Opinion: What a Difference an Administration Makes

OPINION:

WHAT A DIFFERENCE AN ADMINISTRATION MAKES

An Editorial by Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller

If you want proof that one person really can make a difference, you do not need to look any further than the fields, ranches, and backroads of the Lone Star State. In Texas agriculture, Washington’s decisions are not abstract. We feel them in our soil, in our water, and in the livelihoods of every farmer, rancher, and landowner who calls Texas home. And let me tell you: thanks to Donald Trump, we feel the difference an administration makes.

Not too long ago, during the Biden administration, the Texas Department of Agriculture spent too much of its time fending off federal agencies that had run clean out of common sense. Instead of cooperation, we got courtrooms. Instead of partnerships, we got federal dictates dropped on our producers. Nowhere was that fight more obvious or more outrageous than in the battle over Waters of the United States, or WOTUS.

Under previous leadership in Washington, the EPA tried to claim authority over every puddle, playa lake, stock tank, ditch, bar ditch, and dry creek bed in Texas. They acted like they owned every raindrop that touched Texas soil. A rancher could not clean out a ditch. A farmer could barely move dirt after a storm. A landowner could not make routine improvements without wondering if some bureaucrat 1,500 miles away would slap them with fines, which they did.

That was not regulation. That was a federal land-grab by paperwork, part of their 30x30 agenda, and a tax on rural America.

Under my watch, Texas did not sit and let this happen; we pushed back. We took the EPA to court. We challenged their maps, their definitions, their overreach, and their attempt to turn every property owner in Texas into a tenant of the federal government. I personally filed as a ranch owner myself, not an elected official, to fight for our rights.

But today, our world looks different because leadership in the White House looks different. Instead of spending our time battling the EPA, we are finally working with them. That happened because a new administration recognized what the last one did not: farmers and ranchers, not the federal government, are the best stewards of the land. No one cares more about clean water than the people who depend on it every single day.

But the change goes even deeper than cooperation. It reaches all the way to our markets, affecting American leverage on the world stage.

While some folks in Washington like to wring their hands every time America stands up for itself, the truth is that tariffs work when they are used with discipline, strength, and purpose. Texas producers know this better than anyone. We have seen global competitors undercut our prices for years. We have watched foreign governments manipulate markets, subsidize their exports, and dump cheap products into our supply chain. That is not free trade.

When the Trump administration put tariffs on the table, the world finally listened. Those tariffs opened doors that had been closed for a decade or more. China came back to the negotiating table because it knew the United States meant business. Mexico and other trading partners stopped dragging their feet and started honoring long-overdue commitments, like the 1944 Water Treaty. American soybeans, cotton, beef, and grain regained leverage and respect in international markets.

Just last year, the Biden administration was pushing a plan that would have taken 30% of productive land out of use, and tried to do so without so much as a vote in Congress. The previous administration even tried to take over a huge swath of West Texas under the guise of protecting endangered species, and Texans rose up against that land grab.  

But just a year later, President Trump has rolled back these half-cocked and dangerous federal overreaches, entrusting farmers and ranchers with the stewardship of the land God has given them to look after. What happens at that state level matters because federal power has limits. Private property rights are as sacred to the American experience as any other right given to us under God. If the federal government oversteps again, I will be the first one to saddle up and push them back. But for now, we finally have an administration that respects state leadership, local control, and cowboy logic.

Texas is stronger because of it. Our farmers and ranchers are safer because of it. And rural America is better off because of it.

What a difference an administration makes.