Some progress for ag in 2025 legislative session, Dent says

Key points:

Some revisions to the Climate Commitment Act.

Report on suicide rates in agriculture, ideas to help, to be issued this summer.

MOSES LAKE — While some progress has been made on revising the state’s Climate Commitment Act to reduce its impact on farming, Representative Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, said there’s still work to do.

A bill sponsored by Dent, HB 1912, makes the process of getting an exemption for some CCA fuel sanctions easier. The bill also added propane to the list of fuels eligible for exemption. But Dent said he couldn’t get his colleagues in the legislature to agree on other provisions that would be of help to farmers.

“Some of my colleagues — they don’t understand what agriculture really means,” Dent said. “They said, ‘(The exemption) is just for farm use.’ and I said, ‘Here’s the thing. The baler breaks down and I jump in my diesel pickup and drive to town to buy parts. Is that not agriculture use?’ And (the reply was), ‘Oh, we didn’t think about that.’”

Propane was added to the list of eligible fuels, he said, but natural gas was not. Natural gas is frequently used to heat greenhouses, something he said some of his legislative colleagues didn’t know.

“But I haven’t given up. I’m not done,” Dent said. “We got the first three points, so we’ll work on the fourth one next year, and subsequent years after if we don’t get it.”

Farming is a high-stress occupation, he said, so stressful that the suicide rate in agriculture is one of the highest of any economic sector in the country. Dent was one of the legislators who worked to set up a suicide task force; its report is scheduled to come out this summer.

“Originally, it was looking at if we needed to form a separate hotline for agriculture only; for mental health (support), they could call this number. Because ag is a different world,” Dent said. “But in the course of the conversation, the work we’ve done, we’re actually gravitating upstream to how we can help relieve some of the issues that are causing the problem.”

Dent said he thought the existing emergency suicide support system was unnecessarily cumbersome.

“It’s ‘Press one for this, press two for that,’” he said.

There are some ag-focused resources available, he said, and the task force members want to ensure those are available while looking at ways to improve the system.

“Most of the folks on the task force feel that we should probably help fund the WSU hotline for agriculture people,” he said. “Keep that going, at least for a while, until we can figure out a way to (improve) 988.”

One proposal would consolidate existing suicide emergency hotlines and work to ensure people in crisis get a person to talk to as quickly as possible, he said.

“If you’re in crisis, you want somebody who understands the crisis, who’s going to be sympathetic. You sure don’t want people listening to a recorder,” Dent said.

Dent was one of the legislators who worked on a proposal to revise agriculture overtime rules, but it did not reach the floor for a vote. Dent said ag overtime is an important – and frustrating – issue.

“We had (a bill)) to take a look at how we can fix that, because it’s really harming a lot of our growers. And there are farm workers who want to get rid of it because they were making more money (under previous regulations). I get the pros and cons to that. But we didn’t even get a hearing to let people come and voice their concerns,” he said. “Whether they were for or against it, it doesn’t matter — that wasn’t my issue. My issue was trying to put it out there so we could start the conversation. Then we did not get a hearing on it. We were just told, ‘We’re not hearing that bill. Period.’”

While that’s one of the frustrations of being in the minority, Dent said, he’s still working to promote discussion of ag issues.

“Even if we didn’t move it, let’s fix it or talk about it. Let’s start the conversation. Maybe what we end up with is not even close to what we started with. The CCA bill on the farmer exemption – that thing changed a lot from when it started to when it finally went through. Major changes. And that’s fair, because that’s what the process is about, and that’s how you open up the conversation,” he said.

    The 2025 legislative session was a mixed bag for agriculture, according to Representative Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake.