-
Marching for Frogs
April 27, 2011 | 27 comments
Political Hay
Where EPA Is Public Enemy #1
An environmental regulatory binge is killing Democrats in the Farm Belt. Just ask Blanche Lincoln.
The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Belkin reported this week that “anger against incumbent Democrats echoes across the rural Midwest.” Belkin cited a WSJ/NBC poll from last month showing that Midwesterners and rural Americans are even more likely than other voters to disapprove of President Obama and to think the country is on the wrong track.
“There’s little doubt that the Midwest is the Democrat’s toughest region this year,” Democratic pollster Tom Jensen concedes. “If the election was today, the party would almost certainly lose the governorships it holds in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania,” plus a host of Midwest Senate seats.
But why? One underreported reason is the belief, widespread among Farm Belt residents, that Obama administration environmental regulators are gunning for them.
Farmers, ranchers, and foresters “are increasingly frustrated and bewildered by vague, overreaching, and unnecessarily burdensome EPA regulations,” a U.S. senator charged last week. They “are facing at least a dozen new regulatory requirements, each of which will add to their costs, making it harder for them to compete.… [M]ost if not all of these regulations rely on dubious rationales.”
Significantly, the protesting senator was not a farm-state Republican making partisan hay. It was Blanche Lincoln, the Arkansas Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. Facing bleak re-election prospects in her heavily rural state, Lincoln convened a September 23 hearing to assess “the impact of EPA regulation on agriculture.” Her clear, if tacit, message to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and the White House was: You people are killing our election prospects in the heartland.
Lincoln ticked off examples of onerous EPA intrusions: unworkable “spray drift” pesticide regulations; proposed ambient air-quality standards that would impose impossible dust-reduction requirements on farmers; “wetlands” regulations that put even bone-dry areas off-limits to agricultural use; an ideological bias toward environmentalists when resolving Clean Water Act lawsuits.
“You’re hammering the little guy,” Nebraska Republican Mike Johanns told EPA administrator Jackson. Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, delivered a blunt message from his constituents: “The Environmental Protection Agency has become Public Enemy Number One of our farmers and ranchers.”
This bipartisan barrage put Jackson on the defensive. “The concern in the countryside that I’ve heard when I’ve gone out,” she acknowledged, “is that somehow the EPA ‘has it in’ for the agricultural sector.” Jackson denied any such intent, but she had no luck convincing the agriculture-industry representatives present.
“Farmers and ranchers have never felt more challenged and threatened in their livelihood than they do today from the continuous onslaught of regulations and requirements from the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Rich Hillman, vice president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau.
Among his examples: “EPA wants us to build retaining walls around fuel tanks in the middle of our fields and pastures. This would cost us thousands of dollars to mitigate — what? EPA is attempting to address a problem which simply is not there.” Hillman also cited proposed new EPA regulations on dust, whose mitigation would be prohibitively expensive for many farmers and ranchers.
Jay Vroom, president of Croplife America, a trade association, complained about conflicting regulatory requirements from the EPA, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service concerning compliance with the Endangered Species Act. Also testifying was Jere White, executive director of the Kansas Corn Growers Association.
White provided a vivid case study of how environmental activists and trial lawyers rely on intrusive EPA regulations to intimidate manufacturers, users, and even proponents of agrochemicals. He described how he has been personally targeted by personal-injury trial lawyers merely for publicly defending atrazine, an herbicide used widely and safely for a half-century by corn, sorghum, and sugar cane growers.
“Trial lawyers joined forces with environmental activists and sought to regulate through the courts what science could not support within the EPA regulatory process,” White said.
Giving impetus to the attorneys’ lawsuits was EPA’s groundless about-face last year about the chemical’s safety. The agency itself estimated that farming without atrazine would cost corn growers $28 an acre and cause sugar-cane crop losses from 10 to 40 percent. Moreover, its safety has been confirmed in some 6,000 studies, here and abroad. After a dozen years of reviewing these, the EPA in 2005 found “no harm that would result to the general U.S. population” from its continued use. On that basis, it re-registered atrazine in 2006.
But in 2009, after Obama appointees took the agency’s reins, EPA — in defiance of all previous safety studies, but in admitted response to alarmist claims by environmentalist pressure groups and the media — ordered a complete re-re-registration examination of atrazine, to include four more Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) reviews.
Enemy of the State- #666| 9.30.10 @ 6:37AM
Talking to the farmers here in my mid-western state every morning at the coffee shop I can taste the hatred for those in the district of corruption especially the EPA. The farmers are responsible for feeding 129 people plus you. Every farmer in this country includes themselves in this manner. What is the EPA up to, its simple, they are attempting to regulate those who feed this nation through regulation. This particular product is widely used around many part s of the country and as the article states almost half of a decade with no ill effects to the population or the environment. I suspect someone up there at the (especially petulant assholes) EPA is power mad and cannot stand the fact that the farmers are surely Republican and capitalist to boot. The political powers and crooks by their very nature at the especially petulant assholes dept of Ag are indeed a very troublesome lot. Something is going to give in the near future if this agency is not de-funded and sent packing. I'll reserve judgement of those who are in control till the day comes when I can witness their trials for seduction by regulation. This agency has no power to enforce without the power of the purse. Get these firkin dumb ass dems out of our house before there is no house to defend.
Kerry| 9.30.10 @ 11:16AM
It is interesting that in this story, Blanche Lincoln begins and ends with, this could cost me my job. She is more worried about votes than voters. Typical politician these days. Hopefully Arkansas can wake up this time and dump her too.
A.M. Mallet| 9.30.10 @ 12:46PM
She has already lost her job
Nobama| 10.1.10 @ 1:38AM
It has occurred all too often that far left regimes became genocidal using starvation as their means.
TennesseeVolunteer| 9.30.10 @ 8:11AM
These no-nothing liberals are messing with our food sources. Are they crazy?
This adminstration has stopped deep water drilling in the Gulf while loaning money to Mexico and Brazil (owned by Soros company) to drill in the very same body of water. Are they crazy?
Ladies and Gentlemen, Nov. 2, 2010 to save your energy and food sources. They are putting the worlds bread basket at risk!
Al Adab| 9.30.10 @ 12:19PM
Are thery crazy?
"By their works shall ye know them."
Andrew| 9.30.10 @ 1:06PM
understand the libs goal: they don't want the US to be the world's breadbasket. They want China to perform that role. Destroying the US farm industry is a step along that path.
Walking Horse| 9.30.10 @ 1:25PM
A populace that knows its food supply can be interrupted by government edict can be made to be more .. "compliant".
"District of Corruption" barely begins to hint at the reality.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 9.30.10 @ 8:31AM
The Republicans who created the EPA should now take part in dismantling that agency along with many others.
Fat bureaucrats cruise porn sites and then use that inspiration for screwing the public.
sbark| 9.30.10 @ 10:48PM
your right...was it not Dickie Nixon who created EPA and several other big Govt agencies.....
The Left should really have a love affair with Nixon...almost as much as FDR
duck| 10.24.10 @ 4:45PM
As I recall, this and a few other likewise dumb moves was Tricky Dick's effort to display bipartisanship and 'hands across the isle'
When the Dems want bipartisanship, it really means do things the Dem's way or else...
Bush's prescription drug plan was the same thing. It was Ted Kennedy's bill and in an effort of bipartisanship, the Dem's once again shafted Americans and the Republican's got blamed for it. If Bush vetoed the plan or refused to sin off on the drug plan, he would have still been the object of scorn. Can't mess with Ted Kennedy's legacy...
Maxwell| 9.30.10 @ 8:50AM
I'd love to see someone, anyone, from the GOP with the stones to say, we are closing the EPA, Dept. of Ed and HHS. That alone would save at least 15.95. Enought for a few beers and (pizza) pie on Satruday night.
Al Adab| 9.30.10 @ 12:21PM
BHO, Maxwell,
You are both correct. This situation is the result of accomodationist Republicans compromising with evil. Now we are left to reap the whirlwind.
CowboyCleanCoal| 9.30.10 @ 5:39PM
It is not just agriculture - it is all mineral extraction, drilling, even down to selling your own home. Close them down!
WayneInTX| 9.30.10 @ 10:16PM
Remember, it's not a "Democrat" vs. "Republican" thing. It's a Progressive vs. Conservative thing. Progressives, no matter which party, are who are responsible for this explosion of massive government and government intervention. Not all Democrats are Progressives and not all Republicans are Conservatives. We have to weed out the Progressives in whatever party they're in and stamp out this cancer of governmental intrusion into our lives.
R Martin| 9.30.10 @ 8:55AM
Mr. Bidinotto underscores the need for tort reform, especially the implementation of loser pays. Trial lawyers would shy away from frivolous lawsuits if they were on the hook for all costs in losing efforts.
The article also refers to the damage an activist judge can do. Any judge issuing subpoenas for ten years' of documents relating to a product approved and in use for half a century has his own agenda. Liberal judges are at least as dangerous as liberal congressmen, and now we have two new ones on the Supreme Court.
David_W| 9.30.10 @ 9:58AM
The real reasons:
1) expand government control over the growing of food.
2) make it more difficult to grow food (especially by small growers - enabling corporate farmers, who probably donate to Democratic candidates, to take over)
3) once there is absolute control, the govt will make it even more difficult, causing food shortages. This will hit the poor and lower class hard. They won't be able to afford food. They will become absolutely dependent on govt for handouts.
4) Once dependent, govt (liberals) will be able to get them to support 100% total and govt funded abortion - virtually eliminating the lower classes and minorities from this country. After all, isn't that what the liberal elite want (except they do need gardeners, butlers, maids, and other servants, but just not too many).
dac| 9.30.10 @ 10:18AM
Absolutely dead-on. In every conceivable sphere of economic activity, this administration and its supporters are following the same pattern:
1) (over-) regulate; 2) tax 3) collapse 4) ration, and (the ultimate goal) 5) kill or "re-educate" those who object.
This applies to energy, health care, food, housing, transportation, and, inevitably, pro-creation. The goal is, quite simply, to acquire the power to define those who are and are not valuable humans in the eyes of the government. And it isn't fascism--which is what we have now. Fascism is a way-station on the path towards totalitarianism (or more accurately, a Mussolinian derivative of Leninism). Lenin and Mao both understood well that to be able to kill tens of millions of people at a time, you first had to dehumanize them. And rationing EVERYTHING, reducing the population to beggars, is the quick way to start sorting out those who will guard the death camps from those who will be worked to death in them. It's a simple and inexorable continuum.
To the post below, the welfare-addict ethanol folks basically think that they'll be the "guard class" rather than the "re-educated class." Good luck with that. Ask the survivors of the 1930s Ukraine Stalin-caused famine/murder how that worked out for them.
Lisa Jackson is a sociopath, no different than a mafia hit-man--she just doesn't (yet) pull actual triggers of guns. But the devastation she is causing (on direct orders from Il Duce Negro) is far more widespread. Vote these people out or be prepared to shoot them. Again, it's a simple and inevitable choice.
Texas mom 2010| 9.30.10 @ 1:45PM
I find this reaching to grab control of the food supply truly frightening. Makes me think of the millions Mao killed using famine induced by his policies. I agree that tort reform is long over due in this country. Lawyers should not be able to grow rich by producing NOTHING merely taking forcibly and often dishonestly extorting from the producers in this country. Ditto the EPA and other regulatory agencies. All regulations should have to voted on by our representatives not unelected bureaucrats.
Chuck| 9.30.10 @ 10:04AM
Unfortunately there is one brand of farmer that loves the EPA -- those who grow corn for ethanol, and who rely on the insane policy of mandatory 10% ethanol to make boatloads of money.
butterfly53| 9.30.10 @ 10:37AM
Damned ethanol ruined by boat motor.
Texas Mom 2010| 9.30.10 @ 1:47PM
Stop all government subsidies! Stop regulating gas at the federal level. Problem solved. I wish!
carnot| 9.30.10 @ 10:05AM
take names...just in case things really do go South.
tadchem| 10.1.10 @ 1:25PM
Kick butt first! THEN take names.
KyMouse| 9.30.10 @ 10:12AM
While we're cutting programs, I'm all for eliminating taxpayer funding of public television and radio. I know that's small potatoes, but why should taxpayers pay for NPR and public TV networks? Let them rely on commercials, like everybody else.
Mike| 9.30.10 @ 10:18AM
We all need to pay close attention to the "end runs" that this administration is capable of. If they can't get something one way - they will come at you from another.
The EPA is completely out of control with WAY too much power. A recipe for disaster for regular folk!
Anthony| 9.30.10 @ 10:21AM
You just got to love the political theater and farces disguised as congressinal hearings.
These D hacks put on their dog and pony show and pretend to excoriate the same bureaucrats they support and encourage, with draconian laws drafted by congress to be implimented by these faceless bureaucrats.
Who the hell do they think they're kidding? The EPA is out of control because Obozo and his fellow congressional Marxists are out of control.
The EPA needs to be clearcut, a brush mower needs to be run through the entire building.
Same with Congress and the rest of Washington.
Stephanie| 9.30.10 @ 10:38AM
Slash and burn, Anthony. Get them the hell out of our house. The White House included.
Anthony| 9.30.10 @ 3:03PM
Slash and burn works for me as well.
Aquanomics| 9.30.10 @ 10:38AM
Farmers have been farming the United States Treasury for decades, transferring billions of taxpayer dollars into farmer pockets. They fought for money, they begged for the money. And now they have become subject of a few strings? BOO HOO.
Diego42| 9.30.10 @ 12:39PM
Good point. If the dismantling of the EPA (and in California, the similarly destructive CARB) were accompanied as it should be by the phased elimination of massive Federal agricultural subsidies, many farmers would no doubt suddenly be backpedaling on their criticism of Federal involvement in agriculture. Nevertheless, regulatory relief and the elimination of farm subsidies are both good policies.
Brian Richard Allen | 9.30.10 @ 12:51PM
Aquanomics has is exactly right. The much-vaunted "American" farmer (with a minority comprising the rule's exceptions, of course) is the new welfare rich.
Add to that the fact that the percentage of absolutely unsaleable American farm produce grown only for government handout -- and then government stockpiled in aggregate multi-million tons mountains before being dumped by such systemically corrupt parasitical outfits as USAID and others into and absolutely corrupting the world's grain and dairy produce and other produce markets -- happens to "coincide" almost exactly with the percentage of farm workers who are illegal aliens and one also realizes that without the willing cooperation of "the American farmer" the feral gummint could not have gotten away with having incited, encouraged, facilitated and imported the increasingly hostilely colonizing criminal alien army it has insidiously Trojan Horsed into our midst and that it cynically employs to our nation's detriment.
And now they have become subject of a few strings? BOO bloody HOO, indeed!
dac| 9.30.10 @ 1:05PM
My strong suspicion is that at least a majority of US farmers (except for the large corporate farming conglomerates--Cargill, ADM, etc) would gladly trade whatever subsidies they get for a full and complete elimination of federal regulation of their business, land, and produce (crops, cattle, whatever). Maybe in the 1930s there was some need for a Dept of Agriculture. There isn't now, it is simply a legacy federal teat off of which the politically connected can suck and beggar their competitors.
And the EPA, in case you've ever dealt with them directly (I have) is a whole lot more than "a few strings." They are militant ideologues whose goal is to (see my prior post) regulate, tax, ration and kill. Period. They drive that agenda relentlessly, and couldn't care less how many families or family farms die. Remember, they are fundamentally anti-human; they worship state power and use their goddess "Gaia" as a cultic, quasi-religious smokescreen to hide the awful realities of their endgame.
In that sense, the more concentrated in large corporate hands farming becomes, the better for EPA, because the fewer parties to co-opt or destroy (this element is pure Mussolini, by the way--nominally private entites wholly beholden to the public agenda, and destroyed if they resist).
So to put a finer point on things, SOME of the farming industry benefit from an EPA on its mission; most do not and see the endgame for what it is--the end of their farms, business, property, and families.
Texas Mom 2010| 9.30.10 @ 1:54PM
I would agree that most same family farms would prefer the Feds to butt out completely because they would better off. At least the ones in my husband's family who have to work second jobs just to hold onto their land. The large conglomerates have the pull to steer most fed subsidies their way.
Texas mom 2010| 9.30.10 @ 1:55PM
Meant small family farms
Steve| 9.30.10 @ 1:29PM
You obviously don't know much about the farming industry. I would prefer to see the subsidies ended also but but I also want the government out of my business. If they are going to require that I tell them how many acres I plant, when I plant it, and how much I combined, then give this information to the end user of my product to keep prices low, then they darned well out to pay me for that information.
Also, very few farmers own all the land they farm. If a farmer is renting ground, that government subsidy might get paid to the farmer but it indirectly goes to the landlord as bid into the rent. Obtaining additional farm ground is extremely competitive and that subsidy is used to raise the rent to stay competitive. Most landlords are retired farmers and the rental income is their pension.
Another point - farm income is extremely volitile. Yields will be above average and prices high at the gate this year giving me a positive cash flow but there have been many more years where the yields weren't as good and prices were 1/3 of what they are today leaving a situation were there wasn't enough to pay off the operating loan.
Bottom line - I think you and I agree we need to eliminate the farm subsidies but we need to eliminate the disemination of information of crop yields to our end users including the availability of satellite data.
Aquanomics| 9.30.10 @ 6:24PM
Acreage limitations came long after initial programs such as crop loans and direct payments. You can't complain about the government check then gripe about what you must do to obtain it. You got paid first. Conservation reserve programs induced farmers to plant crops in previously uneconomic land just to milk more tax dollars from taxpayers. Farmer subsidies capitalized into land rents is a perverse and immoral form of pension. And as to income volatility, what a cheeky SOB you are. Many of us wee off-farm schlubs endure income volatility on a regular basis and do not lobby Congress for an ever increasing largess. American farmers, like it or not, have been an integral part of the Progressive/Socialist movement from the git-go, regardless of their political affiliation.
sbark| 9.30.10 @ 10:56PM
Econ 101...it should be easy to differentiate between Welfare and Subsidies----Welfare of the Left only asks for dependency and votes in return. Subsidies asks for more and more and thus cheaper produciton in return........with ultimatly the American and even the world as the beneficiary. Without 75% of the "farm bill" going to the lefts food stamps and other welfare...the subsidies for more and cheaper food would've ended decades ago...wouldnt have had the votes.
Kinda like Obama "subsidizing" Soro's Brazillian Oil project, and now Mexico's offshore drilling, all the while hamstringing American off shore...
Farmer Doug| 10.2.10 @ 6:40AM
I would gladly give back all of my subsidies if I could get my taxes back!
Al Adab| 9.30.10 @ 11:59AM
Since its inception, the EPA has served only to retard the economic growth of the nation. Indeed it is only because we are so rich that we can afford this level of insanity in our regulatory mad government.
dw| 9.30.10 @ 1:06PM
Their biased regulating on behalf of the leftist-eviro- anti capitilism democratic party is also affecting the construction industry. They are intent on regulations that would virtually shut down the cement production industry in this country resulting in the exportation of that industry to China and the necessity to then import that finished product back into the states for our use. There are many other job killing measures they will enact in the name of the phony global warming lie.
These people have become enemies of the state and that is no exaggeration. And Obama is at the head of it all.
Ike| 9.30.10 @ 2:19PM
If more folks had been complaining when government folks first started violating the constitutions - federal, state and local limits on government powers - we wouldn't be in the sinking, leaking, "ooops, no bilge pump", ship of state that we're in now. Anybody need a bucket to help bail?
dw| 9.30.10 @ 2:31PM
It's not the complaining, it's the voting. Too many people vote with their emotions not their brains.
You vote in socialist, you get socialism.
You vote in people that hate America, you get people that want to ruin America.
You vote in people that believe the rest of the world is right and America is wrong, you get the mediocrity of the rest of the world.
Trash in,Trash out.
e. cowan| 9.30.10 @ 2:36PM
''Where EPA Is Public Enemy #1''
It's #1 EVERYWHERE with their ... '... (EPA) landmark decision on Friday to set in motion the process of regulating greenhouse gases...'
If the administration can't get Cap And Tax legislation - they'll get it through the back door with regulation.
I wonder what a Republican majority would do about the EPA's attack on our energy sources and our energy costs?
Muleskinner| 9.30.10 @ 2:41PM
EPA also is slowly trying to kill the greatest transportation system in the world by slowly mandating the zero emissions diesel engine. With every reduction in NOx emissions and particulate filtration trucks become more expensive to operate and less fuel efficient. Truck operators also have to contend with work restrictions imposed by FHWA and USDOT.
Searcher| 9.30.10 @ 4:01PM
The EPA, a highly effective fascist tool, is truly Dick Nixon's Revenge.
Houston Rao| 9.30.10 @ 4:50PM
Why are we surprised? What bureaucracy has not grown itself, both in size and scope, once it has been established? That is the nature of bureaucracy, like a parasite, to grow itself by feeding on its host, by making itself vastly more important and indispensable by the host.
jrjr| 9.30.10 @ 4:54PM
This is not new stuff, it is merely under-reported. The conservative teeny voice ought to have stopped the EPA and others when they had the chance. When was that? It surely wasn't during the times of Newt and Bushes - they had no cajones. If there are still willing people to stop the onslaught of liberalism, just look at Kalifornia. You will see your future that includes the small town where the elitists paid themselves hundred of thousands in salaries.
duck| 9.30.10 @ 5:29PM
Speaking of Kalifornia, the fire departments want people to create a clear space around their homes or face fines but the Forest Department and the EPA will levy fines on the people who do create a clear space.
In Lake Tahoe, people couldn't even clear dead trees that were leaning against people's homes. A fire eventually destroyed many homes and other properties because of the EPA's edicts. Do the government employees care.....? Nope... but they want your taxes to support their life style and abundant retirement.....
I think that the only reason that taxes exist is to support government workers in the style in which they have become accustomed..
John Cooper| 9.30.10 @ 8:15PM
Wait until folks purchasing a new "Energy Star" computer find out that their battery backup unit won't work with the new EPA-mandated "Power Factor Controlled" internal power supplies.
NJK| 9.30.10 @ 10:10PM
There is only one solution to this problem. They need to be shut down for good. The EPA does not have any constitutional authority to be issuing regulations to anyone. The only ones who can constitutionally do this is Congress. The Department of Education also, along with the Department of No Energy. These agencies are not in the Constitution, and need to be abolished. Only vote for those who will do the right thing, and shut them down. As far as the workers who will lose their jobs, join the rest of America. The Federal Government is not in the employment business. Shut them down for good!
Ozcar| 10.1.10 @ 2:15AM
Blanche should have given some thought to the affect(s) on the economy AND her job when she voted for Obamacare.
That said, the EPA really does need to be shut down; along with a big bowl of alphabet soup agencies whose jobs(?) range from questionable to unconstitutional.
Yosemeti Sam| 10.1.10 @ 3:34AM
LOL.
Electorally - the democrats have a tiger by its' tail.
Dilemma - to let go or not.
LOL.
Jim-in-Kansas | 10.1.10 @ 4:08PM
WayneInTX| 9.30.10 @ 10:16PM
Wayne has summed it all up. re-read his post.
Go the distance; carry the burden; we can do it.
Jim Douglass
Garden City, Kansas
GARY| 10.2.10 @ 7:10PM
Obama wants to give the Midwestern farm land back to the Indians, he has to get his foot in the door.
doninwv| 10.3.10 @ 3:29PM
One of the first EPA edicts was banning DDT. The results speak volumes.
dareisay| 10.3.10 @ 10:05PM
Not just food and oil, the EPA has placed over 80 banks on coal mining permits, in 3 States.
Our electric rose last Dec., then the electric company asked for another rate hike, and got it!
I hate to see our bill this winter!
Obama is doing all of this on purpose and we should not have to wait 2 more years to get him out!
Impeach or a coup, sound good to me!
dareisay| 10.3.10 @ 10:06PM
Sorry, need to proof read..."over 80 bans on coal mining permits".
Michael Shaw | 10.4.10 @ 2:31PM
Robert,
Your analysis is a poke in the dark without identifying Agenda 21 as the central organizing program driving the EPA and the rest of the federal agencies. Are are the politically active fearful of reporting this?
Michael Shaw
duck| 10.24.10 @ 5:03PM
hen the 'Hate America' crowd gets in control, what does one expect. The Dems for the past 40 or so years have displayed their contempt for America and very seldom does anything to help it's citizens except when that help can lead to more power and control.
When a Democrat says they are there to help you, I suggest you turn and walk briskly away while making sure that his/her hand wasn't in your pocket...