Author Archives: MichaelBowman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

A rural electric gathering decades ago

We’re often our own worst enemy.

It wasn’t always this way.

It was Democratic Socialist policies, rooted in The New Deal, that gave rural America the foundation upon which we built our network of thriving agriculturally-based communities.  Rural electrification made possible irrigation across the broad expanse of the Central Great Plains; powering factories, and providing modern conveniences for our grandparents and great-grandparents. Federally subsidized crop insurance and crop support payments, providing the ultimate safety net for farmers and ranchers. Cooperative-based telephone companies; community district hospitals and extended living care facilities.  Water systems and rural waste treatment plants.  Most of these funded by the Rural Utility Service department of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Rural electrification empowered a Green Revolution on the Plains

Far from being our enemy, federal and state governments have been full partners in creating rural wealth.  Yes, it took our vision, initiative, and entrepreneurship, but this was made possible because of our mutually aligned interests.

Policy, both federal and state, continue to provide us with new opportunities, but we’ve lost our compass and not realizing the full extent of the possibilities.  We’ve become paralyzed with the us v. them mentality, disconnecting logic from the broader, necessary discussion; one that sees everyone else, those people, as our customers.  The imperative equation for a capitalist system, rural or otherwise.  An equation best served when sound public policy is driving the market as it always has, even though we in rural American try to pretend differently.

Over the past two decades, rural Colorado has missed two significant opportunities to flourish from public policy, Amendment 37 and Amendment 64. As a broad critique, we were lied to by our representatives, our rural cooperatives, our local leaders.  I’ll dive into each one separately:

Amendment 37

(Co-chaired by Democrat Mark Udall – Republican Speaker of the House Lola Spradley)

First citizen-initiated renewable energy standard in the nation

Passed in 2004 in spite of massive spending and legal challenges by Xcel Energy, Intermountain Rural Electric, and Tri-State Generation and Transmission, Amendment 37 set the stage for Colorado’s New Energy Economy.  At the heart of the Amendment was a 10% mandate for green energy by 2015.  Also at the heart of the movement was to bring new opportunities to community-based energy systems.  Implementation of the amendment’s language was arduous, thanks to a concerted effort by the state’s various utilities.  A settlement was finally agreed to only after giving Xcel the green light to build the Commanche III coal plant in Pueblo, which has proven to be an anvil around Colorado taxpayer’s necks.

Almost without exception every rural county (read: where we have the wind and solar resources to produce the product) voted against the amendment; every urban county (read: consumers willing to buy the product) voted for the amendment.

What did exist at the time was the support of urban progressives and environmentalists to maximize the amount of rural ownership of these systems. In this case, we had Front Range consumers, willing to pay a premium for a commodity they were willing to mandate into their electrical grid.  A commodity we were drowning in: rural wind and solar.

What rural legislator in their right mind wouldn’t have set aside their prejudices of those people, urban ratepayers, and environmentalists, and taken that deal?  Is there anyone who doesn’t believe a coalition of rural legislators and environmentalists couldn’t have taken on anyone in their path to achieving their vision?

But fight, we did.

For a coal plant in Kansas. 

In spite of the fact the Obama Administration had allocated billions to a RUS fund that was written specifically for rural electrics to tap said funds and build energy systems for export to other utilities,  we fought. And fought. And fought.  God forbid we give any environmentalist or a Democratic POTUS a win on green energy.  This was about freedom from tyranny!!!

Well that tyranny, in spite of valiant efforts by our representatives, is today causing billions of dollars in rural investment in wind energy systems. Systems that could have been owned by our rural electric systems and indirectly benefitting each and every rural electric patron in the state.  Many, but not all, of our rural counties, are benefitting from the property tax revenues (often the largest source of income in some counties) of these wind farms.

Had we looked at this opportunity through the lens of rural wealth creation, we’d have chosen a different path. We’d have enjoyed both the benefits of the property tax – and the wealth created by the ownership of those systems by rural cooperatives – benefitting every member of the cooperative system.

Amendment 64

Amendment 64 results: majority “Yes” = green

Old lies die hard, and none harder than our eight-decades relationship with prohibition, Nixon’s preposterous War on Drugs, and the perpetuation of industrial hemp as a scheduled drug under the Controlled Substances Act.

Colorado became the first unit of government in the world to end Prohibition.  Soon thereafter it was dubbed “The Great Social Experiment” by then-Gov John Hickenlooper.  In fact, the “Great Social Experiment” was Prohibition, and it failed miserably under any plausible metric.  It took the leadership of a majority-informed electorate, and an army of passionate advocated,  to begin the unwinding of this long-standing federal law.

We’re not there yet, but in the journey to full US legalization (which we’ve accomplished with industrial hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill), many great things have happened: Colorado has been the #1 state in industrial hemp development since its conditional legalization in the 2014 Farm Bill (thanks exclusively to the work of then-Congressman Polis) and we’ve managed to develop a regulated marijuana market that has generated over $10 billion in sales.

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Original Seal, USDA

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation to establish the U.S. Department of Agriculture and he later called it “The People’s Department.”  Lincoln believed in a robust, agrarian system.  Five days later he would sign The Homestead Act, bringing the opportunity of land ownership to over 400,000 families.  Six weeks later he would sign The Morrill Act, establishing our land-grant university system to “benefit the agricultural and mechanical arts.” 

President Lincoln created an ecosystem, one that ultimately gave birth to the greatest agriculture powerhouse in the world – thanks to political will and government resources. in 1922 Congress enacted the Capper-Volstead Act, giving “associations” of persons producing agricultural products certain exemptions from antitrust laws. It is sometimes called the Magna Carta of cooperatives

Dust Bowl, circa 1934

Less than a decade later those in the West would endure the hardships of two calamities: The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl.  FDR’s New Deal gave us rural electrification, price supports, a new soil conservation service, and the CCC.

Post-WWII was a time when we saw the vast expansion of our rural electrics, made possible through government resources; cooperative telephone companies, and farmer-owned cooperatives. The Eisenhower Interstate System gave way to a more robust transportation system to move our goods.

In the late ’50s, the development of groundwater resources brought a new wave of prosperity and production to not only our eastern plains, deriving its water from the Ogalla Aquifer but the San Luis Valley region.  The former becoming a powerhouse in corn and livestock production, the latter becoming one of the largest potato growing regions in the US, along with barley, and alfalfa.

San Luis Valley

Today, the future of both of these groundwater regions is at risk.  The eastern plains grappling with both dwindling groundwater resources and compliance obligations under the Republican River Compact; the San Luis Valley with very similar dynamics centered around the Rio Grande River.

For context, each of these areas contains approximately 500,000 acres of irrigated land; (collectively they represent approximately the same land footprint as Israeli farmland, a global, agricultural powerhouse).

Republican River Water Conservation District

The future for both of these critical agricultural areas, and our rural communities that depend upon them, is increasingly uncertain. Both districts, while collectively representing only something near 2% of Colorado’s population, also represent the majority of Colorado agriculture that depends on groundwater withdrawals.

Just like we did 159 years ago today (and every transition since), we face both our challenges – and – our opportunities with the requisite to couple government resources, research institutions, and our farming/ranching community with political will.

Building carbon-rich soils

If we’ve been taught anything over the last 159 years, it’s that within every crisis lies the seed of opportunity.  This September our legislature may have a generational opportunity to create the Colorado New Deal via its appropriation of stimulus funds; an opportunity to provide the necessary financial resources to transition Colorado agriculture into something designed with our Colorado values in mind. A generational opportunity to support the development of infrastructure that will bear generational fruit from our rural communities.  Significant opportunities abound in the growing US hemp sector; we’ve already piloted a successful fiber project in the San Luis Valley this past year. The Netherlands is the second-largest exporter of food and flowers, all accomplished with water-sipping, chemical-free production with 36,000 acres of greenhouses (3.6% of the combined groundwater district’s footprints).  Conservation opportunities to benefit from the emerging carbon credit marketplace will touch every farm and ranch in our state.

Next Generation Colorado Rancher

I’m writing this, knowing full well just how difficult our political divides make such a conversation. The legislators who will ultimately settle the allocation of these stimulus funds are characterized as the enemy by a vast majority of residents in rural Colorado. We’re in the midst of a third recall attempt of the Governor and it’s likely the very people, rural constituents, who could benefit from this discussion are amongst the first names on the latest petitions.   The stakes are high, high enough that it’s time for some earnest soul searching on our part.  For many irrigators, the proverbial wolf is at the door; many are wondering aloud Who Moved My Cheese? 

Next-generation food, feed, fuel, and fiber

If we look at the resources we have through the lens of Israeli and Dutch technologies there is little reason we, too, can’t be a global powerhouse in emerging markets, those driven in large part by Gen Z and Millennials who bring a new set of values and expectations to the global marketplace.  But this can only be done if we, rural Colorado, can humbly sit at a table and have this long-overdue conversation with our counterparts.  There is no them and us. We, rural Coloradans, are not independent, we’re interdependent.  

We can not and will not survive in a vacuum.

Let’s have this conversation.

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

I share the admiration of Abraham Lincoln with a majority of Americans; in surveys conducted since 1940, he has consistently ranked among the top 3, most often #1. Abe was the only president to hold a patent; he signed the first of the Homestead Acts, allowing poor people to obtain land. He established the United States Department of Agriculture in 1862 and nearly two months later signed the Morrill Act, which led to the creation of our land-grant university system. He established the progressive nature of income tax in the US. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery in the US. He established the US National Banking System, thus, a national currency. Apart from banks, Lincoln helped the economy flourish through canals, railroads & factories. He led the Union to victory in the Civil War; he laid the foundation for Reconstruction.

Lincoln kept us from being a ‘nation divided”, reuniting our nation rather than alienating the South.

Recently I had the chance to travel a significant portion of The Lincoln Highway (starting six miles north of Julesburg, ending in San Francisco),  America’s first national memorial to President Abraham Lincoln, predating the 1922 dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., by nine years. As the first automobile road across America, the Lincoln Highway brought great prosperity to the hundreds of cities, towns, and villages along the way. The Lincoln Highway became affectionately known as “The Main Street Across America”.  

Just east of Laramie a monument to our 16th President marks the high point of this Atlantic-to-Pacific highway, which begins in Times Square in NYC and terminates near Lincoln Park in San Francisco.  There, an imposing bronze of Lincoln occupies the Summit rest area under the vast Wyoming sky; a plaque reads:

“We Must Think Anew and Act Anew”

Those seven words set the tone for the next 24 hours of driving.  It was a time to reflect on our national priorities today through the eyes of Lincoln as I enjoyed the ease of traveling the Eisenhower Interstate System; I passed by farms and ranches established under the Homestead Act, have sustained themselves through the early research efforts in our land-grant university system and the Ag Extension network. The convenience of an ATM machine and electronic swipes at cash registers, tied to our national banking system.

Satellite radio.

Instant, global communication.

What would Lincoln be thinking today? Would he go big or go home?

As I scanned the radio dial I listened to Senate Minority Leader McConnell say he’s 100% focused on blocking the efforts of the Biden Administration; hardly a “we must think anew and act anew” moment for a man (and party) who claims to be the party of Lincoln.  Abe wouldn’t have been a shrinking violet, held captive by zealots.  In the face of the challenges that face us, he would have been uncompromising.  He’d go big.  He’d be uncompromising about infrastructure; he’d support a strong educational system.  He’d focus his priorities on those who built America: the middle class. He’d be unyielding in his belief that “labor before capital” was the only way to build a just, sustainable economic system. He’d believe that a nation that survived The Great Depression, thanks to progressives and The New Deal,  defeated fascism, rebuilt western Europe, eradicated polio, electrified rural America, put a man on the Moon and a spacecraft on Mars, is more than capable of meeting the challenges of a 21st-century economy.  He’d stand by his belief that “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” 

This is our time to create.

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

My grandfather, a depression-era farmer, knew the value of tending to his seedlings.  For him the seed needed a good beginning: fertile soil, nutrients, good soil tilth and cooperation from from Mother Nature. For the inputs he could control, he was indeed a stubborn steward.  He also had two staunch beliefs: there was no other tractor than a John Deere, and his planter of choice was his red, International Harvester wheat drill. With only an eighth-grade education as his foundation he understood, with great clarity, the value of making prudent investments in labor and inputs. His reward would be a full grainary.

Our children are no different than Granddad's tender wheat sprouts.  Without access to pre-natal care, a stable home, living wages, food security and a solid education there is no amount of money society can invest later in a child's life to successfully fill those voids.  As a fifth-generation Coloradan myself who grew up in the small farming and ranching community of Idalia (pop. 100), I got lucky.  "The Village" made sure we had all that we needed to become productive adults.  In those days our region was aptly-represented by rural titans like Bud Moellenberg and Bev Bledsoe – thoughtful men who not only earned the respect of urban legislators, but understood the important role and contributions of rural Colorado to the state's economy.

They represented the best of the human and political spirit.  

Unfortunately, their style of politics have become extinct.

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

The US Chamber is out today with their latest schlep for Captain Cory…using the very same math our favorite watermelon farmer used last Spring when the Wray Republican's 'hair on fire' moment resulted in a blatantly false tweet concerning the Wray School District.  As anyone who travels to Wray would know, the wind turbine that stands as a sentinel to Wray's south gate is owned by the local school district. The turbine, the first school-owned, commercial scale installation in the state produces 100% of the school districts energy needs – and as an added bonus their excess production is sold to the City of Wray under a long-term contract.  In total, this community effort has stabilized the electricity rates in Wray – and given the contractual agreement between the city and the school, it would be impossible for the school's energy costs to rise a single penny; the sales of the excess production provide a new revenue stream for the district, a source of pride for the town and a hedge on future price increases of fossil-fuel generated electrons.

All of this because we invested in local, clean energy production. And this model of distributed energy production is the future.

But simple mathematical equations don't seem to slow down, nor interrupt, the (lack of) neuron activity of a devout Fossilonian.

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

It's impossible to miss the irony: Lamar, the host community of Colorado's first commercial wind farm. A wind turbine blade exhibited proudly on Main Street, a testament to the coming 'New Energy Economy'.  Colorado Green represented all that was good about an economy in the midst of an energy transition. A revitalized downtown, emerging from the depths of the last agricultural recession.  Welcomed new jobs and tax base.

Today, Lamar faces a stormy and uncertain financial future.  A region drowning in Class 5 wind resources. Rich soils and river water. A community of souls who have endured, and to date prospered from nearly every Biblical plague one could imagine. Now with a $160 million coal -anchor around their neck – just blocks from the old Amtrak station that sports a wind turbine blade.  A city obligation that is a literal noose around the neck of Lamar residents. 

I wish I could share that this is the only challenge facing the residents of the Lower Arkansas River Valley.  It's not.  A short, 95-mile drive to the east will put you in Holcomb, Kansas, home to the proposed, multi-billion dollar coal plant that would be built to predominantly serve Tri-State Generation and Transmission.  A proposal that to date has reportedly cost the member coops of Tri-State in excess of $50 million dollars to date.  A project that has taken approximately 20,000 acres out of agricultural use, its associated water rights destined for the cooling towers of either the Holcomb plant, or the theoretically-still-in-play Holly nuclear plant.  If that wasn't enough, the regions multi-generational farmers and ranchers have been faced with a rogue state bureaucracy that had turned the admirable idea of agricultural conservation easements in to a virtual nightmare. 

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Dear Chairman Call,

I'm not your typical terrorist:  a fifth-generation Coloradan, a Yuma County native and graduate of a small rural K-12 school, Idalia High School.  Upon return from college I settled in Wray where I raised my three children.  I was active in local activities – a founding member of a team of community activists that reshaped our small town of 2,000 in the toughest of times: the agricultural recession of the 80's.  Through those times our small group of leaders built a multi-million dollar community center, a new school, hospital, community-owned daycare center, refurbished airport and extended living facility.  We were chosen as one of ten 'All-American City'  award recipients in 1993, the smallest city at the time to receive the award.  We were chosen as one of ten rural communities in the United State to participate in an intense, two-year leadership program funded by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, "The Search for Solutions".

We accomplished all of this through the toughest of times; we were successful because we created a vision for the community.  It's not that we didn't have our detractors, we did.  But their arguments against 'change' were no match for a solid road map that redefined our community.  In short, we knew we had to embrace change – or wither on the vine. 

We consciously made the choice to thrive, not just survive.

Yuma County has been blessed with an abundance of natural resources: our water resources from the Ogallala are second to none.  Fertile soil and significant natural gas reserves turned this vast prairie into one of the richest breadbaskets in the Great Plains.   At one time Yuma County was the largest corn producing county in the nation.  Today, the corn production feeds one of the largest feedlots in the world, originally built by the Monfort family and is now owned by Brazilian interests.  Our vast open space served as an ideal location for the explosion of pork production facilities.  Today, the majority of those facilities are owned by the Chinese Pork Giant Shuanghu.

It's unfathomable for me to imagine that some 20 years hence from these enormous achievements that Wray would be ground-zero for the secession movement.  I attribute the shift in mindset almost exclusively to how the party leadership has morphed over the last two decades.  Long gone are the rural titans once revered in the legislature: Bud Moellenberg, Bev Bledsoe and Fred Anderson.  Absent is a voice that reminds us that we aren't independent but interdependent with our urban counterparts.

We've come a long way from my 4-H and FFA days where I earned my State Farmer Degree with a modest 50-sow operation three decades ago. My parents and grandparents were Republicans.  The old kind.  Conservationists. The kind that understood math, that coveted local governance, that understand the importance of infrastructure investment and supporting the 'common good'.  The kind that encouraged personal initiative.  The kind that understood the value of the most socialist of organizations: the local farmers cooperative, the local telephone company, our community hospital and our rural electric association.

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Earlier this month the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) held its annual conference in Nashville. Jo Ann Emerson, former Missouri Congresswoman-turned-CEO of her top political donor, started the conference with an attack on the Obama administrations' environmental record.  She was followed by the alternative speaker Haley Barbour (who replaced Chuck Todd of NBC who was stuck in D.C. by the ice storm), the former governor of Mississippi.  Mr. Barbour spent half an hour attacking everyone but conservative Republicans.  Everyone in the room seemed concerned that the speaker had gone too far: the numerous, African-Americans, Democrats, unaffiliated voters and environmentalists felt unwelcome and uncomfortable with the harangue and showed it with very limited applause. 

It's hard to miss the irony that such a partisan witch hunt would be waged by an organization that exists only because of the vision of FDR and the New Deal – and today feasts at the trough of almost unlimited dollars doled out at treasury rates.

It didn't go over well; Ms. Emerson has been deluged by letters from the membership, prompting this response: 

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(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

There is a coming war on the western economy.  Not the fake war promoted by our federally-subsidized rural electric system but a real one, waged by a formidable opponent: Mother Nature.

If there was ever an argument for a transition to a 21st-century energy infrastructure, look no further than our current challenges with the economies that have been built on the backs of the Colorado River. 

Glen Canyon Dam, a component of the Colorado River Storage Project, requires a minimum lake elevation of 3,450 ft to provide enough hydraulic head to maintain its generation capacity.  Today, that level rests at approximately 3,550 feet msl (mean sea level); it is projected to fall below the required minimum of 3,450 feet in 2015 and to remain below the operational levels beyond 2020. 

The once-mighty Colorado: a treasured, western resource that serves the water demands for the majority of Colorado's 5 million residents.  Glen Canyon Dam, located in the Upper Basin of the Colorado, supplies the electrical needs to 5.8 million people including a significant number of Coloradans.  Two of the top five, long-term energy purchasers of Glen Canyon hydro-power are Tri-State Generation & Transmission and the Platte River Power Authority.  System wide, four million people rely on the Colorado River Storage Project.  Irrigators from Wyoming to Mexico tap the resource for crop production.  The combined metropolitan areas served by the project would be the 12th largest economy in the world with $1.7 trillion in Gross Metropolitan Product. 

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"We cannot solve problems with the same thinking

we used when we created them"

~Einstein

I spent Father's Day of this year reflecting on the the challenges of Colorado's 4th Congressional District, a landscape of both abundance and scarcity.  A land where federal programs have provided an abundance for some; for others, only the prospect of increasing scarcity.  A land so rich in natural resources that it's hard to comprehend that any of its residents are challenged in the way they are today.

As we witness the growing chasm between the abundance for some and scarcity for others – it's mind-numbing for anyone paying attention.

Then in September the US House of Representatives, aided by the leadership of Cory Gardner, voted to systemically dismantle the safety nets for our country's most challenged residents; a $40 billion cut in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance  Program that will not only further decimate existing safety nets – but eliminate 55,000 Coloradans from being eligible.  Just prior to the final House vote in September, Congressman Gardner had this to say:

“I’m anxious about it,” said Gardner, a few hours before the vote. “I’m glad we’re moving forward on a path that should complete the farm bill but the road has not been easy. I don’t want to be overconfident at any point.”

Next stop?  The 2013 Government shutdown: a brave act of leadership that cost the US economy just over half of the total amount of the House proposed cuts to the food nutrition program. 

It falls in to the category, "I wish I was making this up."

When Congress returns to finish this session on December 9, it will be the last opportunity to pass a Farm Bill, an effort almost ignored by the Press yet perhaps the most apt symbol of a dysfunctional Washington.

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