Upon Deaf Ears

The Environmental Protection Agency feels they’ve received unwarranted bad press lately, especially when it comes to their proposed regulating of course particulate matter; in layman’s terms, dust. The dust being targeted by the EPA is primarily dust resulting from cars and trucks traveling rural dirt roads and dust raised by farmers and ranchers. The EPA claims they only want to “engage people, (aka farmers and ranchers), about how they do their business and how we can get to clean water, clean air and productive landscapes”. However, that engaging apparently only works when those being engaged agree whole heartedly with the EPA’s dust regulation agenda; an agenda that requires allowable dust to be far below naturally occurring levels in most states and is too unrealistic to be seen as a workable solution. Defense of the ag community as stewards of the land and concerns voiced by even Congress regarding how such tougher standards will affect and inevitably harm farmers and ranchers seems to fall upon deaf ears. It appears that just like a war waged against the “proverbial city hall”, fighting the EPA seems to be a lost cause.