In Arizona, where farm dust is currently regulated, farmers are forced to park tractors on windy days to prevent getting strapped with outrageous fines.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA has the ability to more stringently regulate dust. If the EPA determines more stringent standards are necessary, family farmers and ranchers, as well as rural economies, would be devastated.
Dust is part of rural America. It is completely unreasonable for the EPA to put a price tag on communities for carrying out activities essential to their well-being. This is a prime example of federal regulations gone too far.
Basically, farm chemicals are labor-saving devices, and farmers who don't use them - weed killers especially - have to work harder or hire more help.
You talk to the farmers, the ranchers, our small community bankers, and boy, one of the No. 1 issues is the regulations coming out of Washington.
Unfortunately in the U.S., the courts have pretty much sided with the GMO lobby and suggesting that a farmer has no rights to be protected from GMO contamination.
We need responsible regulations, not regulations that have gone wild. For example, the EPA has a rule that is going to be implemented Jan. 1, 2012, where they're going to begin to regulate dust. That's right, dust. It's called PM 2.5. That is focusing on the wrong thing.
Too often, parents whose children express an interest in farming squelch it because they envision dirt, dust, poverty, and hermit living. But great stories come out of great farming.
Programs that pay farmers not to farm often devastate rural areas. The reductions hurt everyone from fertilizer companies to tractor salesmen.
Despite Arizona's remarkable growth in recent years, we have met the current federal health standards for ozone pollution and the Environmental Protection Agency recently approved our dust control plan.
It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.