John Block Reports from Washington

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the Renewable Fuels Association, Wal-Mart Stores, Monsanto, and John Deere. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of a healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary—

I said last week that the federal government has a dangerous and costly appetite for regulations. Everywhere you look, this Administration is trying to implement top down command and control.

Perhaps the most frightening effort to put a lid on greenhouse gas emissions comes from EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency has declared that they have the authority to regulate carbon emissions because they claim that CO2 is an “endangerment” to human health.

One reason the Administration made this startling announcement was to scare everyone into supporting cap and trade. With cap and trade in place to control CO2, EPA wouldn’t have to regulate. Now it looks as if cap and trade is dead. That means we could be looking at EPA managing our economy.

Our economy is 85% carbon-based. That being the case, EPA could be regulating almost everything. That is really scary. We never have trusted EPA.

It is not clear, if EPA moves ahead with this regulation, if individual farms will be affected, but certainly we will be looking at much higher energy costs.

This kind of power grab by EPA will trigger an avalanche of lawsuits. Also, there are a number of Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle that have voiced opposition and threatened legislation to block the EPA. I expect the number of lawmakers in opposition to grow.

The stunning victory for the Republican Scott Brown in liberal Massachusetts has caught their attention. A republican winning Senator Kennedy’s seat has been a game changer. There are a lot of Members of Congress up for election next November that are shaking in their boots right now.

This is encouraging because it looks to me like a lot of voters have opened their eyes and realized that this is not the kind of change we had in mind.

Until next week, I am John Block in Washington.