The EPA is out with a new five-year strategic plan that calls for a cleaner, greener, more sustainable environment. But agriculture sees it as a call for an ever-increasing regulatory burden.
Less than a month before the November elections - EPA has issued its fiscal 2011 to 2015 draft blueprint for advancing five strategic goals - including action on climate change - protecting America’s waters - and ensuring the safety of chemicals. EPA argues it’s renewing its commitment to a cleaner environment. American Farm Bureau Regulatory Specialist Rick Krause takes this view…
“Once you get beneath the surface then you see that this will hurt jobs, this will cost people jobs, this will cost people money. And I think the administration may be gambling on the fact that maybe they hope people won’t read beneath the surface on this.”
Krause says with every ratcheting up of regulations - EPA is seeing fewer and fewer environmental benefits - and producers are seeing more and more costs…
“For example, greenhouse gas regulation will impose a lot of additional costs on farmers, ranchers and other consumers all with the idea that it will reduce global temperatures by less than 1/100th of a degree in a hundred years.”
Other costly ideas EPA’s considering - reducing farm and ranch dust and banning the widely used pesticide atrazine…
“Atrazine is a very widely used chemical and studies thus far have shown that atrzine is safe and effective. And whatever small, very small returns EPA would gain for banning atrazine would be causing problems for farmers and ranchers across the country.”
EPA says it developed the five-year plan after extensive input from stakeholders and the public - and is now seeking comment on the draft plan from 800-plus groups and individuals.
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