Mr Nordby, a third-generation farmer and rancher, takes a milder line: he believes the big companies are only doing what comes naturally to them.

ECONOMIST: Can the rules be bent just enough to keep them alive?

"When I was a kid in the '50s ... it got real dry, but nothing like this, " said Marvin Helms, a 70-year-old farmer and rancher in central Arkansas who was compelled to sell his beef cattle after being short on feed.

CNN: SHARE THIS

"This rule goes too far by ultimately impacting the farmer, the rancher, mineral rights owner, business owner and home developers, " Tisha Schuller, president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry group, said in a prepared statement.

WSJ: As energy boom nears cities, a backlash grows

Mr. STEVE ELLIS (Member, Tax Payers for Commonsense): The reason why every agriculture entity from a citrus grower in Florida, to a rice farmer in Arkansas, to a rancher in Montana, to a cotton farmer in California, is getting this money, is because that's the way that you can get all the support.

NPR: Marketplace Report: Senate Considers War Funding

This article was written by Rose Corona a small business entrepreneur, rancher, farmer and philanthropist.

FORBES: The Supreme Court Disaster

After all, Small notes, Grassley is a farmer and Baucus is a rancher.

FORBES: On The Cover/Top Stories