House members of the Energy and Commerce Committee bickered about the definition of dust in a hearing about a Republican bill to stop overreaching Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.
Democrats at the hearing on the Farm Dust Regulation Act of 2011 (HR 1633), sponsored by Rep. Kristi Noem (R.-S.D.), fired a number of vicious shots at the the bill, calling it merely a red herring. They claimed that the EPA doesn’t regulate dust at all, and that the wording of the bill was intended to strip the EPA’s power to regulate other destructive particulates, such as soot from urban factories.
Republicans claimed that the bill would prevent future EPA dust regulation that is currently on the books from strangling farmers and businesses with red tape, and that the current regulations hurt farmers and increase the headache and cost of compliance.
- Gringo Infidel
