It's hard to get individual health insurance when you have pre-existing conditions — which means that up to one half of all Americans under the age of 65 would have trouble getting individual health insurance. 

The federal government will release a report today saying that as many as 129 million people under 65 have medical problems that would be noticed by health insurers. 

• John Munoz Jr. was walking through his neighborhood in Des Moines, Iowa, when he saw a house fire. He saw an dog from the house. The dog wasn't breathing so he gave it "mouth to snout" resuscitation. (Above.)

The dog, Hanna, came around, according to The Register newspaper. 

• Agri-Pulse reports that federal EPA reports back to 2003 "suggest EPA and USDA may have downplayed warnings from EPA scientists about the impact of certain pesticides on bee colonies." 

A suspect in the collapse of bee colonies has been pesticides, particularly Bayer's clothianidin (sold as Poncho), which is excreted in pollen. The leaked EPA memos questioned the methods Bayer used in its study that led to the approval of the pesticide. 

• DTN's Urban Lehner asks if there is a middle way on the debate over biotechnology in agriculture.

He concludes there isn't one — certainly not one that the two sides will come to without some encouragement (of the harsh sort) by USDA Secretary Vilsack. 

• English scientists have found that organic milk is healthier than conventional milk, Brownfield reports. 

They report that organic milk is lower in saturated fats and higher in Omega 3 fatty acids -- a result of a less reliance on nitrogen fertilizers leading to more white and red clover for grazing. That changes the fatty acid intake and the milk the cows produce. The report was published in the Journal of Dairy Science.

Organic milk production was up 17.3% in November over a year ago. 

The federal Environmental Protection Agency vetoed a proposal for the largest mountaintop removal plan in West Virginia's history. The Spruce Mine was planned by Arch Coal Inc., and would have covered 2,300 acres in Logan County. (See above.)  The Washington Post's story, "Obama Administration Cracks Down On Mountaintop Mining," can be found here. 

The EPA said that the mine would use "destructive and unsustainable mining practices that jeopardize the health of Appalachian communities and the clean water on which they depend."

The decision, a dramatic one, immediately set off more talk of a continuing conflict between Democrats and coal. Ken Ward Jr. at Coal Tattoo has a good analysis of the politics of this situation — and of the facts of the case. See it here. 

• A new audit has found that the rural loan program, administered by the USDA, was "plagued by lax government oversight and many of the same sloppy banking practices that fed the broader mortgage debacle," the New York Times reports.

The value of federally backed rural home loans soared from $3.7 billion in 2007 to $16.2 billion in '09. The audit found that many of these loans were made improperly and that a wave of defaults may be pending.  

• USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack proposed new guidelines for school meals.

 These "wide-ranging" rules, according to the Washington Post, "would gradually reduce sodium, limit starchy vegetables, ban most trans fats, require fat-free or lowfat milk, increase whole grains, add more fruits and vegetables, and, for the first time, limit the number of calories children consume daily." 

• Just to give you an idea of what's happening in the states, we see this morning that the first draft of the Texas budget cuts 8,000 jobs. 

• The agriculture boom continues. Combine sales were up for than 37 percent in December. Four wheel drive tractors were up 40 percent. 

Silas House writes that Appalachians are mourning a "true hillbilly" in Judy Bonds, the anti-coal strip mine advocate who died of cancer last week.  House writes:

“I'm not going to ... bury my head in the sand and say, ‘I can't do anything,' ” she told me and co-author Jason Howard when we were working on a book that featured Bonds. “I'm not made that way. I'm going to get a lick in so they know they've been in a fight. Now ain't that what a true Appalachian does?”

It is. True hillbillies (a description Bonds said she “loved”) always stand up for what they believe in, and fight back, no matter what. But only the truest hillbillies are full of the kind of light that Bonds possessed.

•Legislators in New Hampshire voted to overturn a ban on weapons in the State House and will now permit concealed weapons on the House floor and in the visitors' gallery. 

• The Des Moines Register editorial points points out that treatment for mental illness depends on where you live. "We woudn't tolerate this for Iowans with cancer," the editorial says. 

• Duke Energy and Progress Energy will merge, creating a $65 billion enterprise.

Ken Ward Jr. collects thoughts about what this will mean to the future of coal. He notes that Duke's CEO, Jim Rogers, is one of the nation's most prominent corporate advocates for cutting CO2 emissions. 

•Speaking to the American Farm Bureau in Atlanta, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack "strongly hinted" that the large budget deficit will require cuts in next year's Farm Bill. 

"It's fairly clear. I'm not going to tell you something that you haven't already heard from your leadership," Vilsack said. "When you're dealing with having to reduce deficits, you're going to have to make difficult choices."

• And it's snowing in New England. As of 9:30 eastern, there were 22 inches on the ground in Ridgefield, CT. 

Most "school reform" these days aims to get rid of bad teachers and close down underperforming schools. The theory is that American education does a considerably worse job than schools in other countries.

Robert Samuelson, in today's Washington Post, shows that this is not entirely true. When only white students in the U.S. are compared, then we do very well. Asian students in the U.S. score higher than students in any other country. 

The problem is that black and Hispanic students score extremely low. Scores from those students pull the total U.S. score down -- and mask the issue.

The schools work fine for most white students, but they are unable to overcome what Samuelson calls "the legacy of history and culture." We are asking schools to overcome centuries of racism and, not surprisingly, they can't do this alone. Getting rid of teachers' unions or opening charter schools won't solve what appears to be cultural and economic barriers to education that go back generations.

• Rural teens were 26 percent more likely to abuse prescription drugs than urban teens, according to a University of Kentucky survey. 

Overall, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, 13% of rural kids said they used prescription drugs without a doctor's permission compared to 10% of urban youth. 

• The American Farm Bureau intends to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency over its plans to curb the flow of pollutants and sediments into the Chesapeake Bay. 

Many of the pollutants targeted by the EPA come from farms, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. In particular, the new EPA rules would impact large animal feeding operations.

“This diet threatens to starve agriculture out of the entire 64,000-square-mile Chesapeake Bay watershed,’’ said AFM president Bob Stallman.

• Rep. Frank Lucas, the new chair of the House Ag Committee, has named his subcommittee chairmen. 

• Interesting experiment in Massachusetts to draw doctors into community health centers. 

Robert and Myra Kraft have given $20 million to Partners HealthCare System to be used to lure doctors into community health care practices across the state. 

Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, said “well-to-do people from the Middle East" fly to Boston for treatment at the city’s elite teaching hospitals while “people living in our own communities aren’t treated properly.’’