Tag: bowman

Slope, Bowman county leaders express frustration with federal overreach

AMIDON — Residents of the two most southwestern counties in North Dakota expressed their concerns and the perceived helplessness they felt about federal government overreach to Sen. John Hoeven on Monday during separate roundtable gatherings.

The Republican senator held hour-long meetings in both Bowman and Amidon to speak with county and city officials, landowners, ranchers and business leaders about a variety of topics that originate at a national level and affect them.

While many Bowman residents expressed gratitude for Hoeven’s work to secure grant funding for its $34 million hospital project and the new Bowman Airport, their leaders, as well as those in Slope County, railed on what they see as the federal government having too much of a say in what happens not only in North Dakota, but in their own backyards.

“It’s people like us who have little meetings that don’t make a difference anymore,” Lauren Klewin, a Slope County rancher and longtime board member for Slope Electric Cooperative, said during the Amidon roundtable.

Klewin spent nearly five minutes talking off the cuff about the variety of ways area residents feel hamstrung by federal bureaucracy and what he felt was increasing and all-but unstoppable overreach through the Obama administration’s Clean Water Rule and Clean Power Plan, as well as the U.S. Forest Service’s grazing plans.

“Regardless of who we ever have as a president, I feel like these federal agencies are running on their own,” Klewin said.

Hoeven responded by telling Klewin and others that some members of Congress and the court system continue to push back against the new carbon emission standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, and noted the importance of who nominated to be the next Supreme Court justice.

“Is it going to be someone who reflects North Dakota’s interest or someone who reflects the Obama agenda?” Hoeven asked. “… We can’t constantly have the federal government coming in and putting all these regulations on us.”

State Rep. Keith Kempenich, a Bowman Republican who represents District 39 in the Legislature, spent time at the Bowman roundtable asking for Hoeven’s help curtailing federal regulations on coal-fired power and the politicizing of climate change research and science.

“They’ve completely walked away from the science of it,” Kempenich said. “They’re pushing an agenda. Are your colleagues understanding this, for the most part? That’s where it gets frustrating. Because that’s where it’s coming from, is 20 square miles on the East Coast.”

Hoeven said after the Bowman roundtable that the concerns he heard echo those of many North Dakotans.

“As I listen to people all over the state of North Dakota, that’s what they’re saying,” he said.

 

Powder River trade off

Rodney Schaff, chairman of the Bowman Airport Authority, thanked Hoeven for his work to secure $12 million in grants for the airport, which opened last May.

He also spoke about the Powder River Training Complex, a U.S. Air Force training area that encompasses a large area in southwest North Dakota and neighboring South Dakota.

“We don’t have anything against military training,” Schaff said. “I’m an old Air Force vet. … But we said there’s got to be trade off here too.”

Hoeven said the Air Force is waiting to conduct low-altitude flights in southwest North Dakota until the Bowman Airport has installed equipment that allows it to communicate with the national air traffic controllers about flight training being conducted in the area.

“This Powder River range is very important to the Air Force, but at the same time it’s got to work for general aviation,” he said in an interview after the Bowman roundtable.

 

Bowman’s Steve Brooks balances ranching with role as ND Stockmen’s Association president

BOWMAN — Skeeter Brooks is getting an education not only in ranching, but also the often unseen business that happens outside of the corrals.

The 25-year-old is part of the sixth generation at Brooks Chalky Butte Angus Ranch, and said her ranching education is growing every day — particularly through her father Steve Brooks’ role as North Dakota Stockmen’s Association president.

“We learn a lot from it,” she said. “Every day, somebody might call and they’ll have a question about brands or something, so that furthers us in our education. You meet so many people too. There’s always people stopping by. When you go somewhere, you always run into somebody.”

Steve Brooks — who runs Brooks Chalky Butte Angus Ranch north of Bowman with his brother, Ryan, and their families — has spent a lifetime ranching. But for the past year and a half, he has also taken on the leadership role among cattlemen in the state. Though the position forces him to balance his time between working on the ranch and on behalf of his peers throughout the state, Brooks said he’s pleased with what he’s been able to accomplish — even if it keeps him very busy.

“Being president of Stockmen’s has involved a lot more than I realized,” he said with a laugh, noting he was also president of American Angus Association in 2003. “That was a big job, and I thought this was a step down and a lot less time consuming, but it’s not.”

During last year’s legislative session, Brooks said he drove from Bowman to Bismarck a dozen times. He’s taken trips to Washington, D.C., to meet with the state’s Congressional delegation and others in the agriculture industry.

And he does all of it while operating the 109-year-old ranch that’s gearing up for its annual production sale April 2 in Bowman. They’ll be selling about 180 bulls that day, as well as 1,000 of their customers’ bred heifers.

“It’s a lot harder to get away,” he said.

As Stockmen’s Association president, Brooks has lobbied against government overreach in the country-of-origin labeling (COOL) program for marketing U.S. beef, helped ensure a beef checkoff rate increase from $1 to $2 a head to help with the program’s long-term sustainability, represented southwest North Dakota landowner interests in a debate against the Bureau of Land Management over the classification of the sage grouse as an endangered species, and lobbied against the controversial Waters of the U.S. rule that would allow the federal government, namely the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, jurisdiction over most of the nation’s bodies of water — including waters on private land.

The most recent issue he’s working through is how a change in state tax law has affected the way counties can charge property tax on those leasing state school land, which is done mostly for use as pasture.

“We’ve been working on some of that to get that straightened out,” Brooks said, adding the Stockmen’s Association is seeking the state attorney general’s opinion on the matter.

He also said the Stockmen’s Association is aiming to increase brand fees 50 cents soon because of increases in its health insurance and salaries that help keep the association competitive in the job market.

Brooks said it’s a good time to be an established cattleman in North Dakota.

“Last year was the best market we’d ever seen in the history of cattle in the U.S.,” he said. “We turn around and it’s dropped 60-70 cents a pound and we’re still in the second-best market we’ve been in.”

And at the end of the day, that’s who Brooks is — a cattleman who is doing what he can to ensure more family ranches and farms stay afloat.