John Block Reports from Washington

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by 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— 

We start this commentary by acknowledging that agriculture is not going to have a great year in 2014. Net farm income is projected to fall by 26 percent. Livestock farms should fare a little better, but corn, soy bean, and other grain farms are already looking at lower prices.  With that challenge facing us, should we be surprised that the federal government regulators are coming after us on more than one front? 

EPA has just proposed a new rule to take over regulation of all water that falls on your land and mine -- not just “navigable” waters like rivers, creeks, and lakes, but all of your waterways, wherever water runs or stands after a rain. You will have to get permits to straighten a crooked creek or tile a wet hole. 

Bob Stallman, President of American Farm Bureau, states: “EPA’s proposed new rule poses a serious threat to farmers, ranchers, and other land owners.” Here they come again. EPA refuses to leave us alone. 

On another front, the EPA and the Obama Administration are so obsessed with climate change that they have released a climate action plan that includes the targeting of methane emissions from cows. Blame the cows, and sheep, and goats, ruminant animals for global warming and climate change. They want to slash methane emissions from cows by 25%. They blame the cows for emitting 20% of the methane gas in the U.S. 

If you look at the facts, you have to ask, what is this all about? First, methane emissions have already fallen by 17% since 1990 and our CO2 emissions are down by 20%. We haven’t experienced any global warming in the last 17 years. I’m not making this up. This is just another example of excessive government overreach. Their objective is to tie us in knots and control everything. 

Here is a good line to conclude this commentary taken from an article entitled, Obama EPA to Regulate Bovine Emissions – “As the EPA tries to grab the bull by the horns, we must deal with this udder nonsense.”

Until next week, I am John Block in Washington, D.C.