The Ag Minute
The Ag Minute: Now It's Farm Dust. Obama's EPA Considers More Ways to Harm American Agriculture
Washington, DC,
August 31, 2010
MEDIA CONTACT: This week during The Ag Minute, guest host Rep. Cynthia Lummis, discusses how the Obama administration is considering more impractical regulations for American farmers. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reviewing the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter (PM). The Second Draft Policy Assessment (PA) for PM released on July 8, 2010 in the Federal Register lays the foundation for establishing the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history. Presently, scientific studies do not support the need for revising the dust standard. In fact, according to the PA, the science would justify leaving it as is. Yet, the Obama administration is signaling its intent to proceed with the new standard. Click here to listen to The Ag Minute. The transcript is below. "It’s not enough that President Obama’s EPA wants to regulate milk like oil, eliminate safe and effective crop protection tools like atrazine, or mandate impossible spray-drift standards for the use of pesticides. "Now it seems the administration is trying to regulate farm dust out of existence. "Recently, the EPA announced it may consider reducing the dust standard under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) by nearly 50 percent. "Imagine farmers being fined for doing things like driving a tractor down a dirt road or tilling a field? "That’s what this proposed standard would mean for our agricultural producers. It would impose significant costs on our farmers, ranchers, and rural communities. Ultimately, this type of standard would be impossible to achieve. "It seems that Obama’s EPA is so eager to please radical environmentalists that it doesn’t care how these impractical and overreaching regulations will impact the people who feed us. And, it’s another glaring example of how out-of-touch the Obama administration is with rural America." The Ag Minute is Ranking Member Lucas's weekly radio address that is released each Tuesday from the House Agriculture Committee Republicans. ###
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