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January 22, 2010
 


PhytoGen® is the Right Choice

“It didn’t rain throughout June, and we still had good yields. A good fiber package is also very important, and the PHY 375 [WRF] has graded great so far.”

— Aaron Wade, Jonesville, Louisiana

For more information about PhytoGen brand varieties, visit www.PhytoGenYields.com or call 1-800-258-3033.

photogen-widestrike-online

®PhytoGen and the PhytoGen Logo are trademarks of PhytoGen Seed Company, LLC. ®The WideStrike Logo is a trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC. PhytoGen Seed Company is a joint venture between Mycogen Corporation, an affiliate of Dow AgroSciences LLC, and the J.G. Boswell Company.

 


PhytoGen® Brand Varieties Pay Off

In the field, on the scale and at the gin, PhytoGen® brand varieties pay off. And for 2010, PhytoGen offers three Acala varieties.

• PhytoGen brand PHY 755 WRF has WideStrike® Insect Protection (two-gene Bt cotton) and Genuity Roundup Ready® Flex. Plus, check out that staple length of 40! The parentage is PHY 72.

• PhytoGen brand PHY 725 RF is the most widely planted Acala in California, offering Genuity Roundup Ready Flex, high yield potential and long staple length.

• PhytoGen brand PHY 72 is a high-yielding conventional Acala with wide adaptability and long staple length.

For more information, see your cottonseed dealer or call 1-888-395-7378.

p-w-genuity-online

®PhytoGen and the PhytoGen Logo are trademarks of PhytoGen Seed Company, LLC. ®WideStrike and the WideStrike Logo are trademarks of Dow AgroSciences LLC. ®™Genuity, the Genuity logo and design and Roundup Ready are trademarks of Monsanto Company. PhytoGen Seed Company is a joint venture between Mycogen Corporation, an affiliate of Dow AgroSciences LLC, and the J.G. Boswell Company.

 


 
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NCC Provides Support for Murkowski Resolution

Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) introduced a bipartisan disapproval resolution to stop EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA) by repealing EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public health and welfare.

In a NCC-coordinated letter to Sen. Murkowski, 137 other commodity and agricultural organizations declared their support for her effort. The breadth of support from agriculture encouraged several Democratic senators to cosponsor the resolution. The resolution currently has 37 cosponsors.

The agricultural groups’ letter to Sen. Murkowski noted that both the current and past Administrations have acknowledged that the CAA is not the appropriate vehicle for establishing greenhouse gas policy. They said this EPA endangerment finding will trigger a number of CAA regulatory actions.

“The compliance costs for these CAA programs,” the letter stated, “would be overwhelming as millions of entities, including farms and ranches, would be subject to burdensome CAA regulations. While EPA has attempted to craft a ‘tailoring rule’ to ease such a burden, our experience in these matters is that attempts to administratively relax environmental requirements are routinely challenged in court.”

The letter also pointed out that the EPA rule itself claims to establish only a weak, indirect link between greenhouse gases and public health and welfare, going so far as to admit there are uncertainties over the net, direct health impacts of the greenhouse gases it is attempting to regulate.

“Further, EPA Administrator Jackson recently acknowledged that unilateral actions by the United States would have no material impact on global warming,” the letter said. “China and India, two of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, continue to reject any verifiable reduction measures. Without an effective international agreement on emission reductions, unilateral action by the U.S. only serves to further damage our economy and encourage businesses to relocate. EPA's finding puts the agricultural economy at grave risk based on allegations of a weak, indirect link to public health and welfare and despite the lack of any environmental benefit.”

Sen. Murkowski is using the authority of the Congressional Review Act of 1996 which allows Congress to review every new federal regulation issued by government agencies. The law allows Congress to rescind a rule by passing a joint “resolution of disapproval.” It also establishes an expedited process for Senate passage where the resolution cannot be amended or filibustered, therefore, only needing 51 votes. The act does not provide for a similar fast-track in the House. The resolution requires presidential approval and can be invoked only within 60 days of the rule’s submittal to Congress. A resolution of disapproval only has been successfully used once previously, when Congress overturned OSHA’s ergonomic standards.

Sens. Lincoln (D-AR) and Chambliss (R-GA), chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, have agreed to cosponsor the Murkowski resolution. Sen. Landrieu (D-LA) also has announced her intention to support the resolution.

In a press statement, Sen. Lincoln said, “I am very concerned about the burden that EPA regulation of carbon emissions could put on our economy and have questions about the actual benefit EPA regulations would have on the environment. Heavy-handed EPA regulation, as well as the current cap and trade bills in Congress, will cost us jobs and put us at an even greater competitive disadvantage to China, India and others. We can make immediate gains to reduce carbon emissions by sending the President bipartisan clean energy legislation produced by the Senate Energy Committee.”

Sen. Chambliss said, “The actions EPA has taken and its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions is basically a backdoor tax on every American family and business by unelected bureaucrats.”

An aide to Senate leader Reid (D-NV) said that the measure was unlikely to come to a vote before March because of a crowded legislative calendar. He also said that while Mr. Reid believes that legislation to address climate change is preferable to EPA regulation, the agency must retain the authority to act if Congress does not.

Sen. Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a champion of cap-and-trade legislation, acknowledged that “it could take us a long time to get” a climate bill enacted. But the EPA-imposed regulations are necessary in the meantime, Boxer said. Shecalled Murkowski’s resolution an unprecedented “assault,” adding, “We cannot and must not repeal a scientific health finding.”

Rep. Barton (R-TX) plans to introduce an identical resolution in the House.

If the resolution were to make it through Congress, it is likely that PresidentObama would veto it. However, according to Congressional Quarterly, “[A] resolution of disapproval that garnered enough Democratic votes to pass the Senate could be a fatal blow to Obama’s efforts to enact a cap-and-trade climate bill this year.”

 
Correct Payment Listing Needed

USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) is including an insert in the ’09 tax year CCC-1099-G to recommend recipients make certain all payments are listed correctly on the form. The agency explains that delays in payments may have resulted from the transition to a new payment processing system and explains that additional resources have been employed in an effort to ensure payments are listed correctly on the 1099 but recommends careful review for accuracy.

If discrepancies are found, individuals are instructed to contact their FSA Service center to request a corrected form. The letter/insert also advises producers that detailed information on payments and prior year 1099s is available on the web and customers can apply for a user ID and password to access that information.

A copy of Notice FI-2950 is in the Issues area of the NCC’s website, www.cotton.org.

 
Web-Based Disaster Program Payment Calculator Available

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that USDA now has a web-based ’08 crop program payment calculator to help producers calculate the financial benefits they may receive under the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE) program. The calculator was designed by USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) to give producers a tool to help them better understand and participate in this new crop disaster program.

"Our goal is to help the producers make informed decisions so their business planning is as easy as possible, and this calculator is one of the tools we're making available to do exactly that," Vilsack said.

The calculator collects information about farming operations, including planted acreage, actual production, insurance coverage data and other federal disaster payments. This relevant information is used to calculate an estimated payment for crop losses. The calculator provides an estimated ’08 program payment to help producers better understand what they may qualify for under SURE, but it does not constitute an application for the program.

The calculator is available on the FSA website at http://www.fsa.usda.gov/sure. For more information or to apply for SURE, producers should visit their local FSA county office.

SURE provides crop disaster assistance payments to eligible producers on farms that have incurred crop production or crop quality losses. The program takes into consideration crop losses on all crops grown by a producer nationwide. SURE provides assistance in an amount equal to 60% of the difference between the SURE farm guarantee and total farm revenue. The farm guarantee is based on the amount of crop insurance and Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) coverage on the farm. Total farm revenue takes into account the actual value of production on the farm as well as insurance indemnities and certain farm program payments.

To be eligible for SURE, producers must have suffered at least a 10% production loss on a crop of economic significance. In addition, producers must meet the risk management purchase requirement by either obtaining a policy or plan of insurance under the Federal Crop Insurance Act or NAP coverage, for all economically significant crops.

For ’08 crops, producers had the opportunity to obtain a waiver of the risk management purchase requirement through a buy-in provision. Producers considered socially disadvantaged, a beginning farmer or rancher, or a limited resource farmer may be eligible for SURE without a policy or plan of insurance or NAP coverage.

 
NCC Urges Caution on Dust Regulation

In response to an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) request for comments relating to the regulation of combustible dust in the workplace, the NCC and seven other cotton industry organizations submitted comments that urged the agency to "use caution" in considering additional industry regulations. In addition to the comments, answers to 69 questions posed by OSHA were provided.

The NCC letter cited industry support of OSHA's overall efforts to improve safety in the workplace. However, the letter cautioned OSHA to focus its efforts in this case to industries that have experienced problems with combustible dust and not attempt to regulate operations such as gins, warehouses, cottonseed storage and processing facilities and textile mills that have "no demonstrated history of combustible dust incidents" and that can demonstrate that conditions conducive to achieving dust minimum explosive concentrations (MEC) do not exist.

The NCC took exception to incidents cited in the ANPR from the US Safety Chemical and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) data on dust incidents reported from 1980-2008. Cotton gin, cotton warehouses, oilseed mills, and textile mills were listed as industries that had reported incidents during the period. After further study into the incidents listed, it was determined that in every case there had been lint fire occurrences, but no dust fires or dust explosions reported. Efforts to correct CSB data will be undertaken where appropriate. 

At the request of the National Cotton Ginners Assoc., tests were conducted at Texas A&M U.’s Dept. of Biological & Agricultural Engineering that indicated dust from cotton gins may not explode at any concentration. Based on those results, along with describing other factors that prevent the opportunity for MEC conditions to be reached, the NCC letter concluded that cotton gins, cotton warehouses, cotton lint or cottonseed handling operations "do not present an explosion potential because the minimum explosive concentration cannot be reached in those operations."

With respect to textile mills, the NCC and the other groups said that "dust fires and dust explosions do not occur in weaving, spinning, knitting and dyeing and finishing operations." The letter also pointed out that OSHA has standards for housekeeping and ventilation in textile mills that reduce the potential for dust fires or explosions.

 
Senate Action on Siddiqui, Punke Nominations Urged

The NCC has joined a broad coalition of food and agriculture organizations in a communication urging Senate Leaders to act promptly on the nominations of Isi Siddiqui to be chief agricultural negotiator at USTR and Michael Punke to be deputy US Trade Representative based in Geneva.

The letter, which can be found in the Issues area of the NCC website, www.cotton.org, cites the exceptional qualifications of both candidates, who were approved by the Finance Committee before the Christmas recess. The letter also reminds Senate leaders that there are a number of critical trade disputes and negotiations that need immediate attention and a complete USTR team should be in place without further delay.

The NCC joined the same organizations in an earlier letter urging the Finance Committee to recommend Siddiqui's confirmation. That letter also can be found in the Issues area of the NCC's website.

 
Information-Gathering Sessions Set For HOS Rulemaking

In a news release earlier this month, the US Dept. of Transportation Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) “announced it will hold four listening sessions to gather information and comments as the agency prepares a rulemaking proposal on hours-of-service requirements for property-carrying commercial vehicle drivers.

The agency wants to hear about topics such as rest and on-duty time, sleeper berth use and the effect the current hours-of-service rule has on loading and unloading times for drivers. A record of the listening sessions will be placed in the public docket for the rulemaking.

The "listening sessions" began on Jan. 19 in Arlington, VA, with other sessions scheduled for Jan. 22 in Dallas, TX, on Jan. 25 in Los Angeles, CA, and on Jan. 28 in Davenport, IA.

More information is available at http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/about/news/news-releases/2009/HOS-Listening-Sessions.aspx.

 
JCIBPC Meeting Slated For Memphis

The ’10 meeting of the Joint Cotton Industry Bale Packaging Committee (JCIBPC) will be held Wednesday, Feb. 24, at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, TN. Attendees may pre-register by completing and submitting the on-line form located at http://www.cotton.org/tech/bale/jcibpc-form.cfm. Pre-registration ends on Friday, Feb. 19. For assistance, contact Maxine Shepard at 901-274-9030.

JCIBPC Chairman Curtis Stewart said on-site registration will open at 12:15 p.m. on the 24th,with the first general session held from 1-3 pm. The executive session to discuss experimental test programs will follow from 3:15-4:45 pm. Following the executive session, a second general session will convene for as long as necessary in order to finish that day.

 
Sales Strong, Shipments Steady

Net export sales for the week ending Jan. 14, '10, were 343,200 bales (480-lb). This brings total ’09-10 sales to approximately 7.3 million bales. Total sales at the same point in the ’08-09 marketing year were approximately 8.9 million bales. Total new crop (’10-11) sales are 185,700 bales.

Shipments for the week were 229,700 bales, bringing total exports to date to 4.1 million bales, compared with the 5.5 million bales at the comparable point in the ’08-09 marketing year.