It is a pleasure to be back with my friends from the Farm Broadcasters again.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs recently published an extensive study of big media's coverage of the Heartland.
The study showed that farming barely registered on the media's radar - only 3 percent of "rural-themed" stories even mentioned "farming." Only one percent had any connection to agriculture.

Obviously, your organizations have a much better understanding of the importance of agriculture issues.

Interior also works with farmers and ranchers through conservation programs, grazing, and by providing them irrigation water.

I personally worked with ranchers in a previous life, as an Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. So I have some understanding of the perspective of farmers and rural America.

All of us know that what you reap, you sow.

Unfortunately, that is happening with energy policy. We have been sowing a lot of demand. Over the past decade, America's energy consumption increased by more than 12 percent.

But we have been planting few new ways to meet that demand. No oil refineries have been built in the United States in almost 30 years. It has been even longer since America built a nuclear plant.

High energy prices are hurting the economy and harming the Heartland.

Expensive natural gas is a real concern, since it serves as both an energy source and a feedstock for the manufacturers of fertilizers.

The natural gas price spike of recent years has put the cost of nitrogen fertilizer production to an all-time high. Partially because of those prices, a full score of nitrogen fertilizer production facilities have closed since 1998. Five of those plants are idle, but the other fifteen have closed down permanently. Many of those jobs have gone overseas.

Those shutdowns are hard on communities. Take Blytheville a community in North-Eastern Arkansas. Last year, a nitrogen fertilizer production facility shut down in Blytheville, taking with it about 100 jobs. Those lost jobs meant a $5 million loss in payroll salaries.

High energy prices are also hurting farmers. That is what Charles Kruse, the President of the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation told the House Small Business Committee earlier this spring.

Mr. Kruse said, "On my farm, the cost of nitrogen fertilizer is 70 percent higher today than it was two years ago. . . . The cost of another energy input, diesel fuel, has increased 40 to 60 percent since 2003."

At best, those increased costs can translate into a hard year. At worst, they can contribute to bankruptcy.

We are also facing a growing global competition for oil. The populations of China and India are expanding, and they are demanding more and more energy.

So we need more domestic supplies. One of the most important energy reservoirs is thought to lie under the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

ANWR represents the single greatest prospect for this Nation's future onshore oil development. ANWR's Coastal Plain is estimated to contain a mean of 10.4 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Congress needs to send the President an energy bill that increases domestic energy supplies as soon as possible.

Even without that bill, we are continuing to look for energy. For instance, we are encouraging responsible energy production in the Gulf of Mexico.

It takes incredible technology to do so. The water is more than a mile deep, and some of the wells in the Gulf are as deep as Everest is tall.

A few months ago, I dedicated Thunder Horse, a huge production platform standing over a vast reservoir far out to sea in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thunder Horse has the potential to produce approximately 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent over the life of the field. At its peak, the facility is designed to process 250,000 barrels of oil per day and 200 million cubic feet of natural gas.

Let me put our energy sources in perspective. Each day, the Thunder Horse facility will produce nearly four times the energy that is daily generated by all existing solar and wind facilities in our nation.

We at Interior are also concerned about water supplies. Water conservation has come back in the sad style of necessity in many states out West. Farmers and ranchers in the Colorado River Basin have been afflicted by a fearful drought - perhaps the worst in 500 years.

The drought would be dreadful enough by itself. Yet across the West, water scarcities have been coupled with population surges, leaving less water for both farmers and fish.

As we saw at Klamath Basin, water scarcities may force hard choices between the livelihoods of those who depend on the water and the lives of the species that live in it.

So far, the consequences of that perfect storm of circumstances have been less than catastrophic. That is thanks to the wise hands that built great dams and filled vast reservoirs generations ago.

The structures that they constructed were dedicated to providing certainty and stability to water users many years to come.

We have taken that same hope to heart at Interior. Our water programs look to short-term needs and prepare for long-term necessities.

We have established several significant water agreements, the most recent of which was the Lower Colorado Multi-Species Conservation Program.

Signed last month, the Lower Colorado Multi-Species Conservation Program is the largest, the longest-term, and the most innovative partnership plan for habitat restoration on a river system in the history of the United States.

For the next fifty years, the program will guide the restoration of important riparian habitat types along the river. The program will address the needs of threatened and endangered species that live along and within it.

For the next fifty years, the program will reduce the uncertainties and conflicts between the needs of species and the needs of society along the Lower Colorado.

Our Water 2025 Initiative is also designed to prevent crises and conflict across the West. The program encourages planning and establishes partnerships, which will help meet today's needs and tomorrow's necessities.

Federal money is tight, and so we must work in a fiscally responsible way. The Water 2025 Initiative enables us to leverage federal money by working with partners.

Much of the program is effected through the Challenge Grant Program. Last year, there were 19 recipients of challenge grants all across the West. Through cost-sharing, a total of $4 million in federal grants returned almost $30 million in on-the-ground water delivery system improvements.

We received 117 Water 2025 project proposals this year. Just as in previous years, we saw innovative ideas for water conservation. The good news is that we have almost twice as much money to give out this year as last year - almost $10 million.

By laying down long-needed infrastructure improvements, and planting long-term agreements, we are setting the groundwork for certainty and prosperity far into the future.

Careful planning coupled to common sense can make a real difference for the futures of farmers. I am going to keep applying both at Interior - whether in dealing with the ongoing drought or in searching for new sources of energy.

The farmers in Missouri need legislation that encourages energy production. So do the people in Blytheville Arkansas. So do all the people that you broadcast to in farming communities all across the country.

The issues important to agriculture are important to America.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss them today.

By working together, we can build a bright future.

Thank you.