About 1,300 union workers have been locked out of their jobs by American Crystal Sugar since Aug. 1. Since the lockout started, the union and company have only met twice, both times at the urging of a federal mediator. Following the rejection of Monday’s offer, there are no plans to meet again.

Sen. Al Franken said “it’s imperative that both sides continue to work to come to an agreement that will end this lockout and get workers back on the job,” pointing out that all sides play a role in the sugar industry’s success.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Collin Peterson released a joint statement highlighting the impact of the lockout on communities across the Red River Valley: “We continue to urge both Crystal Sugar management and workers to come together at the negotiating table to work out an agreement that allows workers to return to their jobs as soon as possible. American Crystal and these jobs are very important to the region.”

Locked out workers in Minnesota are receiving unemployment benefits, but those who live in North Dakota are denied them under state law. Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota said in a statement that the “lock-out is taking a serious toll on families in North Dakota and Minnesota and the economic and social impact can be felt up and down the Red River Valley.”

In an interview with the Grand Forks Herald, Conrad admitted that the dispute could harm the chances of a farm bill. Franken has warned in the past that American Crystal Sugar’s tactics of locking out workers could alienate pro-worker members of Congress who have previously supported protections for the sugar industry.

Conrad told the Grand Forks Herald that the “company needs to think long and hard about the consequences, about the implications of their strategy.”

Ninety percent of voting union workers rejected the deal, according to the union, with 92 percent of all union members voting.

“If company executives are serious about getting us back to work, they should return to the negotiating table immediately with real compromises, not just repackaged versions of a contract that has now been rejected twice,” said Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union local 167G President John Riskey. “It’s time for a contract that benefits workers, the company, growers, and the community.”’

The workers in three states have been locked out since they rejected a contract at the end of July, partly due to concerns about the cost of a new health care plan and provisions that would have allowed the company to use more subcontractors.

“Today our members sent a loud and clear message to American Crystal Executives,” said Riskey. “We want to work, but we will not accept a contract that puts our jobs and the entire community at risk.”

The only two previous negotiations were requested by a federal mediator. There are no negotiations scheduled.

The lockout affects 1,300 union workers at facilities in Moorhead, East Grand Forks, Crookston, and Chaska, Minn.; Hillsboro and Drayton, N.D.; and Mason City, Iowa.

The intention is to come up with a concrete plan to make real the recent proposal from agricultural leaders, including Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson, to voluntarily cut $23 billion from agriculture. That willingness to cut was spurred by a fear that the congressional “super committee,” which is tasked with chopping $1.2 trillion from the federal budget in the next decade, would otherwise cut even deeper into agriculture.

The bill will likely include cuts to direct commodity payments, conservation and nutrition plans. Lobbyists for agribusiness like the National Corn Growers Association and the American Soybean Association are pushing for Congress to cease direct payments in favor of improved crop insurance, which the Associated Press reports is pitting farmers in the south, who grow crops like cotton that benefit from direct payments, against those in other parts of the country.

One lobbyist described the relationship between lobbyists and congressional aides as “free-flowing and open,” Gannett reports.

The bill, if taken up by the “super committee,” will be forced into an up-down vote, with no amendments to the legislation being possible. That’s drawing alarm from groups critical of farm subsidies, Gannett reports.

“Given the amount of money involved, and given the implications of the farm bill for our food and the quality of our environment, there’s a lot of folks in Congress that ought to have a voice in where this ends up other than the agriculture committees,” said Craig Cox, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the Associated Press Monday that the administration wanted the farm bill to increase disaster aid, following a difficult season for farmers.

The congressional leaders plan to release details of the bill by Nov. 1.

The cuts would come in the Farm Bill, which expires next year. The committee members hope the voluntary reductions, which they propose to put together in detail by Nov. 1, will inoculate agriculture from further cuts from the congressional super committee.

The letter is signed by Agricultural Committee Senate Chair Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), House Chair Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), ranking member Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and ranking member Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

“We are currently finalizing the policies that would achieve $23 billion in deficit reduction and will provide a complete legislative package by November 1, 2011. Deficit savings at this level is more than any sequestration process would achieve and should absolve the programs in our jurisdiction from any further reductions.”

Mary Kay Thatcher, director of Public Policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation told American Agriculturalist that nutrition and crop insurance programs will probably be mostly safe.

“There aren’t really specifics as far as how much cuts are coming to commodities versus conservation versus nutrition,” Thatcher said. “Certainly the word on the street has been fairly significant that the committees are recommending elimination of direct payments and moving toward more of a revenue loss program but nothing in writing that spells out those kinds of details.”

Some House Republicans have proposed higher cuts of up to $50 billion, according to Agriculture.com. Earlier in the month, two congressional Republicans proposed to cut $40 billion from agriculture, including steep cuts to farm subsidies, conservation and nutrition.

The Regulatory Accountability Act of 2011 would reform the way federal agencies make rules in order to “reduce unnecessary burdens on job creators.” Opponents of the bill, which was introduced Thursday, say it will stifle health, safety and environmental standards.

Under the proposed legislation, a new regulation would need to have advanced public notice and public comment and be based on scientific and technical evidence. Regulations would also have to undergo a cost-benefit analysis, and agencies would have to adopt the “least costly” alternatives.

The bill creates a class of “high-impact” regulations that would be subject to hearings and would be held to standards that are higher than those set for courtrooms.

“While it is difficult to enact a new law, it’s even harder to get a regulation written correctly,” Peterson said. “In many cases, interest groups try to use regulation to interpret the law in their best interest, instead of following the intent of the law. By bringing transparency and accountability to the regulatory process, the American people will be allowed to have a voice in these policy decisions.”

Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical praised the bill.

“We applaud [the lawmakers] for starting Congress down the path toward smarter regulation,” Liveris said in a statement. “America’s business leaders have identified unnecessary and overly prescriptive regulation and the overly burdensome federal regulatory process as major impediments to job creation and growth. The bipartisan Regulatory Accountability Act is a smarter approach to regulation that will meet society’s goals while lessening the economic burden of complex, expensive and often inconsistent rules.”

Liveris was speaking on behalf of the Business Roundtable (BRT), a conservative political group made up of the CEOs of major corporations such as Wal-Mart, GE and Exxon Mobil.

John Engler, president of BRT, praised lawmakers.

“The Regulatory Accountability Act is an important milestone on the road toward meaningful federal regulatory reform,” Engler said. “We stand ready to work with them to achieve smarter regulation and put America back to work.”

But Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy for the government watchdog group OMB Watch, said the bill is problematic.

“If the provisions of the proposal become law, they will result in a near-moratorium on rules by creating even more obstacles for agencies to overcome in issuing standards that keep us safe from contaminated food, product defects, and polluted air and water,” Melberth wrote. “In addition, the proposal would shift the locus of regulatory decisions to the courts and out of agencies’ hands by providing multiple new opportunities for deep-pocketed corporate interests to challenge agencies at nearly every step of the process.”

He added, “When such special favors are granted to special interests, everyday Americans are further shut out of the regulatory process, giving them less of an opportunity to participate in this essential function of democratic governance.”

The bill contains most of the provisions that the BRT has been lobbying for; on Wednesday, the day before the bill was introduced, the BRT released its own very similar plan.

“There are members of Congress whose natural constituency is agriculture; some who see themselves as champions of business, and others who fight for workers,” Franken wrote in an editorial at the Grand Forks Herald late last week. “Knowing that the program has worked so well for so many years for the hardworking growers who produce such a large percentage of our nation’s sugar beets and for the dedicated workers and skilled management, who turn those beets into the highest quality sugar in the world, has played no small role in creating this consensus.”

Franken said the lockout is threatening to “to tear at the fabric of this partnership” between labor, farmers and the company, which has made the industry incredibly successful in recent years.

“If the three-way partnership is allowed to dissolve, so may the consensus on the successful sugar program, which has been so instrumental to prosperity in the valley,” Franken wrote. “As harvest approaches, it is time for the growers and management to discuss whether continuing this lockout is in the industry’s or the valley’s best interest. It may not be worth the risk – to the community or to the survival of the sugar program.”

Franken called for parties to again come to the table for negotiations. A spokesperson from the office of U.S. Rep. Colin Peterson told the Minnesota Independent last week that the congressman, who represents the region, is also urging both parties to resume talks.

The union and the company met last week for the first time since the lockout, at the urging of a federal mediator. No progress was made in last week’s discussions, and American Crystal Sugar says they have no plans for further meetings.

The company has brought in replacement workers from Minnetonka-based Strom Engineering to operate the plants during the height of sugar beet harvesting season.

Union members were locked out by American Crystal Sugar after they rejected a contract proposal at the end of July. The lockout affects union workers at facilities in Moorhead, East Grand Forks, Crookston and Chaska, Minn.; Hillsboro and Drayton, N.D.; and Mason City, Iowa.

John Riskey, president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union said the company refused to budge from earlier positions.

“We came to the table in good faith with proposals that addressed many of the company’s concerns including changes to health coverage and expanding upon the company’s substance abuse policy,” Riskey said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the company ignored our ideas and stubbornly offered the same proposal that 96% of our membership rejected.”

Union members were locked out by American Crystal Sugar after they overwhelmingly rejected a contract proposal at the end of July that they said increased health care costs and threatened union jobs.

American Crystal Sugar did not immediately respond to the Minnesota Independent’s request for comment, but the company posted a separate account of the meeting on a website it created to document the contract dispute Thursday.

According to the company, the union offered to talk about health care benefits cuts desired by the company only if American Crystal Sugar dropped language it has been demanding in the contract since its final offer in late July.

“[American Crystal Sugar] responded by expressing disappointment with the lack of any real proposal from the union,” according to the company’s statement. “[T]he refusal to respond to the Company’s important proposals was not good faith bargaining.”

Thursday’s meeting, which was requested by a federal mediator, was the first time the company has agreed to meet with union members since it locked them out when their contract expired at the start of August. Riskey said the company has refused to schedule another meeting.

“BCTGM remains committed to negotiating a contract that is fair to workers, the company, farmers, and the Red River Valley community,” Riskey said. “We continue to call on American Crystal Sugar executives to end this lockout, let us get back to work, and continue negotiations.”

A representative from the office of U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, who is a big booster of the sugar industry in Congress, told the Minnesota Independent that the congressman was optimistic about the meeting.

“While Mr. Peterson has not been part of any meetings on either side of the issue, he has been talking to labor, growers and management, and encouraging both sides to get back to the table and work out their issues.”

The resumption of talks were requested on Aug. 25 by Jeanne Frank of the U.S. Mediation and Conciliation Service, according to documents posted online. She’s asked both parties to refrain from commenting, but the meeting represents a first step towards compromise after three weeks of inaction and deadlock.

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union has repeatedly asked the company to restart negotiations. The union’s international president sent a letter to American Crystal Sugar president Dave Berg last week asking the company to “immediately end the company’s strike against your workers and meet with their union representatives to negotiate, in good faith, a fair and equitable collective bargaining agreement.”

Immediately after the lockout began, Crystal’s vice president for administration told the Fargo Forum that there were no plans to negotiate any further. A representative from the company told the Jamestown Sun early this week that there “really isn’t anything new to report.”

The company has brought in replacement workers from Minnetonka-based Strom Engineering in hopes of operating during sugar beet harvesting season.

Elected representatives have expressed concern about the lockout, but so far declined to take sides. Rep. Collin Peterson hasn’t returned repeated requests for comment from the Minnesota Independent, but he told the Grand Forks Herald that he has urged both union and company representatives to settle their differences. Both Peterson and Sen. Al Franken said they didn’t contact the federal mediators.

Union members were locked out by American Crystal Sugar after they overwhelmingly rejected a contract proposal at the end of July that they said increased healthcare costs and would have allowed the company to replace union workers with contractors.

The lockout affects 1,300 union workers at facilities in Moorhead, East Grand Forks, Crookston, and Chaska, Minn.; Hillsboro and Drayton, N.D.; and Mason City, Iowa.

Environment Minnesota, in an email to supporters, blasted Klobuchar for her votes last week. “With these votes, Sen. Klobuchar had a choice: stand up for the health of our children, elderly citizens and other vulnerable populations, or do the bidding of America’s biggest polluters. And Senator Klobuchar chose to side with polluters.”

ThinkProgress called Klobuchar one of the 17 “dirty Democrats.”

Klobuchar voted for the Baucus amendment which would have exempted agriculture and small emitters. It failed with the GOP opposing it for not being strong enough and only a handful of Democrats voting “aye.” Klobuchar also voted for the Stabenow amendment which would have put restrictions on the EPA enforcement of greenhouse gases for two years.

Phil Kerpen of the Koch brothers–backed Americans for Prosperity trashed those measures calling them “phony amendments that only pretended to stop the EPA’s job-crushing regulations.”

The White House praised the Senate for rejecting the efforts that Klobuchar backed.

“The administration is encouraged by the Senate’s actions today to defend the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to protect public health under the Clean Air Act,” President Obama said in a statement. “By rejecting efforts to rollback EPA’s common-sense steps to safeguard Americans from harmful pollution, the Senate also rejected an approach that would have increased the nation’s dependence on oil, contradicted the scientific consensus on global warming, and jeopardized America’s ability to lead the world in the clean energy economy.”

The Senate cast its votes to curtail the EPA’s authority on greenhouse gases last Wednesday, and the House — with the help of a few Democrats — attempted to add them to the budget resolution that almost shut down the government.

Rep. Peterson was at the heart of those efforts.

He was a cosponsor of the attempt to curtail the EPA. According to the New York Times, he offered legislation because of “all this stuff the EPA is doing to ethanol and every other damn thing they are doing.”

In a statement, Peterson cited agricultural concerns.

“This bill hits the pause button on EPA’s current efforts to regulate greenhouse gases,” he said. “America’s farmers and ranchers are committed to preserving our natural resources for the next generation, but what we’re seeing from EPA could potentially interfere with conservation efforts already underway. EPA’s regulations would not only make it harder for agriculture producers to meet increased demand but raise costs on all consumers. If Congress fails to act the economic effects could be devastating.”

The measure was cosponsored by Peterson as well as Republican Reps. John Kline and Michele Bachmann, and was eventually pulled in the final budget agreement late Friday night.

Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act, a bill sponsored by Kline, allows low-income parents in D.C. to receive $7,500 in federal funds to pay for private schooling. A pilot version of the program was instituted during the Bush administration and expired in 2009. Subsequent studies of student performance has shown no increase in student achievement.

A report by the U.S. Department of Education, released in June 2010, found, “There is no conclusive evidence that the [program] affected student achievement. On average, after at least four years students who were offered (or used) scholarships had reading and math test scores that were statistically similar to those who were not offered scholarships.”

However, the program is popular with Republicans and religious conservatives. In Minnesota, state GOP leaders are attempting to create the same program with a provision in K-12 budget bills.

On passage of the federal program, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty praised House Speaker John Boehner, who had pressed for the program.

“No child should be forced to go to a failing public school, yet that’s just what President Obama did when he sided with the teachers’ unions and ended this popular program,” Pawlenty said in a statement. “These scholarships have a proven record of success of empowering parents of underprivileged students in our nation’s capitol to choose the schools that are the best fit for their children. Today’s vote is a victory for school reformers across America.”

But not all are hailing it as a victory.

“We’ve already tried vouchers in the nation’s capital and we know that the program has shown no improvement in student performance, lacks accountability, hurts public schools and subsidizes religious indoctrination with taxpayer funds,” wrote Sandhya Bathija of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “It’s been clear that this isn’t about helping D.C.’s kids, but about a political ideology that opposes public education and church-state separation… Taxpayers should never be forced to support religion; that violates the fundamental right of conscience. Eighty percent of students in the D.C. program used vouchers to attend religious schools that integrate doctrine throughout their curriculum.”

President Obama released a statement on Tuesday urging a ‘no’ vote on the measure.

The Administration opposes the creation or expansion of private school voucher programs that are authorized by this bill. The Federal Government should focus its attention and available resources on improving the quality of public schools for all students. Private school vouchers are not an effective way to improve student achievement. The Administration strongly opposes expanding the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and opening it to new students. Rigorous evaluation over several years demonstrates that the D.C. program has not yielded improved student achievement by its scholarship recipients compared to other students in D.C. While the President’s FY 2012 Budget requests funding to improve D.C. public schools and expand high-quality public charter schools, the Administration opposes targeting resources to help a small number of individuals attend private schools rather than creating access to great public schools for every child.