Romney releases rural platform, criticizes Congress and Obama for lack of new Farm Bill

Mitt Romney released his rural platform today. "Like President Obama, the Republican's rural policy is all about agriculture," says the Daily Yonder. "Of course, most people in rural America have little to do with farming, but in a campaign short on substance, we'll take what we can get." (Des Moines Register photo)

The Yonder notes that the platform criticizes Congress for failing to pass a Farm Bill before recessing for the election season. That has created some heat for Republican members of the House from rural areas. In an appearance in Iowa yesterday, Romney also blamed Obama, saying "The president has to exert the kind of presidential leadership it takes to get the House and Senate together and actually pass a farm bill.”

The four main points of the platform, which is available here, are:

Implement effective tax policies to support family farms and strong agribusiness;

Pursue trade policies that expand upon the success of the agriculture sector, not limit it;

Create a regulatory environment that is commonsense and cost-effective; and

Achieve energy independence on this continent by 2020.

Activists fight plans to build coal-haul railroads, ports in West and power plants on Asian coasts

Locals in rural communities across the West are concerned that some of the world's biggest coal and railroad companies will build rail lines through their backyards to haul Powder River Basin coal to the coast and on to Asia. They fear pollution, noise and congestion. Similarly, Asian activists don't want coal-fired power plants built next to traditional fishing communities.

As a result, world-wide environmental groups, grassroots groups in India and China, 300 doctors in Oregon and Washington, local governments in rural towns -- including Mosier, Ore., Edmonds, Wash., and Sandpoint, Idaho -- numerous Northwest Native American tribes and the city council in the port city of Bellingham, Wash., have all come together as allies in the worldwide fight against the international coal trade, reports Ray Ring of High Country News.

Ring reports that big coal companies, including Arch Coal Inc. and Peabody Energy, have shipped coal from the Powder River Basin to the Eastern U.S. for decades. But stricter regulations on burning fossil fuels and the natural gas boom have decreased the need for coal in Eastern power plants. Companies are selling to China and India, he writes, because those countries "are on a coal-fired power-plant building binge." Ring reports the opposition wants "thorough evaluations that weigh all the impacts" and public hearings around the Northwest. (Read more)

Midwest bankers survey: International economic situation dampening growth in region

A monthly survey of bankers has indicated a slowing of economic growth in rural areas of 10 Midwestern and Western states, according to a Bloomberg News report. The reason: The problems in Europe and elsewhere, according to a report released Thursday. "International economic problems are affecting us here," said Dale Bradley, CEO of Citizens State Bank in Miltonvale, Kan. The survey covers rural areas of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, most of the Great Plains and the Corn Belt.

Creighton University economist Ernie Goss oversees the survey. He said the results suggest that areas dependent on agriculture and energy will generally continue growing, but more slowly. The overall index on the monthly survey of bankers declined to 56.7 in June, from May's 58.5. That's the lowest level for the index in 2012, but any score above 50 still suggests growth in the months ahead. 

Obama makes pitch to rural voters in eight states

If President Obama shows up in an interview on your local television news tonight, you can be certain (with two exceptions) that he considers your state, and probably your TV market, important to his re-election. The markets include Green Bay, Roanoke, Jacksonville, Sioux City, Colorado Springs and Reno, plus Fresno, Calif., and Greenville, S.C. -- in a solid blue state and a solid red state, perhaps included so the White House can say it wasn't all political.

Obama scheduled interviews "in mostly Republican-friendly parts of swing states to promote his Democratic administration’s efforts for rural communities," Margaret Talev reports for Bloomberg News. He also announced "investment of about $2 billion through 2016 for rural businesses" and touted a report from the Council of Economic Advisers, the White House Rural Council and the U.S. Department of Agriculture: "Strengthening Rural Communities: Lessons from a Growing Farm Economy."

The "lessons" are a but hard to discern, but the report says "A strong agricultural economy is critical to a strong rural economy," that progress in the farm economy is driven by innovation, more exports, promotion of diverse industries, "supporting rural communities" and "building a clean energy economy," a section that touts Obama's efforts in that area. To download a PDF of the 32-page report, click here.

Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder analyzed the report, saying it's mostly about agriculture, leaving out the environment, worker safety, education and the hearings the administration had across the country about the lack of competition in the agriculture business. "Four times in the first four sentences, we are told that people who live in rural America are 'hard working' or 'work hard' or are accustomed to 'hard work.' Alright already," Bishop writes. "It's also not very hard to see how members of the Obama administration sees rural America. To them, it's one big farm."