It seems that HSUS has sent a letter to many CEOs of broiler companies with language noting their victories with layers and swine as well as their intent to now focus on the broiler industry. [node:read-more:link]

he United States has lost nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000 alone, hollowing out factory towns all over the country and leaving countless working-class Americans struggling.  Getting those jobs back is a goal that politicians of all stripes eagerly line up behind. But the plain truth is that, legally speaking, there's not a lot that Trump or any other president could do to bring those jobs back, without an act of Congress. [node:read-more:link]

Weichelt is among the researchers at the forefront of monitoring injuries and deaths among children related to farming and agriculture at the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety. The 2016 report from the center released in July shows that children on farms are much safer from nonfatal injuries today than they were 18 years ago, but not any safer from fatal ones. Every three days, a child dies in an agriculture-related incident, Weichelt said. [node:read-more:link]

Survey Results at a Glance: • For an 11th straight month, the Rural Mainstreet Index fell below growth neutral. • Farmland prices remained below growth neutral for the 32nd straight month. • Bank CEOs reported a 6 percent decline in farmland prices over the past year. Bankers expect cash expenses will exceed cash revenues for one in five crop farmers in the region. • Bank CEOs expect farm loan defaults to grow by 5.4 percent over the next year. [node:read-more:link]

One of the roundtable attendees was state Sen Chauncey "Greg" Gregory, who has sponsored significant legislation in the state to support solar power. A few years ago, Gregory visited his sister in Portland, Oregon, and saw solar panels on hundreds of rooftops. “It seemed ridiculous to me that a state that is cloudy 8 months a year had so much solar energy,” he says, “while South Carolina had so little.” He decided to try and change that. The state’s sunny neighbors - Georgia and North Carolina were making big strides in solar. [node:read-more:link]

Solar power can burn a hole in a state’s budget, but a well-designed plan can bring benefits. Demand for residential or rooftop solar power, spurred in part by state incentives, is growing rapidly. But if incentives are not well-designed, they can overwhelm a state’s budget. Regulators and utility officials in several states have been surprised – not always in a positive way – by the effects of their solar power policies. Louisiana is one of the more recent, and more dramatic, examples. [node:read-more:link]

The industry that burns wood to produce electricity is floundering nationwide because of low power prices, and some lawmakers from heavily forested states are pushing to provide it with an extraordinary market advantage. [node:read-more:link]

A steady drumbeat of new natural-gas plants have replaced coal as the dominant source of electricity generation in the U.S.  At the beginning of 2016, America’s coal production fell to its lowest level in 30 years.  But the increasingly heavy reliance on natural gas has exacted a toll. The energy-associated carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas are expected to top the CO2 emissions from coal for the first time more than 40 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. [node:read-more:link]

With two weeks left in the legislative session, Senate leader Kevin de León is making a new effort to unsnarl a two year budget gridlock over money generated from the state's cap-and-trade program. The $1.2-billion spending plan would include money for cleaner cars, energy efficient upgrades and urban parks. [node:read-more:link]