Rural politics are curious, and the dog days of summer may be bringing out some of the more peculiar strains this year.
After reading the Westrum letters, I discovered a family policy feud erupting within the pages of the Worthington Daily Globe.
Iowa's Tom Dorr, Undersecretary of Agriculture for Rural Development, toured Minnesota's First this week:
WORTHINGTON — More than 60 people representing the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Energy and the Natural Resource Conservation Service arrived in Worthington Tuesday evening in the midst of a whirlwind, three-state Mid-America Rural Tour.
The group will tour Prairie Holdings this morning in Worthington before moving on to stops at Minnesota Soybean Processors in Brewster and Heron Lake BioEnergy. The day will include a ground-breaking ceremony for a new hospital in St. James, which is being financed with USDA Rural Development dollars, as well as a tour of a Conservation Securities Program project near Wells. The tour will end Thursday morning following a tour of the Soymore Biodiesel and Agra-Resources Cooperative ethanol plants in Albert Lea.
Tom Dorr, Under Secretary for Rural Development and a native of Marcus, Iowa, spearheaded the tour to get USDA employees out of their offices in Washington, D.C., and into rural America. The trip is hoped to show not only what USDA Rural Development has done to improve rural communities, but also what Rural Development can do in the future.
Representative Gil Gutknecht met up with the group in Worthington.
Meanwhile, Dorr's brother Paul sends in a letter:
Ethanol policies reflect a sellout
Paul Dorr, Ocheyedan, Iowa, Worthington Daily Globe
Published Wednesday, August 09, 2006It’s funny what power does to a man. In the early 1980s my older brother Tom Dorr, now Undersecretary of Rural Development in the USDA, knew the gasohol industry (as it was called then) was mostly a wealth transfer system from the taxpayers to the likes of Dwayne Andreas of ADM. He told me so himself when he was on the family farm.
In early February of this year he told a Waterloo, Iowa, gathering of an investment capital group in New York City that had put together a $185 billion investment fund to invest in Midwest United States ethanol plants. When he asked the fund managers how much of the money came from the Middle East, he was told, “Nearly all of it.”
A few days later (Feb. 22) he was speaking in Las Vegas to the National Ethanol Conference, where he said, “From a national energy policy standpoint, it doesn’t make a great deal of difference who owns the [ethanol] plants … I am the last person in the world who wants to stand in the way of the free flow of capital.” Read — Middle East capital.
With the Bush family having invested in many Middle East oil interests through the Carlyle Group for years, this makes me wonder who really is going to plunder all of these tax subsidy dollars through buying up these ethanol plants from Midwest farmers.
Meanwhile, Tom goes around the country — including his scheduled stop in Worthington today — touting ethanol as great for farmers and the rural community. It’s a con job and he knows it.
What’s more ironic is that Tom’s son, my nephew Andrew Dorr, is the political director for Jim Nussle’s campaign for Iowa governor, and in April of this year Nussle announced his new ethanol tax give-away program (he calls it incentives). He dubbed it the “Independence from Oil with Agriculture Act.” You’ll note Nussle didn’t dub it the “The Independence from the Middle East Act.” Andrew’s dad knows better. We are being sold out.
So what's up in the Dorr family?
Funny folks, those Dorr boys. In some ways, they reflect the family drama that is today's Republican party--to go with the free-spending Bush crowd or stick to anti-government zeal, regardless of the consequences to people and communities.
Paul Dorr was recently written up in the City Pages for his anti-public education efforts in southern Minnesota:
A home-school proponent and political consultant from Ocheyedan, Iowa, Dorr had shown up to battle the school bond referendum in Lyle, as he has throughout the Midwest. To date, Dorr has attempted to defeat 31 school bond initiatives; he has succeeded in 25 of those contests. In Minnesota, he has prevailed in four of his six campaigns.
Dorr refuses to reveal exactly where he's worked in Minnesota, but Norman says Dorr has meddled in referendum issues in Lyle, Blooming Prairie, Wells, St. James, Redwood Falls, and his own district, Lake Crystal Welcome-Memorial. People who've encountered Dorr's campaigns in Iowa and Minnesota describe him as canny, determined, and opportunistic. He is a distant cousin to the Music Man, driving from town to town, painting a picture of failing schools and waste, collecting pay-outs from disgruntled locals who don't want to hand over new taxes.
Anti-ethanol and taxes? Kinda reminds us of some home grown folks. And if you read those linked documents I embedded in the letter, you'll find that Paul takes his brother's remarks somewhat out of context. Somewhat.
Brother Tom's got a back story too. The Des Moines Register reported:
[Paul] Dorr has achieved Iowa fame before. His brother is Tom Dorr, who was appointed by President Bush as undersecretary for rural development. Tom failed to win confirmation from the Senate in 2002 but was later hired as a senior adviser in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Paul was in the news at the time of the confirmation hearing because of a taped conversation that became an issue in his brother's nomination. In the conversation, Tom Dorr remarked that government officials might "raise hell" if they audited his participation in federal farm-subsidy programs. The other voice was purported to be that of Paul Dorr. (January 16, 2005)
A press release issued by Senator Dayton's office in 2002 gives us a flavor of the debate as well as a transcript of the tape.
Dorr was not confirmed in 2002, but Bush gave him an interim appointment and, after another round of confirmation hearings, some side jobs. Dorr finally won confirmation in 2005, according to the Des Moines Register, after he apologized for his violation of farm subsidy rules and racially insensitive remarks:
Washington, D.C. – Former Iowa farmer Tom Dorr has finally won Senate approval to take a top job at the U.S. Agriculture Department.
The Senate voted 62-38 Wednesday to confirm Dorr as USDA’s undersecretary for rural development. But the vote didn’t come until Dorr delivered a written apology for past violations of federal subsidy rules and remarks that have been criticized as racially insensitive.
In Dorr’s letter, parts of which were read on the Senate floor, Dorr said for the first time that his illegal subsidy claims were wrong: “I regret that I did it.” He went to say that he hoped other farmers would learn from the mistake.
Dorr had previously acknowledged that he structured his family’s farm interests at Marcus, Ia., to avoid a cap on the subsidies that individual producers can receive. However, he had steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, although family trusts were forced to repay the government $34,000.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., dropped a filibuster threat after the apology letter made it clear that Republicans had the votes to win approval of Dorr.
Seven Democrats and all 55 Republicans in the Senate voted in favor of Dorr. Sixty votes were needed to overcome a possible filibuster.
Dorr was first nominated for the post in early 2001, but Harkin had blocked a vote on him because of Dorr’s past statements Dorr and violations of federal subsidy rules.
Dorr had declined to make an apology to Congress as recently as a confirmation hearing in April before the Senate Agriculture Committee.
However, Dorr assured the senators that he has a “very, very big heart” and would use his office to help the poor.
Dorr served a temporary appointment in the USDA post in 2002 and 2003. He has since been working as an adviser in the department.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Ia., lobbied Democrats to support Dorr's nomination.
"His vision and intellect will be a very positive addition" to USDA, Grassley said.
In addition to the racially insensitive remarks and violation of federal subsidy rules, some of the hold ups were remarks made by Dorr to the New York Times in 1998 (see pages S14976-7 here) in which he talked about re-organizing farms into giant pods spanning hundreds of thousands of acres and a memo containing my favorite statement ever about rural poverty, from a memo objecting to telecommunications taxes, which make people turn into peasants :
These taxes are confiscatory. School and local government systems in Iowa alone have been subsidized so long without commensurate performance expectations that a large number have slipped into a slothful state far exceeding mediocrity. They probably don't receive 30% of these taxes, and they surely don't need them.
With these kinds of taxation and subsidy games, you collectively are responsible for turning Iowa into a state of peasants totally dependent on your largesse. This is unacceptable.
I am sure my ranting won't change your approach to maintaining a constituency dependent on government revenue. But should you decide to take a few side trips through the Iowa countryside, you'll see an inordinate number of homes surrounded by five to ten cars. The homes generally have a value of less than $10,000. This just confirms my ``10 car $10,000 home theory''. The more you try to help the more you hinder. The results are everywhere.
Dorr's objection to subsidies seems, well, selective. It would seem that he and his brother, whatever their other quarrels, share an objection to funding public schools.
Those Dorr boys. Welcome to Minnesota.
Disclaimer: We at Bluestem Prairie think renewable fuels and energy are just dandy, especially when the money made producing them stays in the hands of local folks.
Not that we've seen many peasants on any of our side trips. I'd make an Iowa joke, but then I might have to duel this fellow.
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