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Missouri Rural Crisis Center says CAFO bill does not respect local control

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The Missouri Rural Crisis Center is disappointed the state Senate has passed a bill that would protect large livestock feeding operations, known as CAFOs, from county regulations that are stricter than state regulations. Tim Gibbons says there is a “huge outpouring” of opposition to proposed protections on CAFOs.

Cows by a fence (photo: Happy Fence Friday, Larry Brown)

“We know that DNR (Department of Natural Resources) cannot and will not protect us from these absentee controlled operations,” he tells Brownfield Ag News. “So local control is one way that farmers and people in rural counties have been able to put safeguards on these type of operations to protect the property rights, the property values, the water and air, the livablity of our communities from industrial livestock operations.”

Gibbons says the state should be standing up for Missouri’s nearly 100,000 family farms – not the roughly 500 CAFOs. He says the voices of Missouri’s independent farmers and property owners are not as valued as corporate lobbyists working for industrial agriculture.

“In just under two weeks, both the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association and the Missouri Pork Association have hired seven new lobbyists to walk the halls of the Capitol,” says Gibbons. “We see firsthand what that type of influence has in our statehouse.”

Bill sponsor, Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, R-Jefferson City, says the proposal would benefit family farmers and large animal feeding operations. He says he wants a statewide policy, instead of a hodge podge of local restrictions.

The measure, Senate Bill 391, heads to the House. Two weeks remain in the regular session of the Missouri Legislature.

By Julie Harker of Brownfield Ag News

Historic Missouri House Republican majority selects leadership

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The leadership that will be in place for the 2013 session of the Missouri legislature is starting to take shape, first with the House Republicans. After securing the largest ever Republican majority in the state House in yesterday’s election, the party spent most of today selecting leadership. 

House Speaker Tim Jones (at the podium) is flanked by his now 110 member caucus. (photo courtesy: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Tim Jones (Eureka) remains the House Speaker, a position he has held since before the veto session. The Speaker Pro Tem is Jason Smith (Salem) and replacing Jones as Majority Floor Leader is John Diehl (Town and Country).

Mike Cierpiot (Lee’s Summit) is the Assistant Majority Floor Leader, Whip is Sandy Crawford (Buffalo), Shelley Keeney (Marble Hill) is the Caucus Chair and Secretary is Mike Bernskoetter (Jefferson City).

Republicans now have 110 seats in the House, meaning the Republican majorities of both chambers now have enough members to override a governor’s veto.

House Democrats and Senate Republicans meet to select leadership on Thursday.

State employee wages committee continues meeting

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A joint House-Senate committee is continuing its work to address state employee compensation. State employees received a 2-percent across-the-board raise in the Fiscal Year 2013 budget, but the Joint Interim Committee on State Employee Wages is thinking more long-term.

Representative Mike Bernskoetter (rear, center) listens as a consulting firm makes its pitch to be the company to study the compensation offered to state employees.

The Committee heard on Monday a presentation from Buck Consultants, a company that wants the job of evaluating current state employee pay and benefits compared to other states and private businesses. Senator Mike Kehoe (R-Jefferson City) told Buck’s representatives what he sees as the Committee’s goals.

“We would like to get to a solution that is a 10 or 15 year plan on how somebody could enter the workforce in the state and where they could go with that, with the proper levels of performance.”

He also says the group wants to reduce complexity in the current pay plan. “There’s a few people in the room that have been doing it forever and they know it like the back of their hand, but it’s very hard for policymakers or citizens or employees themselves to really understand exactly how it works, and I would like to see us at the end of the day figure out a way to reduce complexity.”

Chairman, Representative Mike Bernskoetter (R-Jefferson City) says the last time pay and benefits were studied was 1984. He says that’s too long ago. “It’s hurting the morale of state employees that they’re not getting paid a comparable salary to other states and other private employers.”

Bernskoetter says the goal in pay would be, “to get us in the area where our cost of living compares to the other states. If our cost of living in Missouri is say, thirty-fifth, then I think our employee benefit package should be somewhere comparable to that. That’s my theory on the whole thing.”

As for how a consulting firm will be paid, Bernskoetter says nothing has been put in the state budget for it but other agencies have offered to step up. “The Chamber of Commerce has showed an interest in putting some money into research like that. Hopefully we can get some money in the budget but if we can’t, we’ve got other options.”

Three more consulting firms will offer presentations to the Committee at its hearing November 13, and Bernskoetter says it needs to come up with a mission statement and a request for proposal.