Thursday, December 8, 2011

Obama Supports Regulating Farm Dust

For those who think the Feds would not regulate fracking, consider the issue of regulating farm dust.

Even Democrats realize it is a crazy world when Congress needs to pass a bill to prevent the EPA from doing exactly that: regulating farm dust.

The House overwhelmingly passed the bill which would prevent this debacle.

Interestingly, they say the Senate is unlikely to take up the bill for consideration.

The President has said he would veto it anyway. That speaks volumes: it suggests to me the President would support regulating farm dust.

By the way: regulating farm dust would also apply to all those trucks in western North Dakota drilling the Bakken, not just trucks involved in fracking. There are many, many ways to shut down fracking and the EPA keeps looking for the Achilles heel of the tight shale industry. In chess and military engagements, these are called feints, looking for an opponent's weak point. My hunch is it wouldn't take a lot for the EPA to regulate rural dust but exempt farm equipment.

I guess the good news is this: the bill is now out there for the Senate to act if the EPA goes back on their word to not regulate farm dust. But that's about all the good news there is: the President has said he would support his EPA over his Democrat-controlled Senate.

No comments:

Post a Comment