Excessive regulation doesn’t necessarily lead to exceptional results. Johnna Miller reports….
This week members of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee will be asking questions about rules on pesticide use, particularly when they deal with the Endangered Species Act. American Farm Bureau Federation Regulatory Specialist Tyler Wegmeyer says that redundant rules make life hard for farmers, but don’t help preserve those endangered species. “We have three government agencies that are responsible for pesticide registrations to protect the endangered species. This process is broken, it’s dysfunctional, it’s duplicative, it’s going to cost farmers money, and it’s going to cost farmers the ability to put crop protection products on their crop, and it’s going to affect food costs.”
Wegmeyer says the Environmental Protection Agency already does thorough studies about potential impacts on humans and wildlife before registering any pesticide and it’s a waste of taxpayer’s dollars to have the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce do the same things. And all the additional red tape causes problems for farmers…”farmers shouldn’t unnecessarily be handicapped in order to use a crop protection product that’s already gone through the proper registration process. They’re directly impacted if they can’t use that product when a weed infestation pops up, or if a disease pops up, they need to be able to use the product however it was registered to be used.”
Wegmeyer says the excessive regulations will eventually hit consumers…”if you don’t have crop protection products to use, you have less food, you have less efficient food production systems, which will lead to less of a supply. Prices of food will increase.”
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