The Iowa blogger John Deeth brought this piece by Hotline's Reid Wilson to my attention.

An informal list of 17 members the NRCC believes can be convinced to step down, privately called the "Dem Retirement Assault List," makes clear the party needs Dem incumbents to step aside if they have hopes of taking back the majority. The NRCC has taken pains to attack those lawmakers in recent weeks.

The list includes 14 members whose districts voted for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in '08. McCain won districts held by Reps. Ike Skelton (D-MO) and Bart Gordon (D-TN) with more than 60% of the vote, and districts held by Reps. Rick Boucher (D-VA), Alan Mollohan (D-WV), Marion Berry (D-AR), Nick Rahall (D-WV) and Mike Ross (D-AR) with more than 55%.

McCain narrowly won seats held by Reps. John Spratt (D-SC), Allen Boyd (D-FL), Vic Snyder (D-AR), Baron Hill (D-IN), Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), Tim Holden (D-PA) and Collin Peterson (D-MN).

The NRCC has also begun targeting Reps. Sanford Bishop (D-GA), Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) and Leonard Boswell (D-IA), three members who already have credible opponents but who occupy seats Pres. Obama won in '08.

Here in IA-03, Boswell has three declared Republican opponents. Two of them are likely to be well-funded: Brad Zaun, who has a decent chunk of the Iowa GOP establishment backing him, and former Iowa State university wrestling coach Jim Gibbons. Gibbons has already launched a couple of misleading attacks on Boswell, claiming he's not working hard enough and that the estate tax fix will hurt farmers and small business owners.

2008 would have been a perfect time for Boswell to retire. Tons of voters in IA-03 registered as Democrats in order to participate in the Iowa caucuses, and any number of candidates could have held this seat easily.

I don't know anyone who expects Boswell to step down next year, but if he did, this might be a tough hold, since Democratic turnout tends to be lower in off-year elections. On the other hand, much would depend on the Democratic nominee. One possible candidate is former First Lady Christie Vilsack, who seemed to leave the door open for a future campaign when she ruled out running against Senator Chuck Grassley.

Final note: in that Hotline piece, Wilson writes that

members frequently use the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks as the time to decide whether to retire, filling Dec. and Jan. with announcements about their future. Already, rumors are flying that various members have decided not to run again.

I hope we don't hear about more than a few additional retirements this winter. Who do you think are the most likely suspects?

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A friend sent me an e-mail she received from the Iowa Farm Bureau. Excerpt:

Mary Kay Thatcher, AFBF director of public policy, tells Agriculture Online that Farm Bureau doesn't anticipate the massive climate change bill passed by the House last week to pass the Senate this year.

And the New York Times reported Tuesday that opposition from Farm Bureau and other agricultural groups threatens to kill the bill in the Senate. The Times reports that groups such as AFBF wield greater clout in the Senate, because members there must be protective of an entire state, rather than a small congressional district.

Here are the links to the Agriculture Online piece and the New York Times article.

The American Farm Bureau Federation lobbied members of the U.S. House to vote for Collin Peterson's lousy amendments to the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act but against the bill intended to address climate change.

I have my own problems with the ACES bill, especially the deals made to appease the coal industry and Peterson's colleagues on the House Agriculture Committee. That said, the objections big agribusiness and their Congressional allies have raised against the cap-and-trade approach are off-base and short-sighted.

It wouldn't surprise me if Farm Bureau's vote-counter is correct and the Senate rejects the Waxman-Markey bill for the wrong reasons. Frankly, that might be better than letting senators like Claire McCaskill make this flawed bill even worse.

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Washington, D.C. - "A sound compromise that no one is satisfied with, but nevertheless represents real reform." - From Rep. Collin Peterson's (D-MN) opening statement today on the 2007 Farm Bill.

The first House Agriculture Committee markup session on the 2007 Farm Bill began with Rep. Collin Peterson's opening statement, followed by everyone else's. Peterson said that Americans were fortunate to enjoy low, stable food prices, and food that meets the highest standards of quality and safety.

No markup, or voting on specific amendments, actually took place during today's session. The last changes to the legislation weren't made until late last night, and today was the first chance most members got to see the final versions, though Rep. Peterson said that the changes were minor in comparison to the version released a little over a week ago.

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United States

A couple days ago, the New York Times posted an article about the debate on farm subsidies, leaving readers with a rhetorical query about whether substantial progress was going to be made on cutting them. Umm, probably not. Unless, that is, every single member of the House Committee on Agriculture gets hundreds of phone calls from their constituents asking for caps on farm subsidies pronto. And even then, frankly, the odds are slim.

Consider that the Bush administration's secretary of agriculture got accused of instigating class warfare for some of his stances against farm subsidies, though it must be granted, there are issues with the Bush administration's proposals, as well.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman, Rep. Collin Peterson has yet to publish his revised Farm Bill, but when he does, he says there will be two of them. One will include policies with budget allocations, the other will include policies that will only be funded if offsets are found. Which is to say, they probably won't be funded. My mentors at the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition have put together an action alert highlighting four agricultural sustainablility policies that should go in the real Farm Bill, the one that will be funded. They include support for new farmers and ranchers, conservation incentives for working farmlands, improving local food distribution infrastructure, and support for transitions to organic and sustainable farming.

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Sally Jo Sorensen is a writer and researcher who lives in rural Minnesota. She blogs as Ollie Ox at Bluestem Prairie.

On May 23, the Detroit Lakes Journal Online published "Minnesota's wild rice now has protection," a guest column by White Earth Land Recovery Project founding director and Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) activist Winona LaDuke.

LaDuke's column explained the complicated political process through which Anishinaabe people had worked to protect wild rice from genetic modification. They had met with some success:

On May 8, 2007, Governor Pawlenty approved the Omnibus Environment and Natural Finance Bill (H 2410/S 2096): Included in this bill was protection for wild rice. Andrea Hanks, the Wild Rice Campaign coordinator for the White Earth Land Recovery Project expressed great relief that the bill had passed, thanking all of those who supported it, "Protection for Wild Rice has been a long time coming for Anishinaabeg communities, many people on all levels contributed to moving this legislation, the tribes of Minnesota, tribal leaders, allied organizations, citizens and legislators, I'm thankful for the help and support that was given."

Spurred initially by the work at the University of Minnesota to map the DNA sequence of wild rice, the Anishinaabeg became concerned about possible genetic modification of wild rice in 2002. Anishinaabeg concerns were heightened when scientists revealed that ancient varieties of corn, deep in Mexico, had been contaminated by genetically engineered seed varieties hundreds of miles away.

The possibility to expand on that success may be threatened by language in the new Farm Bill, and this language could spell trouble for Minnesota Democrats in 2008. Minnesota is home to Ag chair Collin Peterson, whose district includes White Earth.

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