Unprecedented March Wildfire Burning in Kansas

Hot Winds Fan Massive, Unprecedented March Wildfire Burning 40 Mile Swath Through Kansas and Oklahoma

Robertscribbler,

24 March, 2016

It’s likely that we’ve never seen a March wildfire like the beast that just ripped through Kansas and Oklahoma over the past day. But in a world that’s now exploring a new peak temperature range near or above 1.5 C warmer than pre-industrial averages, a level of heat not seen in the past 110,000 years, we’d be out of our minds to expect the weather and climate conditions to behave in any kind of manner that could be considered normal.

We’re Probably Looking at the Worst Wildfire on Record for Kansas and Oklahoma

(Massive, unprecedented, wildfire burns along a 40 mile swath across Kansas and Oklahoma on Wednesday. Image source: NASA/MODIS.)

And abnormal absolutely describes what happened in Oklahoma and Kansas yesterday and today.

The first sign of trouble was a warning of severe fire risk by weather officials for a multi-state region of the Central US on Wednesday. Extremely dry southwest winds gusting to 60 miles per hour coupled with anomalous temperature readings in the 80s (F) — or about 25 degrees (F) above average for this time of year — spiked fire hazards across a broad swath stretching from New Mexico and Western Texas on into Oklahoma and Kansas. The abnormal heat and dry winds combined to spark one of the worst grass fires on record.

The fire began in Northern Oklahoma at around 5:45 PM and almost immediately leapt northward — following the wind along a 1-2 mile wide swath through the northern portions of the state before roaring across the border into Kansas. It swelled to massive size — spewing out a plume of debris so large that doppler weather radar stations began picking it up. The large cloud, filled with tinders, dropped burning fragments over towns as far as 85 miles away from the blaze. People as far away as Arkansas reported smelling smoke.

During the height of the fire, the City of Medicine Lodge found itself facing an encroaching wall of flame on three sides. The nearby Route 160 had been cut off by the fire and as many as 2,000 structures, including the local hospital, were in danger of being consumed by the flames. Two homes burned, two bridges were destroyed and thousands were urged to evacuate as government officials declared a state of emergency. The American Red Cross scrambled to set up disaster shelters for evacuees.

(Anderson Creek wildfire’s enormous footprint is likely to grow larger over the coming day before the massive fire is finally contained. For reference, 212,000 acres is about 300 square miles. Note that by early afternoon the size of the blaze had jumped to 400,000 acres or more than 600 square miles. Image source: KOCO.)

As of this morning, 800-1000 structures in Medicine Lodge remained under threat. But the fire appeared to have mostly swept around the city. An overnight shift in the wind had caused the blaze to balloon eastward. And, according to the most recent reports, more than 400,000 acres, or about 600 square miles, had burned along a 40 mile swath stretching through Kansas and Oklahoma by early afternoon Thursday.

Conditions in Context

For a single fire to burn so much land in just a single day is absolutely unprecedented for this region. By comparison, the fire season of 2014 was considered to be the worst on record for Kansas — but it took nearly 4,000 fires to burn 110,000 acres during March of that year and here we have a single fire that has now exceeded that record total.

Under the conditions of human-forced climate change, wildfire risk is amplified due to a number of factors. First, overall increased temperatures result in periods of greater and greater fire risk. In addition, the added heat increases rates of moisture loss, facilitating drought, flash drought, and brief periods of intense dryness. Plants, which have adapted over tens of thousands of years to manage an expected range of moisture levels, are unable to compensate for the increased heat and dryness and become more vulnerable to burning.

(Anomalous heat and dry wind events, like the unseasonable warmth over Oklahoma and Kansas that pushed March temperatures into the mid 80s [F] over Oklahoma and Kansas yesterday become more prevalent as human greenhouse gas emissions force the world to warm. These conditions are a trigger for increasingly severe wildfire events. Earth Nullschool GFS capture at 2100 UTC on March 23, 2016.)

Furthermore, increased prevalence of drought and thawing lands — such a permafrost thaw — provide an increasing volume of fuels to feed the fires that do ignite. Fires under such conditions tend to burn hotter — generating far more destructive and potentially rapidly expanding blazes than the tamer variety of fires both human beings and the lands they inhabit are used to. This is a story that could well be told the world over — from the Arctic to the tropics, to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the tip of South America.

Pretty much everywhere, increased global heat — now peaking in the range of 1.5 C above preindustrial temperatures — worsens wildfire risk. And it’s just one of the many, many negative impacts of rising global temperatures. But for Kansas and Oklahoma the massive plume of smoke painting the sky in shades of brown, gray and black may as well have spelled out the words — climate change.

UPDATE 2:40 PM Friday — Renewed Fire Hazard

By Friday afternoon, official tallies for total acres burned had remained at near 400,000 acres in Kansas and Oklahoma and included another 50,000 acres in Texas — or about 700 square miles over the three states. New damage estimates included the loss of hundreds and perhaps thousands of cattle along with many hundreds of miles of fence line.

Reports from the Weather Channel, from GFS model summaries, and from local observations indicated strong southerly winds re-emerging over the region and gusting up to 40 mph. Fire officials have indicated that the new strong winds and rising temperatures into the upper seventies (F) coupled with another slot of dry air could re-ignite smoldering flames in the large fire zone. As such, risks for continued burning and expansion of existing fires was on the rise by mid Friday afternoon.

Links:

Wildfire in South-Central Kansas

Wildfire Burns Through Barber County

Massive Wildfire Burns over 200,000 Acres

Real Earth Weather Analysis

NASA/MODIS

Broken Records, Strained Resources

Earth Nullschool

Hat tip to DT Lange

Hat tip to Kevin Jones

Wildfires in Kansas

Early spring and the wildfires are starting

Latest: Kansas governor declares state of disaster amid fire

https://www.yahoo.com/news/latest-uncontrolled-wildfire-burns-kansas-oklahoma-225143042.html

KIOWA, Kan. (AP) — The Latest on wildfires in Kansas and Oklahoma (all times local):

10:30 p.m.

Gov. Sam Brownback has declared a state of disaster emergency for part of south-central Kansas threatened by a wildfire.

The declaration Wednesday clears the way for state resources to assist the affected communities.

The National Weather Service says the fire that has burned nearly 110 square miles started Tuesday night near the Kansas border in Woods County, Oklahoma. Wind gusts of up to 30 mph helped spread the blaze into Barber and Comanche counties in Kansas.

The Kansas Department of the Adjutant General says the fire is threatening residents of the Barber County town of Medicine Lodge.

A statement from the department says the Medicine Lodge mayor called for voluntary evacuations in the town of 2,000 people. Two houses have been destroyed and up to 1,000 homes and businesses are in danger.

___

5:45 p.m.

Crews are working to contain a wildfire that's burned nearly 110 square miles in rural Oklahoma and Kansas while strong winds and dry conditions increased the fire threat in neighboring states.

Oklahoma Forestry Services fire management chief Mark Goeller (GOH'-ler) said the fire continued to burn in both states late Wednesday afternoon and was not under control. An airplane was being used to dump water on the flames. Goeller said there are no injuries.

In Kansas' Comanche County, emergency management coordinator John Lehman said wind speeds were increasing and complicating efforts to fight the fire.

The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center said parts of New Mexico and northwest Texas also are at extreme risk for wildfires because of warm, windy and dry conditions.

___

11 a.m.

Authorities say a wildfire that started in Oklahoma and spread into Kansas has burned tens of thousands of acres of rural land.

The National Weather Service says the fire started Tuesday night near the Kansas border in Woods County, Oklahoma. Wind gusts of up to 30 mph helped spread the blaze into Barber and Comanche counties in Kansas.

Officials say no injuries had been reported Wednesday, and dozens of firetrucks and hundreds of firefighters are helping fight the blaze.

In Kansas, Comanche County emergency management coordinator John Lehman says about a dozen homes have been evacuated, though none has been damaged.

Forecasters say parts of New Mexico and West Texas are also at risk for wildfires.

Crop failures

Failed corn, sorghum crops reported in Kansas

Businessweek

23 July, 2013

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — In a good year, corn grower Dennis McNinch can look over his green fields of tasseled corn shooting 7 feet high by this point in the growing season. This year, the corn on McNinch's farm in western Kansas barely reaches 4 feet high and much of it has turned brown.

It's the third year of drought for the area, and much of McNinch's corn is dead.

"I'd say 25 percent of my crop is gone," he said Tuesday in a phone interview.

He is not alone. The National Agricultural Statistics Service reported Monday that spotty rain showers this past week have been too little to improve drought conditions in western Kansas. Crops and pastures continue to suffer.

The agency says it has received reports of failed corn and sorghum crops in areas missed by the rain, as well as fields damaged by hail or wind.

"By nature, you almost have to be an optimist," McNinch said. "You head into it thinking possibly the drought is over and harvest is something to get satisfaction for all this hard work. And then just basically you watch it start withering away."

The corn crop's condition across Kansas has declined so much that the Agricultural Statistics Service reported this week that 30 percent is now considered in poor to very poor shape. About 39 percent is rated fair, 28 percent is good and 3 percent is in excellent condition.

Among other Kansas crops:

— Sorghum is also hurting, with 21 percent in poor to very poor condition. About 43 percent is rated as fair, 34 percent as good and 2 percent as excellent. About 3 percent of the crop is just beginning to head.

— Soybean condition is rated as 13 percent poor to very poor. About 46 percent is rated as fair, 39 percent as good and 2 percent excellent. About 35 percent of the crop is now blooming, and 4 percent is setting pods.

— Roughly 10 percent of sunflower fields are now blooming across Kansas. The condition of the crop is pegged as 14 percent poor to very poor, 39 percent fair, 41 percent good and 6 percent excellent.

Livestock producers are not faring much better.

The latest government snapshot shows 55 percent of Kansas ranges and pastures remain in poor to very poor condition. Stock water supplies are short to very short in 42 percent of the state.

A New Dustbowl

Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust

Vast stretches of Texas and Kansas farmland over the High Plains Aquifer no longer support irrigation – Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains

NY Times,

26 January, 2013

HASKELL COUNTY, Kan. — Forty-nine years ago, Ashley Yost’s grandfather sank a well deep into a half-mile square of rich Kansas farmland. He struck an artery of water so prodigious that he could pump 1,600 gallons to the surface every minute.

Last year, Mr. Yost was coaxing just 300 gallons from the earth, and pumping up sand in order to do it. By harvest time, the grit had robbed him of $20,000 worth of pumps and any hope of returning to the bumper harvests of years past.

“That’s prime land,” he said not long ago, gesturing from his pickup at the stubby remains of last year’s crop. “I’ve raised 294 bushels of corn an acre there before, with water and the Lord’s help.” Now, he said, “it’s over.”

The land, known as Section 35, sits atop the High Plains Aquifer, a waterlogged jumble of sand, clay and gravel that begins beneath Wyoming and South Dakota and stretches clear to the Texas Panhandle. The aquifer’s northern reaches still hold enough water in many places to last hundreds of years. But as one heads south, it is increasingly tapped out, drained by ever more intensive farming and, lately, by drought.

Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers.

And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains.

This is in many ways a slow-motion crisis — decades in the making, imminent for some, years or decades away for others, hitting one farm but leaving an adjacent one untouched. But across the rolling plains and tarmac-flat farmland near the Kansas-Colorado border, the effects of depletion are evident everywhere. Highway bridges span arid stream beds. Most of the creeks and rivers that once veined the land have dried up as 60 years of pumping have pulled groundwater levels down by scores and even hundreds of feet.

On some farms, big center-pivot irrigators — the spindly rigs that create the emerald circles of cropland familiar to anyone flying over the region — now are watering only a half-circle. On others, they sit idle altogether.

Two years of extreme drought, during which farmers relied almost completely on groundwater, have brought the seriousness of the problem home. In 2011 and 2012, the Kansas Geological Survey reports, the average water level in the state’s portion of the aquifer dropped 4.25 feet — nearly a third of the total decline since 1996.

And that is merely the average. “I know my staff went out and re-measured a couple of wells because they couldn’t believe it,” said Lane Letourneau, a manager at the State Agriculture Department’s water resources division. “There was a 30-foot decline.”

Kansas agriculture will survive the slow draining of the aquifer — even now, less than a fifth of the state’s farmland is irrigated in any given year — but the economic impact nevertheless will be outsized. In the last federal agriculture census of Kansas, in 2007, an average acre of irrigated land produced nearly twice as many bushels of corn, two-thirds more soybeans and three-fifths more wheat than did dry land.

Farmers will take a hit as well. Raising crops without irrigation is far cheaper, but yields are far lower. Drought is a constant threat: the last two dry-land harvests were all but wiped out by poor rains.

In the end, most farmers will adapt to farming without water, said Bill Golden, an agriculture economist at Kansas State University. “The revenue losses are there,” he said. “But they’re not as tremendously significant as one might think.”

Some already are. A few miles west of Mr. Yost’s farm, Nathan Kells cut back on irrigation when his wells began faltering in the last decade, and shifted his focus to raising dairy heifers — 9,000 on that farm, and thousands more elsewhere. At about 12 gallons a day for a single cow, Mr. Kells can sustain his herd with less water than it takes to grow a single circle of corn.

“The water’s going to flow to where it’s most valuable, whether it be industry or cities or feed yards,” he said. “We said, ‘What’s the higher use of the water?’ and decided that it was the heifer operation.”

The problem, others say, is that when irrigation ends, so do the jobs and added income that sustain rural communities.

“Looking at areas of Texas where the groundwater has really dropped, those towns are just a shell of what they once were,” said Jim Butler, a hydrogeologist and senior scientist at the Kansas Geological Survey.

The villain in this story is in fact the farmers’ savior: the center-pivot irrigator, a quarter- or half-mile of pipe that traces a watery circle around a point in the middle of a field. The center pivots helped start a revolution that raised farming from hardscrabble work to a profitable business.

Since the pivots’ debut some six decades ago, the amount of irrigated cropland in Kansas has grown to nearly three million acres, from a mere 250,000 in 1950. But the pivot irrigators’ thirst for water — hundreds and sometimes thousands of gallons a minute — has sent much of the aquifer on a relentless decline. And while the big pivots have become much more efficient, a University of California study earlier this year concluded that Kansas farmers were using some of their water savings to expand irrigation or grow thirstier crops, not to reduce consumption.

A shift to growing corn, a much thirstier crop than most, has only worsened matters. Driven by demand, speculation and a government mandate to produce biofuels, the price of corn has tripled since 2002, and Kansas farmers have responded by increasing the acreage of irrigated cornfields by nearly a fifth.

At an average 14 inches per acre in a growing season, a corn crop soaks up groundwater like a sponge — in 2010, the State Agriculture Department said, enough to fill a space a mile square and nearly 2,100 feet high.

Sorghum, or milo, gets by on a third less water, Kansas State University researchers say — and it, too, is in demand by biofuel makers. As Kansas’ wells peter out, more farmers are switching to growing milo on dry land or with a comparative sprinkle of irrigation water.

But as long as there is enough water, most farmers will favor corn. “The issue that often drives this is economics,” said David W. Hyndman, who heads Michigan State University’s geological sciences department. “And as long as you’ve got corn that’s $7, then a lot of choices get made on that.”

Of the 800 acres that Ashley Yost farmed last year in Haskell County, about 70 percent was planted in corn, including roughly 125 acres in Section 35. Haskell County’s feedlots — the county is home to 415,000 head of cattle — and ethanol plants in nearby Liberal and Garden City have driven up the price of corn handsomely, he said.

But this year he will grow milo in that section, and hope that by ratcheting down the speed of his pump, he will draw less sand, even if that means less water, too. The economics of irrigation, he said, almost dictate it.

“You’ve got $20,000 of underground pipe,” he said. “You’ve got a $10,000 gas line. You’ve got a $10,000 irrigation motor. You’ve got an $89,000 pivot. And you’re going to let it sit there and rot?

“If you can pump 150 gallons, that’s 150 gallons Mother Nature is not giving us. And if you can keep a milo crop alive, you’re going to do it.”

Mr. Yost’s neighbors have met the prospect of dwindling water in starkly different ways. A brother is farming on pivot half-circles. A brother-in-law moved most of his operations to Iowa. Another farmer is suing his neighbors, accusing them of poaching water from his slice of the aquifer.

A fourth grows corn with an underground irrigation system that does not match the yields of water-wasting center-pivot rigs, but is far thriftier in terms of water use and operating costs.

For his part, Mr. Yost continues to pump. But he also allowed that the day may come when sustaining what is left of the aquifer is preferable to pumping as much as possible.

Sitting in his Ford pickup next to Section 35, he unfolded a sheet of white paper that tracked the decline of his grandfather’s well: from 1,600 gallons a minute in 1964, to 1,200 in 1975, to 750 in 1976.

When the well slumped to 500 gallons in 1991, the Yosts capped it and drilled another nearby. Its output sank, too, from 1,352 gallons to 300 today.

This year, Mr. Yost spent more than $15,000 to drill four test wells in Section 35. The best of them produced 195 gallons a minute — a warning, he said, that looking further for an isolated pocket of water would be costly and probably futile.

“We’re on the last kick,” he said. “The bulk water is gone.”

An Underground Pool Drying Up

Portions of the High Plains Aquifer are rapidly being depleted by farmers who are pumping too much water to irrigate their crops, particularly in the southern half in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Levels have declined up to 242 feet in some areas, from predevelopment — before substantial groundwater irrigation began — to 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/16/us/an-underground-pool-drying-up.html?ref=us

Extreme weather in Mid-West

Tornadoes hit Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa as storms sweep through Midwest

A severe storm system that is sweeping through the Midwest has generated tornadoes in Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa and has left at least one person dead in Shawnee, Okla.

Fox News,

19 May, 2013

Dozen of counties in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri have been placed under tornado watches and warnings.

A tornado grazed the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond Sunday afternoon, dropping hail as large as grapefruit and damaging roofs and structures before heading east. Aerial flyovers in Wellston, northeast of Oklahoma City, showed significant property damage. Major damage was also seen at a mobile home park in Shawnee, Okla, where a search and rescue effort is underway.

A storm spotter told the National Weather Service that the tornado "scoured" the landscape in the park and an area along Interstate 40. The highway has been closed because of overturned tractor-trailers that now litter the road.

"I knew it was coming," said Edmond resident Randy Grau, who huddled with his wife and two young boys in their Edmond's home's safe room when the tornado hit. He said he peered out his window as the weather worsened and believed he saw a flock of birds heading down the street.

"Then I realized it was swirling debris," Grau said. "That's when we shut the door of the safe room.

"I probably had them in there for 10 minutes."

In Katie Leathers' backyard, the family's trampoline was tossed through a section of fence and a giant tree uprooted.

"I saw all the trees waving, and that's when I grabbed everyone and got into two closets," Leathers said. "All these trees just snapped."

In Kansas, an "violent and extremely dangerous tornado" was spotted in the southwest side of Wichita near the Mid-Continent Airport, according to the National Weather Service.

Carl Brewer, the mayor of Wichita, told Fox News that the city was hit harder by high winds and golf ball sized hail than anything from the tornado.

"That alone, and the rain, actually just really did a number on the city," he said. "It was so bad you think a tornado came through."

Brewer said hail ripped through the sides of houses in Wichita, in addition to breaking windows and damaging cars.

But Randy Duncan, Wichita's emergency management director, told Fox News that he has not yet heard of any local reports of injuries of deaths stemming from the storm.

In Iowa, a tornado touched down 30 miles west of Des Moines, the National Weather Service said, according to the Des Moines Register.

More severe storms are also in the forecast in Oklahoma a day after large hail fell in the state's southwest and electricity was knocked out to thousands.

The Storm Prediction Center said Sunday there was a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms forming Sunday evening.

“The overall environment appears quite favorable for tornadoes,” the SPC outlook stated, according to the Kansas City Star.

The center says the greatest risk for storms in Oklahoma is in the far north, around the Bartlesville area. Overall, the cities included in the area of moderate risk are Kansas City, Wichita, Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

In Enid on Saturday, a police officer was injured in high winds when his cruiser was struck by an object. Area emergency manager Mike Honigsberg told The Oklahoman that the car may have been hit by a cattle trough lifted by the wind. In Oklahoma City, an officer was trapped for a time when surrounded by fallen utility lines.

Climate news

Climate change 'will make hundreds of millions homeless'

Carbon dioxide levels indicate rise in temperatures that could lead agriculture to fail on entire continents

the Guardian,
12 May, 2013

It is increasingly likely that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homelands in the near future as a result of global warming. That is the stark warning of economist and climate change expert Lord Stern following the news last week that concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere had reached a level of 400 parts per million (ppm).

Massive movements of people are likely to occur over the rest of the century because global temperatures are likely to rise to by up to 5C because carbon dioxide levels have risen unabated for 50 years, said Stern, who is head of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.

"When temperatures rise to that level, we will have disrupted weather patterns and spreading deserts," he said. "Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to leave their homelands because their crops and animals will have died. The trouble will come when they try to migrate into new lands, however. That will bring them into armed conflict with people already living there. Nor will it be an occasional occurrence. It could become a permanent feature of life on Earth."

The news that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached 400ppm has been seized on by experts because that level brings the world close to the point where it becomes inevitable that it will experience a catastrophic rise in temperatures. Scientists have warned for decades of the danger of allowing industrial outputs of carbon dioxide to rise unchecked.

Instead, these outputs have accelerated. In the 1960s, carbon dioxide levels rose at a rate of 0.7ppm a year. Today, they rise at 2.1ppm, as more nations become industrialised and increase outputs from their factories and power plants. The last time the Earth's atmosphere had 400ppm carbon dioxide, the Arctic was ice-free and sea levels were 40 metres higher.

The prospect of Earth returning to these climatic conditions is causing major alarm. As temperatures rise, deserts will spread and life-sustaining weather patterns such as the North Indian monsoon could be disrupted. Agriculture could fail on a continent-wide basis and hundreds of millions of people would be rendered homeless, triggering widespread conflict.

There are likely to be severe physical consequences for the planet. Rising temperatures will shrink polar ice caps – the Arctic's is now at its lowest since records began – and so reduce the amount of solar heat they reflect back into space. Similarly, thawing of the permafrost lands of Alaska, Canada and Russia could release even more greenhouse gases, including methane, and further intensify global warming

Drought, cold cripple U.S. winter wheat crop – Western Kansas considered a disaster area

The winter wheat crop is expected to be far smaller this season compared to last, particularly for hard red varieties used in bread, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Friday.

NBC News,

11 May, 2013

In the first government projection on the harvest's anticipated size, the National Agricultural Statistics Service estimated winter wheat production will be down 10 percent to 1.49 billion bushels, due to fewer acres — 32.7 million acres, some 6 percent fewer acres than a year ago — and a 1.8-bushel decrease in average yields, to 45.4 bushels per acre.

The government's forecast comes amid a season marked by drought and late spring freezes in the Midwest's major wheat growing areas, particularly in Kansas — the nation's biggest wheat-producing state.

Dean Stoskopf, who is growing 900 wheat acres near Hoisington in west-central Kansas, expects to have an average or below-normal crop because of all the dry weather.

"We were fortunate enough to get some rains here, where not everybody did, but it is still a wait and see what we are going to end up with," Stoskopf said in a phone interview. His wheat greened up, but Stoskopf is mindful that there is no subsoil moisture to carry the crop to harvest if the weather turns hot and the rains stop.

The wheat heads — where the kernels develop — have just emerged, meaning it will likely be July before Stoskopf can harvest if all goes well.

"We have a ways to go before we have a wheat crop," he said.

Nationwide production of hard red winter wheat, typically used to make bread, is expected to decline 23 percent to 768 million bushels. But that'll be offset somewhat by soft red winter wheat types — favored for cookies and pastries — which are projected to be up 19 percent at 501 million bushels.

One bushel of wheat yields about 42 pounds of flour — enough to make 73 loaves of bread.

Far western Kansas is considered a disaster area, and farmers told tour participants earlier this month that crop insurance agents have already begun writing off acres there. Wheat tour participants examined 570 fields, finding that in south-central Kansas, which got late winter snowstorms and heavy spring rains, the wheat looks good and production there is expected to offset a bit the losses elsewhere in the state. 

Kansas attempts to protect second Amendment "unconstitutional"

AG Holder: Feds Will Ignore State Laws and Enforce Gun Grab

the New American,

2 May, 2013

Attorney General Eric Holder (shown) has written to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, informing him that the Obama administration considers state attempts to protect the Second Amendment “unconstitutional” and that federal agents will “continue to execute their duties,” regardless of state statutes to the contrary.
 

The letter, dated April 26, specifically references a Kansas statute recently signed into law by Brownback that criminalizes any attempt by federal officers or agents to infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of citizens of the Sunflower State. Section 7 of the new law declares:

It is unlawful for any official, agent or employee of the government of the United States, or employee of a corporation providing services to the government of the United States to enforce or attempt to enforce any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States regarding a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately and owned in the state of Kansas and that remains within the borders of Kansas. Violation of this section is a severity level 10 nonperson felony.

The right of states to refuse to enforce unconstitutional federal acts is known as nullification.

Nullification is a concept of constitutional law recognizing the right of each state to nullify, or invalidate, any federal measure that exceeds the few and defined powers allowed the federal government as enumerated in the Constitution.

Nullification exists as a right of the states because the sovereign states formed the union, and as creators of the compact, they hold ultimate authority as to the limits of the power of the central government to enact laws that are applicable to the states and the citizens thereof.

As President Obama and the United Nations accelerate their plan to disarm Americans, the need for nullification is urgent, and liberty-minded citizens are encouraged at the sight of state legislators boldly asserting their right to restrain the federal government through application of that very powerful and very constitutional principle.

Both Attorney General Holder and President Obama are trained lawyers, so one would expect that they have read the Federalist Papers. In fairness, they probably have, but perhaps they overlooked Federalist, No. 33, where Alexander Hamilton explained the legal validity of federal acts that exceed the powers granted to it by the Constitution. Hamilton wrote:

If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted [sic] to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies and the individuals of whom they are composed.... But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the larger society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. [Emphasis in original.]

Holder denies that states have the right to withstand federal tyranny and argues that the Constitution declares federal acts to be the “supreme law of the land.”

His comments echo a common misreading and misunderstanding of Article VI of the Constitution, the so-called Supremacy Clause.

The Supremacy Clause (as some wrongly call it) of Article VI does not declare that federal laws are the supreme law of the land without qualification. What it says is that the Constitution "and laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof" are the supreme law of the land.

Read that clause again: “In pursuance thereof,” not in violation thereof. If an act of Congress is not permissible under any enumerated power given to it in the Constitution, it was not made in pursuance of the Constitution and therefore not only is not the supreme law of the land, it is not the law at all.

Constitutionally speaking, then, whenever the federal government passes any measure not provided for in the limited roster of its enumerated powers, those acts are not awarded any sort of supremacy. Instead, they are “merely acts of usurpations” and do not qualify as the supreme law of the land. In fact, acts of Congress are the supreme law of the land only if they are made in pursuance of its constitutional powers, not in defiance thereof.

Alexander Hamilton put an even finer point on the issue when he wrote in Federalist, No. 78, “There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the constitution, can be valid.”

Once more legislators, governors, citizens, and law professors realize this fact, they will more readily and fearlessly accept that the states are uniquely situated to perform the function described by Madison above and reiterated in a speech to Congress delivered by him in 1789. "The state legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operation of this government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power than any other power on earth can do; and the greatest opponents to a federal government admit the state legislatures to be sure guardians of the people’s liberty," Madison declared.

State lawmakers in Kansas and several other states are catching on, and nullification bills stopping federal overstepping of constitutional boundaries are being considered. These measures nullify not only the impending federal gun grab, but the mandates of ObamaCare and the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), as well.

In light of Holder’s letter, it appears that we have arrived at a time in the history of our Republic when the author of the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson) and the “Father of the Constitution” (James Madison) are considered enemies of liberty. 

In the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, Jefferson and Madison declared their allegiance to the union, but insisted that states have the right — the duty — to interpose themselves between citizens and federal despotism.

What Holder fails to appreciate is that the consent of the states created the Constitution and thus created the federal government. This act of collective consenting is called a compact. In this compact (or contract), the states selected delegates who met in Philadelphia in 1787 and conferred some of the powers of the states to a federal government. These powers were enumerated in the Constitution drafted at that convention and the Constitution became the written record of the compact.

This element of the creation of the union is precisely where the states derive their power to nullify acts of the federal government that exceed its constitutional authority. It is a trait woven inextricably within every strand of sovereignty, and it was the sovereign states that ceded the territory of authority that the federal government occupies.

In his letter to Governor Brownback, Attorney General Holder demonstrates that he is as ignorant as his boss as to the proper, constitutional relationship between state governments and the federal government. Accordingly, when Holder threatens to use “all appropriate action” to “prevent the State of Kansas from interfering with the activities of federal officials enforcing federal law,” what he is saying is that he will use any means necessary to prevent the sovereign state of Kansas (and any other state brave enough to take a stand against the federal government) from exercising its right to protect its citizens from federal disarmament.

And, more importantly, by disregarding a legally enacted Kansas statute preserving the right of its citizens to keep and bear arms, the Obama administration is not only ignoring the Second Amendment, but it is also ignoring the 10th Amendment and its restrictions on federal power.

Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA, and the surveillance state. He can be reached at  jwolverton@thenewamerican.com.