Reaction to EPA Delays Pt 3
I'm Bob Larson. After the EPA extends its timeline for providing answers to accusations they broke state campaign financing laws with the What's Upstream campaign, some wonder if a new Administration will help expedite the process ...GERALD BARON ... "Certainly there's hope. Obviously, with the change in Administration, it looks like there's going to be some significant changes in the EPA and certainly in EPA Region 10 as well, we expect there to be some significant changes. What we're concerned about is that the staff people, who many of people were civil servants and who've been there for a long time, you know there's a culture that has been developed within the EPA that is very troublesome to farmers and the rural community."
Save Family Farming Director Gerald Baron says outgoing EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy admitted in a recent Washington Post interview that she wished they'd developed better relations with rural America ...
GERALD BARON ... "I'm grateful Gina McCarthy has pointed that out as she's leaving office, but we're certainly going to do all that we can with the new Administration to make certain that there's a change that runs, not just at the top level, which is the political level, but at the staff level where the culture of EPA really resides."
Baron says what it is likely to boil down to is whether or not tribal concerns are immune from our state campaign laws. And if they are, something will need to be done to fix the problem, probably at the legislative level.
It's still not clear how much money was spent on the What's Upstream campaign, but tribal records seem to indicate upwards of $650-thousand dollars.