WASHINGTON — The Senate Agriculture Committee took the Environmental Protection Agency to task Thursday for rules and regulations affecting farmers.
Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, the committee’s chairman, set the tone for the oversight hearing by estimating that farmers, ranchers and foresters are facing at least a dozen new regulatory requirements the EPA has implemented in the past year and half.
“Farmers and ranchers in rural Arkansas and all over our nation are increasingly frustrated and bewildered by vague, overreaching and unnecessarily burdensome EPA regulation,” Lincoln said in her opening statement. “Farmers face so many unknowns - so many that many of us just take for granted - the last thing they need is regulatory uncertainty.”
The environmental regulations ranging from pesticide application to dust reduction faced by the agriculture community can be “burdensome, duplicative, costly, unnecessary, or, in some cases just plain bizarre,” Lincoln said.
Much of the discussion focused on issues involving pesticide use. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson responded by telling committee members that her agency would continue “to be guided by sound science and transparency, while also not placing unnecessary burdens on agriculture and other pesticide users.”
But Rich Hillman, vice president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau, testified that “farmers have never felt more challenged and more threatened in their livelihood than they do today” because of EPA requirements.
“Some claim EPA simply wants to control how individuals farm,” said Hillman, a rice farmer from Carlisle. “EPA claims that’s not the case. But whether or not that is their intent, when you look at the impact of their regulations, that will almost certainly be the result.”
Before he began his comments at the hearing, Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia took a moment to reflect on a subject peripherally related to agriculture - pigskin.
“After what your Razorbacks did to my Bulldogs,” he said to Lincoln, “I have every reason to be upset with everyone in Arkansas.”
Well, Lincoln said with the smile of a victor, “I wasn’t going to bring that up.”
For those who need a reminder, the final score in the Sept. 18 football matchup was Arkansas 31, Georgia 24.
“It was,” Chambliss graciously allowed, “a great football game.”
Before the hearing Thursday, Lincoln joined a pair of Democratic Senate colleagues to announce plans to introduce legislation that would fund a settlement between black farmers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The legislation, co-sponsored by North Carolina’s Kay Hagan and Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, would provide $1.15 billion to cover the Pigford Settlement.
In response to a class-action lawsuit filed by black farmers, the department promised payment to black farmers who were unfairly discriminated against when they applied for farm loans, credit and participation in other USDA programs.
“While funding this settlement will not erase the anxiety and frustrations so many hardworking farmers experienced, it will help compensate their financial losses and finally begin laying the foundation in restoring faith in the United States government,” Lincoln said.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 09/26/2010