Op-Ed

As we enter that season known as autumn, we see more county and district fairs dot the First District landscape. These fairs deliver an assortment of distractions for the entire family, including games, rides, exhibits, booths, sugary and/or deep-fried cuisine, livestock shows, and demolition derbies. While we can certainly debate the merits of too much participation in some of these distractions (notably the food), one fact remains: We love our fairs.

For more than 200 years, a group of institutions have honed the skills of our country's finest young men and women. These institutions, known as the U.S. service academies, have produced scores of astronauts, businesspersons, legislators, Olympians, and professional athletes. Three U.S. presidents have called them their alma maters as well as multiple Nobel Prize recipients. Service academy graduates have seen great success in the public eye, but they've also helped to preserve our freedoms.

Each August, Congressional members head back to their districts for an annual five-week recess extending into the first half of September. And for five weeks, there are no House Floor debates, no Conferences between the House and Senate, and no House votes. It's five weeks of home, allowing us time to visit and inform constituents about impactful federal issues while also gathering feedback about how we can better represent our districts.

One of my highlights each recess revolves around our biggest industry in Arkansas' First District — agriculture.

In 1972, the federal government passed landmark legislation in an effort to restore and maintain our country's abundant water resources. This legislation, known as the Clean Water Act, entered service as the primary federal law against water pollution, and Congress largely charged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to manage it in partnership with state environmental agencies. For more than 40 years, EPA has occupied that position; sometimes faithfully, but more often, aggressively.

Most of the time, I like old relics of communication.

When I worked as a radio broadcaster, we decorated our studio with antique wooden radios and classic-style microphones, harkening back to the medium's golden age.
I also chuckle every time I see an old telephone.

Stacy's parents have an old, rotary-dial phone hanging on their wall complete with a coiled cable that will stretch anywhere in the house. My two children love that phone, and it's served my in-laws faithfully for decades.

With August looming just days away, traffic on First District highways and interstates often hits a fever pitch.

First, there's the last minute family vacation. A new school year starts in less than a month, and dads and moms often pack up the kids for one last adventure or visit before summer's relaxed routine wraps up.

Right after that last-minute trip, backpack-toting children wait for yellow buses to carry them to the same buildings where some of us learned to read and write. It's the start of school, and it's coming whether parents are ready or not.

Arkansas' First District agricultural producers are no stranger to pumping water in June and July. It's a common sight this time of year as rainfall typically migrates from statewide-covering lines to occasional — sometimes scarce — isolated thunderstorms.

This year, our growers have resumed their furious water pumping in an effort to save their crops and livelihoods. But unlike a drought year, farmers need water off their fields rather than on them.

When discussing the term industry within Arkansas' First Congressional District, it can bring all sorts of images to mind.

Some people may think of the rapidly-expanding steel mills in the northeast corner. Others may point to the myriad of job-creating manufacturing plants peppered across the district. Perhaps even more think of agriculture and its far-reaching impacts from just south of the Missouri border to just north of Louisiana.