Washblog

Peter Goldmark, rancher, scientist, Washington State University Regent, co-founder of Farming and the Environment, and former director of Washington State Department of Agriculture is running for US Congress in Washington's 5th Congressional District. The 5th is famous for its voters' decisive action.   In 1994 the voters here  booted out favorite son Tom Foley, Speaker of the U.S. House, who was understood to be passionately defending Congress " in its sleaziest moments". Today, the economic stakes for the voters in the 5th are even higher, the incumbent is a first-termer even more beholden to the powers-that-be.  And the sleaze factor is considerably more intense. Peter Goldmark may be just what the doctor ordered for the 5th.

Certainly, Peter Goldmark is a classic example of the citizen statesman stepping out of successful pursuits in private life to defend the public trust when the usual players have betrayed it.  The career politician he's challenging, Cathy McMorris, has been in power during a era when unprecedented economic decline in her region has coincided with unprecedented political corruption on a national level.  She entered Washington's legislature in 1994 at the age of 25 from a career as part-owner and operator with her family of an orchard and fruit stand.  Since then, she's been groomed and socialized by the Republican leadership - given plum positions and influence.  Her rise to power stands in stark contrast to the declining fortunes of her constituency.

A category 5 hurricane of fuel and fertilizer prices
We live in a time that an Eastern Washington farmer recently described in testimony on the US Farm Bill as "a category 5 hurricane of fuel and fertilizer prices,"  a time in which many Washington communities are experiencing the loss of three or four family farms per winter because they simply can't make it economically.

The farmers of Washington State are the people who feed us and play a critical role in keeping our economy afloat.   While they have been in midst of a relentless economic storm, Cathy's been in D.C. voting to support the fabulously rich oil, mining, tobacco, big timber, and construction/development interests that paid to elect her. While the wheat farmers in Cathy's district lost money on their crops despite a very productive growing year because they continued to receive the same $2.90 per bushel of wheat in 2005 that they received in 1948,  Cathy was in Washington DC., voting to weaken House ethics rules so that folks like Duke Cunningham and Tom Delay, who both donated to her campaign, could put off their day of reckoning.

"Appalling Ignorance" and negative four on a scale of 0 to 100
McMorris, by the way, on a scale of 0-100 (with wiggle room for bonus points or demerits), received a negative four on the 2005 Congressional Scorecard of Republicans for Environmental Protection.   In 1995 she caused a Nobel Prize winner to shake his head and cite "appalling ignorance" when she proposed a bill that would have allowed ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons in Washington state - in defiance of an international treaty signed by Ronald Reagan banning the substance.  Cathy didn't believe the science.  (1)  A decade later, Cathy has taken a lead role in attempting to drastically weaken our nation's key environmental law, the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).    P-I columnist Joel Connolley recently characterized her information gathering as "deaf to dissent".  Her treatment, Connolley wrote, of a law created by Democrats and Republicans from this state, was threatening to become: "one more example of the radical policies and jackboot tactics of Tom DeLay and the House's ruling Republicans.".  (2)

Are Eastern Washington voters anti-environment and anti-science?
So here's a question.  Are eastern Washington voters anti-environment and anti-science?  Do they really want to be represented by a Cathy McMorris?

The recent testimony on the US Farm Bill  (also cited above) that Washington farmers gave in 2005 provided for me a critical insight related to this question.   Peter Goldmark is, by upbringing, formal education and profession, an environmentalist, businessman, farmer, and scientist.   In the most practical sense possible, so are most of the farmers in Eastern Washington. As gibney points out in a recent Washblog piece, suburban lawnowners are free to pollute at levels way higher than any farmer.  In contrast, farmers, as a matter of business and law if nothing else, invest considerable time and expense on environmental matters.

Rob Holland and I met with Peter at the Two Bells Tavern in Belltown, Seattle and shared a plate of fruit and some conversation.  Rob is a transportation professional and a new King County Agricultural Commissioner.   Both of us were interested to talk with Peter about his campaign and about agriculture in Eastern Washington.   Rob and I share the view that we must move quickly in the United States and in Washington toward putting our agricultural house in order -- not only as a matter of basic fairness and human decency - but also for the sake of national, environmental, and economic security.   We are at the crossroads of many critical trends that meet in agricultural America -- but that drive economic, environmental, and politcal trends across all the regions.  We are well past the days when we can afford to consider agriculture to be a special interest.

Quotations marks here are meant to indicate close paraphrases, where I tried to capture some of Peter's language and feeling.  There are no exact quotes.

Potential of the Alternative Energy Industry in Washington
We asked Peter first to talk about his perpective on the potential for the alternative energy industry to help turn things around economically in Washington's rural areas.   He characterized Washington's wheat country  as "the breadbasket" of the state and, potentially, a prolific energy producer.  He cited the work of Shulin Chin, a Kellogg fellow who has inventoried the sources of energy available from agriculture in Eastern Washington, the different routes to converting them to usable energy, and the economics involved.  Chin has shown that we can meet about 50% of our state's electrical demand through our agricultural resources.  (3) [Note: 6/21/06 -- this looks to be a possible misquote. See Biomass Inventory and Bioenergy Assessment: An Evaluation of Organic Material Resources for Bioenergy Production in Washington State. The biomass cited in this source, which I assume to be the one he referred to, is from all sources, including agricultural, forestry, yard waste, etc.].

We asked him to comment, next, on where he sees the promise residing in the area of alternative fuels.  What does he see as the relative promise of biofuel crops in comparison to food crops, for example?  Is there a big difference between the benefits that biodiesel or ethanol production can bring us?  Does he think we should be relying primarily on large-scale production?  Or should we be focusing as well on diverse local production, on the task of strengthening local supply and distribution?

In response, he talked about his scientific investigations into the fossil fuel and solar inputs necessary to produce various Washington state crops.  Each crop and application offers different potential returns in the form of food or energy and economic benefit.  In terms of net energy output, biodiesel crops are  competitive with wheat as a food crop and can perhaps exceed it.   No one fuel or crop, however, is the answer.   We need to pursue multiple arenas.  And we need to develop our capacity for both wide-scale distribution and local production, marketing and distribtion.   In terms of alternative fuels, for example, we can have faith that wide-scale in-state ethanol production will eventally be economically feasible ("Modern cars, after all, are not the same as the Model T".)  But we must first deal with a number of technical challenges.  For example, we will need to find an economically viable use for the meal that's left over after ethanol crops are crushed to make the fuel.

A Fair Local Share
So how do we move to a place where Washington farmers can get an appropriate share of the economic and environmental benefits of the alternative energy market?  How can we move to a place where we produce biodiesel and ethanol from crops grown locally  - rather than having our feedstock come in the form of palm oil from Malaysia or corn from the US Midwest?

A big part of the answer, he replied, must come from the federal level.  We should classify biofuel crops as national security commodities and provide subsidies to develop the industries and to grow the crops.  "We need to address the palm oil issue," he said.  We need to provide economic rewards for farmers who grow the raw commodities here domestically.  We need to provide revolving loans at low interest rates on a local basis.  Washington's legislature has begun to address this need, for example, with  last year's Energy Freedom Program, which sets aside $15 million annually for low-cost loans and grants to biofuel startups.

Policy Consensus and Business Accountability
I asked my "burning question". How can we, as a society, begin to address the widespread pattern we see of profound economic misbehavior?   It appears that voters often fixate on unresolvable social issues that divide us.  But, across the regions and the ideological divides, our economic wellbeing is linked.  If we could get a little more clarity on these issues that affect us all, wouldn't we make more progress?

In response, he cited first the work of the Policy Consensus Center (Washington State University and University of Washington), which works to find nonpartisan solutions to conflicts - many of them in the agricultural and environmental realms.

We also need to address, he said, this question of what a business really works for.   Does it work only for its own financial interests?    Or is it a member of a larger community?   Is there an ethical responsibility for businesses to treat their employees with decency, to provide healthcare and opportunity?   And, in a broader context, what is the relationship between business and government?  How do we properly define that relationship?   He spoke of the revolving door between business and government, that makes it commonplace for members of Congress to leave public office and work as lobbyists for the businesses that helped elect them.   "We have to take control back. We have to put our foot down.  Our government should not be for sale."

Farm Bill
Every 5 years, Congress reauthorizes the Farm Bill that is the basis of US law on farm policy.   American Farmland Trust and other organizatons are advocating for the economic supports for US agriculture to be shifted away from subsidizing specific program crops (largely wheat, corn, sugar, soybeans, and some legumes) to supporting land and resource stewardship.   Living in a district with an economy based largely on wheat production - one of those program crops - I did not expect Peter Goldmark to support doing away with crop subsidies.

"I understand the concern over the subsidies.  Originally, when the program was created, there was a ceiling on payments and it was a fair system.   Lobbyists have changed this.  You have these big players taking millions.  We need to take care of that.   But the underlying reason for the supports remains.    In the days when Saddam was not so cruel, Iraq was a major customer of American wheat from Washington.  Then we embargoed him and other countries to get our market share of wheat - Canada, Australia, etc.  When we captured Saddam, did Washington get its market share back?  No,  our farmers didn't get the economic benefit of Saddam's fall, even though they share in the tax burden for that war.

"This is why the federal government got involved in price supports for agriculture.  Trade policy and foreign policy are interconnected.  The government has recognized that these policies affect the farmers.  But we have come to a time when we need change.   The (price) floor for these crops is so low that it's below the cost of production.   The people of eastern Washington are being treated like second class citizens. They have no way to recoup the energy costs that are going through the roof.  It's just shameful.   If you'd been in Cheney last November, you would have heard farmers testifying to (US Department of Agriculture) Mike Johanns and my opponent.   The farmers were saying that we have to do something about this situation or they're not going to be around for 2007.

"I see what's happening.  I feel the pain of our farmers, families, rural communities that for the last 20 years have been without an advocate.  Part of what we are seeing now is a result of all the broken promises from the federal government.  When George W. Bush was elected he said, 'don't worry farmers, if things are broken, I'll fix them.'  He hasn't done that. " Even on the matter of country-of-origin labeling - labeling that would help consumers know whether they were buying beef from US farmers or from some other country, the Bush administration has not supported that."

Around that point in the conversation, we turned to the issue of immigration.  I heard no policy statements, but jotted down his objections to the inhumane and self-righteous attitude "of some people who feel that we don't have a problem, that we just need to shut the door.  People of faith,  people from the agricultural community, have a humanistic outlook.  We look very carefully at these things.  Most of us are immigrants in our roots.   We can recognize that a person has broken the law and still feel compassion, still recognize that he is striving for a better future.  Who are we to say that a person doesn't deserve a second chance?"

We asked for final thoughts.  "I hope people understand that there is a lot at stake in this election.  Candidates need an incredible amount of support these days to be successful. Unfortunately, it's all about deep pockets.  It's all about whether people are willing to go beyond the normal threshold to support a candidate."

We are at a dramatic crossroads here in Washington State.  It takes massive infusions of money to get information out to voters.  Only through the clean democratic power of many small grassroots donations, only through the redemptive political power of your money and my money, can we confront the power of financial interests that pursue their own narrow bottom line without considering the welfare of people and communities.

In the long run, it is my belief that, in order to turn this country around, we must recognize our need for publicly-funded elections on both the state and national levels.   And we must take control over our own  destiny by recognizing  the interests that ordinary citizens - urban librarians like me and farmers from Washington's 5th Congressional district - share across ideological and regional divides.  We can no longer afford to see each other's economic interests as "special interests".

1. LEGISLATOR WANTS TO IGNORE GLOBAL CFC BAN WASHINGTON STATE BILL IS LATEST TO ATTACK SCIENCE BEHIND DEPLETION OF OZONE LAYER; [SPOKANE Edition]
   Karen Dorn Steele Staff writer. Spokesman Review. Spokane, Wash.: Jan 31, 1996. pg. B.3


2. ENVIRONMENTAL HEARING MAY BE DEAF TO DISSENT; [FINAL Edition]
   JOEL CONNELLY P-I columnist. Seattle Post - Intelligencer. Seattle, Wash.: Apr 22, 2005. pg. A.2


3. Biomass Inventory and Bioenergy Assessment: An Evaluation of Organic Material Resources for Bioenergy Production in Washington State, Craig Frear, Bingcheng Zhao, Guobin Fu, Michael Richardson and Shulin Chen, 12/2005.