Skip to content Skip to navigation

Bill bites down on fake service animals

A state panel heard a bill Monday that sets definitions for service animals, and sets penalties for some people who are stretching the rules in order to bring their pets into stores and restaurants. House Bill 439’s sponsor, Rep. Denley Loge, R-St. Regis, said a lot of people are bending the rules. [node:read-more:link]

Pot for pets: Here's how vets and others say it can help

Misty is just one of an untold number of customers in a relatively new, but growing market — pot for pets. These aren’t the edibles or oils that contain THC — tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound in marijuana that provides the “high” in humans — although there are some products being sold that contain low doses of THC. [node:read-more:link]

Gene-edited food quietly arrives in restaurant cooking oil

Somewhere in the Midwest, a restaurant is frying foods with oil made from gene-edited soybeans. That's according to the company making the oil, which says it's the first commercial use of a gene-edited food in the U.S. Calyxt said it can't reveal its first customer for competitive reasons, but CEO Jim Blome said the oil is "in use and being eaten."The Minnesota-based company is hoping the announcement will encourage the food industry's interest in the oil, which it says has no trans fats and a longer shelf life than other soybean oils. [node:read-more:link]

Trump’s immigration crackdown is hurting NC farmers

The lack of laborers has hit farmers whose crops can’t be harvested by machines. They need hired hands that can pick without damaging such crops as tobacco, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, lettuce, strawberries, blackberries and Christmas trees. But Trump’s demand for a massive border wall, his accusations that many Hispanic immigrants are criminals and the rounding up of undocumented immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has dried up the supply of migrant workers. [node:read-more:link]

Destruction from sea level rise in California could exceed worst wildfires and earthquakes, new research shows

In the most extensive study to date on sea level rise in California, researchers say damage by the end of the century could be far more devastating than the worst earthquakes and wildfires in state history.A team of U.S. Geological Survey scientists concluded that even a modest amount of sea level rise — often dismissed as a creeping, slow-moving disaster — could overwhelm communities when a storm hits at the same time.The study combines sea level rise and storms for the first time, as well as wave action, cliff erosion, beach loss and other coastal threats across California. [node:read-more:link]

Unsafe coal ash contamination found in North Dakota groundwater

Unsafe contamination from coal ash disposal sites at half a dozen power plants in western North Dakota has seeped into groundwater sources, according to a report from an environmental group.The Environmental Integrity Project collected industry monitoring data for its nationwide report, which found that six of seven coal-fired power plants in North Dakota leaked contamination into groundwater sources at levels exceeding those deemed safe — in one case, by a factor of 100.But state health officials and representatives of the utilities that run the coal-fired power plants say none of North Da [node:read-more:link]

Trade uncertainty drives Iowa farmland values down 3 percent over past year, report says

Iowa farmland values fell close to 3 percent over the past year, with the largest decline coming from central Iowa, a new report shows. The federal government's trade bailout program, limited land and higher yields in some parts of Iowa last fall helped support farmland values, according to the Realtors Land Institute-Iowa Chapter, a group of farmland managers, brokers, appraisers and other professionals.Farmland values dropped 2.7 percent in March compared to a year earlier, the group's report says. The statewide average was $6,794 an acre. [node:read-more:link]

New Mexico is the third state to legally require 100% carbon-free electricity

As Congressional leaders in Washington, DC remain stalled out on climate-related legislation, states are moving forward, even in conservative parts of the country. New Mexico is the latest. The southwestern state is the latest to embrace carbon-free electricity, passing a bill that will require all electricity from public utilities to come from carbon-free sources. The bill, which passed 43-22 in New Mexico’s increasingly Democratic legislature, requires the state (now one of the country’s top oil, gas, and coal producers) to get 50% of its energy from renewables by 2030 and 80% by 2040. [node:read-more:link]

Connecticut’s solar panel industry presses for change in state law it sees as threat to its existence

Connecticut’s solar industry and environmental advocates are fiercely lobbying state lawmakers to reverse or at least delay action they took last year changing how consumers are compensated for solar energy generated from rooftop panels.About three dozen workers in the industry that installs solar panels gathered Wednesday at the Capitol, urging legislation they say will save industry jobs in Connecticut, estimated at more than 2,000. The legislature’s clean energy caucus said the state’s solar industry faces an "existential crisis.” [node:read-more:link]

Pages

Subscribe to State Ag and Rural Leaders RSS