Representative Collin Peterson is re-elected - also, area school levy results are below

Congressman Collin Peterson won 133,086 to Lee Byberg's 90,682 to Glen Menze's 7,904 with 100% of the precincts reporting.

In the governor's race, Mark Dayton won with 100% of precincts reporting. The totals are: Dayton 919,234 to Emmer's 910,380 to Horner's 251,503. Dayton's margin of victory was .42%, which triggers an automatic recount. (Tom Emmer does not have to call for a recount, this will happen whether he wants it or not.)

Automatic recounts are triggered when the margin of victory is less than a 1/2 of a percent of the total votes.

In the Grant County Recorder's race, Diann Giese won 2,142 to 782 for Tonia Dittberner.

Some election results are on page one and page three of this week's Herman-Hoffman Tribune, which just hit the newsstands this morning.

• A handful of area school levy results:

Yellow Medicine East - 1,554 yes to 1,092 no with 100% of precincts reporting.
Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa - 735 yes to 636 no.
Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg - 606 yes to 503 no, a simple extension of a $200 per pupil levy.
Wheaton Area - 564 no 561 yes, a truly heartbreaking loss for their school.
Morris Area - 1,750 yes to 1,197 no.
Eagle Valley - failed 647 to 509.
Fergus Falls - 4,986 yes to 2,638 no. (they had no increase, just an extension of a $416 per pupil levy)
Kimball Area - they passed two questions that total $875 per pupil.
Long Prairie-Grey Eagle - 1,526 no to 1,350 yes. (they sought no increase, just an extension of a $700 per pupil levy)
Minneota - 585 yes to 528 no. (they were asking for a small increase of $126 per pupil up to a total of $700 per pupil - a nice win for that district)
Ogilvie - 884 no to 582 yes - they are in trouble, the question was for no increase to an existing $600 per pupil levy.
Red Rock Central - 766 yes to 686 no. Lamberton/Jeffers/Storden/Sanborn passed a big increase to their levy from $950 to $1450 per pupil.
Upsala - 436 no to 346 yes - they are in trouble too.

A special note on Eagle Valley...that school district is made up of the towns of Eagle Bend and Clarissa, who merged back in 1988. They are in serious trouble. I predict they will dissolve within one to two years. The funding and the students just do not add up to keep the district going, especially when they are operating two large, old buildings that need major renovations.

On Long Prairie-Grey Eagle's narrow loss...they are in trouble too, although they are a much bigger district than Eagle Valley is, and I think they can weather the storm. It will be ugly, though.

It's a sad sight to witness.

On the levy vote at K-M-S...it's very surprising to see a levy vote barely pass at K-M-S when all they were asking for was an extension of a $200 per pupil levy. Thank goodness it did pass, K-M-S is a great small school district.

Around the state, 35 districts failed all levy questions to increase their property taxes.

Altogether, 76 districts seeking levies was the highest since 2007, when 101 districts requested levy referenda.

Peterson introduces bill to protect producers from burdensome EPA regulations

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn., yesterday introduced H.R. 6273 which amends the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA) to prohibit additional permits for pesticide application when pesticides are applied consistent with FIFRA.

"This legislation provides farmers and ranchers with the safe harbor they deserve in the application of pesticides. The bill relieves producers from a potentially costly regulatory burden that does little if anything to protect the environment," Peterson
said.

In the decades since Congress enacted the CWA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has never issued a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for the application of a pesticide. Instead, EPA has regulated these types of
applications through FIFRA, enacted by Congress to control all aspects of pesticide registration, sales and use. The FIFRA registration process includes stringent requirements for a wide range of environmental, health and safety studies to establish the circumstances under which pesticides can be legally used in the United States.

In January 2009, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2006 EPA rule which specifically exempted permitting of certain pesticide applications from the CWA. In National Cotton Council of America, et al., v. United States Environmental Protection Agency the court ruled EPA did not have the authority under the CWA to exempt application of pesticides. The Court's decision marks a pre-emption of FIFRA by the CWA for the first time in the history of either statute.

Chairman Peterson's bill would make clear that producers who are in compliance with the requirements of FIFRA are not subject to Clean Water Act permits.

"The 6th Circuit decision overturned decades of policy and practice with regard to the sufficiency of FIFRA regulation," Peterson said. "This legislation will make clear that Congress never intended for farmers and ranchers to meet additional permit requirements for pesticide applications under FIFRA."

Twelve members of the House of Representatives joined Peterson as original co-sponsors of the bill.

Congressman Collin Peterson will be in Alexandria on Tuesday this week

Collin Peterson will be visiting at Campaign Headquarters at 418 Broadway in Alexandria on August 24, 2010. He will be arriving after 3:00 p.m.

An eating, talking and singing affair is being planned, however, which will commence at 2:30 p.m. as we wait for Peterson’s arrival. We’ve been hoping for months for a visit from our congressman, so we hope our Democrats and friends will turn out in numbers. A ten dollar ticket will be sold at the door to assist with local office and coordinated campaign expenses.

Congressman Collin Peterson is pleased that Wall Street Reform has finally passed

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson today commended the House of Representatives for passing the conference report on the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (H.R. 4173).

“I am pleased the conference report contains many of the provisions the House Agriculture Committee endorsed in three different bills on these topics,” Chairman Peterson said. “This bill will mitigate the outrageous price spikes in commodity markets that we first saw two years ago, bring greater transparency to the derivatives market through mandatory clearing and ensure that end users can continue using derivatives to hedge risk.”

Chairman Peterson added, “This comprehensive legislation represents a middle ground between the House and Senate products. And, while no one got everything they wanted in this bill, I think we got a bill that will help prevent another crisis in the financial markets like the one we experienced in 2008,”

The House Agriculture Committee played a key role in developing the financial reform legislation; particularly provisions that address increased volatility and speculation in the derivatives markets and that strengthen oversight and increase transparency in the markets for futures, options and over-the-counter products and swaps.

The Senate must now vote to approve the conference report before it is sent to President Obama for his signature.

Sitting in on the Minnesota Farmers Union agriculture discussion at Lakeside Ballroom in Glenwood

Minnesota Farmers Union president Doug Peterson and some of his staff are on hand now at Lakeside Ballroom in Glenwood.

Tom Meium of Congressman Collin Peterson's office said the following:

Collin favors these parts of the health care reform bill: ends the pre-existing condition exclusion - children covered up to 26 - health insurance companies can no longer drop you if you get a serious illness

Collin heard mostly from farmers, independent business owners who pay for their own insurance - they expressed grave concerns about rates going up. It was not addressed in the bill, even supporters of the bill acknowledge that insurance rates will go up.

Inflation rates and uncontrolled expenses that have been going up for quite some time have not been addressed.

Eleven percent of the CD7 do not have health insurance. About 1/3 of those will be covered. That's disappointing to Collin. He was hoping more of the uninsured would be covered.

That plus the expenses out of consumers pockets not being addressed led Collin to vote No on the bill.

If you compare legislation to a football game, we're probably at about halftime.
The first half was developing a bill. The second half will be implementation of the bill.

Health and Human Services will bring this to reality over the next 4 to 5 years. "Rubber hits the road" - the legislative intent will be put into action.

Collin pledges his support to the work of the second half. He won't be a part of the political games and rhetoric about repealing the bill.

He supports several parts of the bill. He will work with his colleagues of both parties to address the cost issue and make it a workable program.

• Other issues were discussed throughout the forum, with a heavy emphasis on health care reform and agriculture concentration.

More will be posted on this meeting on Wednesday.

A little drama breaks out at the 7th C.D. convention, but Collin Peterson is endorsed for another bid at the House of Representatives

Though it got heated a couple of times, Collin won the endorsement by unanimous acclamation of the 7th congressional district DFL delegates on Saturday afternoon.

A move to vote down the unanimous consent acclamation failed by an 87.5 to 29 margin among the 116 delegate votes.

Senator Amy Klobuchar gives her kudos to Congressman Collin Peterson.


Up in Moorhead at the 7th congressional district Republican convention, delegates voted on Saturday to endorse Willmar corporate agriculture executive Lee Byberg to run against Collin Peterson. He crossed the necessary 60% threshold on the first ballot cast, receiving 78% of the delegates' votes.

Byberg has said that one of the main focuses of his campaign will be farm issues, as he tries to unseat the popular incumbent Peterson.

Hey Lee, Good luck with that.

Here's a story from the Fargo Forum on his congressional race:
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/275112/

Here is a link to Lee's political website: http://www.bybergforcongress.org

Upon further investigation, I found one section of his website (at his blog) where he talks specifically about agriculture:

http://bybergforcongress.blogspot.com/search/label/agriculture

Interestingly, I would guess that Collin Peterson would not disagree with much of what is said in that blog post that I just mentioned.