SARL Members and Alumni

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) on Wednesday adopted rules regulating community solar entities outside of the electric utilities that provide those programs.The rules require "company registration, consumer protections, records keeping and reporting," and were adopted by the commission based on SB 5939, which directed the commission to establish these rules, "similar to guidelines for other regulated industries" in Washington, Kate Griffith, UTC spokesperson told Utility Dive.Some community solar advocates have raised concerns that these rules would inhibit smal [node:read-more:link]

Strict penalties for possessing marijuana in Texas could soon go up in smoke. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott recently announced he's open to dropping the maximum punishment for possession of less than 2 ounces of the drug from 180 days in jail to a fine. [node:read-more:link]

Exhausting. That’s how Hank Choate describes the last three years in Michigan as dairy farmers there have continued to receive the lowest milk price in the country. “The impact, the economic toll it is having on many producers is heart-wrenching,” he says. The fifth-generation dairy farmer from Cement City operates Choate’s Belly Acres in partnership with his family. [node:read-more:link]

Since June 25, 66 more Ohio dairy farms have ceased milking cows. In three months, 3 percent of Ohio’s dairy herds are gone. Since October 2017 — when there were 2,312 operating, licensed dairy farms in Ohio — 172 farms have quit milking, a decline of 7.4 percent of dairy farms in one year. [node:read-more:link]

Brand inspections, a way to catch rustlers, will end next year in Washington unless the cattle industry fully funds the inspections, according to the state Department of Agriculture. The department says it loses $38,000 a month checking brands on cattle that are being sold. If the Legislature doesn’t bring fees in line with expenses, inspections will cease in July, according to a budget plan submitted Monday.“We do not take this lightly at all. We understand the seriousness of it,” department spokesman Hector Castro said Wednesday. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland has upheld North Dakota’s Corporate Farming Law. The order comes as a result of a lawsuit filed in August of 2016 by the North Dakota Farm Bureau and several farmers who claimed that the Corporate Farming Law was unconstitutional.The Corporate Farming Law prohibits most corporations from farming or owning farmland in North Dakota. However, small family farms are excluded from this prohibition. [node:read-more:link]

Earlier this year, the U.S. Census announced that urban and suburban Idaho are enjoying substantial growth. Urban counties account for 75 percent of the state’s recent growth and 65 percent of its overall population, with Boise drawing national attention as the country’s fastest-growing major city. This is on the heels of recent news that as a state, more and more people in Idaho are moving out of rural communities to set down roots in the urban core.As more individuals and families are drawn to urban and suburban locales, our rural communities begin to shrink. [node:read-more:link]

A new program of the Main Street Montana Project will focus on creating economic opportunities in small towns and rural and tribal communities in Montana.  Beginning this fall, Main Street Montana – Rural Partners will start six community partnerships to provide aid and help economic and community development projects to rural Montana. This will be done with support from the lieutenant governor’s office and the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.Bullock and Lt. Gov. [node:read-more:link]

Iowa and other states in the Mississippi River basin have been the focus of national attention lately due to soil nutrients that drain to the Gulf of Mexico. Efforts in Iowa to reduce and limit the amount of nutrients that are delivered to the Gulf have been numerous. Senate File 512 was passed at the start of our 2018 legislative session and signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds on Jan. 31; it provides significant, long-term funding to support implementation of the Nutrient Reduction Strategy. [node:read-more:link]

Residents living in more than half of the nation’s counties have only one insurer to choose from on their state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance exchange. This lack of options is most prevalent in rural areas: 41 percent of enrollees in non-metro counties vs. the overall rate of 21 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.Could the creation of agricultural cooperative health plans help fill insurance gaps, offer more choices for consumers and lower costs? [node:read-more:link]