with these erratic changes in climate that can make or break a crop. Once a crop is lost, there’s no making up for it. Global climate change is impacting crops in the U.S. and future decisions farmers will be making about next year’s plantings. Higher corn prices are being influenced by drought in Russia, the drought in Russia is related to heavy rains and flooding in Asia. Technology will be one of the greatest tools to combat these erratic weather patterns caused by global climate change, along with good crop and business management and a solid farm to market infrastructure. These are the three cornerstones to America’s agriculture dominance. It’s where our future investments should be.

According to a new release fromBurness Communications, a new report warns that increasingly erratic rainfall related to climate change will pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, especially in Africa and Asia, requiring increased investment in diverse forms of water storage as an effective remedy.

“Millions of farmers in communities dependent on rainfed agriculture are at risk from decreasing and erratic availability of water,” said Colin Chartres, director general of the Sri Lanka-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI), which released the report to coincide with World Water Week in Stockholm. “Climate change will hit these people hard, so we have to invest heavily and quickly in adaptation.”

The report argues against overreliance on single solutions like big dams, proposing instead an integrated approach that combines large- and small-scale storage options, including the use of water from natural wetlands, water stored in the soil, groundwater beneath the earth’s surface and water collected in ponds, tanks and reservoirs.

“Just as modern consumers diversify their financial holdings to reduce risk, smallholder farmers need a wide array of ‘water accounts’ to provide a buffer against climate change impacts,” said Matthew McCartney, the report’s lead author and a hydrologist at IWMI, which is supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). “That way, if one water source goes dry, they’ll have others to fall back on.”

“For millions of people dependent on rainfed agriculture, reliable access to water can make all the difference between chronic hunger and steady progress toward food security,” McCartney added. “Even small amounts of stored water, by enabling crops and livestock to survive dry periods, can produce large gains in agricultural productivity and in the well-being of rural people.”

This harvest season is looking to be nearly opposite of last year. Last year, cool weather in August delayed harvest well into October as corn moisture levels remained high. This year, hot, windy weather in August dried the corn down to a point where producers will be probably looking to enter the fields by mid-September.

While there’s concerns about how this crop will look compared to last year, prices are looking good. And with a lot of Nebraska’s corn now going into ethanol production, that industry, at this time, doesn’t seemed to be as impacted on higher corn prices as two years ago that sent the ethanol industry into a frenzy when corn prices jumped over $7 per bushel.

Bloomberg reports that “ethanol futures soared to a seven- month high in Chicago as corn advanced after a report showed increased demand for U.S. exports.”

According to the story, “The grain-based additive followed its primary ingredient higher after the Agriculture Department said U.S. exporters in the week ended Aug. 19 sold 1.694 million metric tons of corn for delivery after Sept. 1, more than double from a year earlier. One bushel of corn distills into about 2.75 gallons of ethanol.

“We’re at the highest level since January or so,” said Rich Nelson, a director of research at Allendale Inc. in McHenry, Illinois. “It’s partially related to the corn. You have arguments on yields and at the same time you have a ravenous export market.”