WASHINGTON, D.C.-Representatives Frank Lucas (R-OK), Sam Graves (R-MO), and Doc Hastings (R-WA), Co-Chairs of the Rural America Solutions Group, hosted a forum Sept. 29 entitled, "The EPA's Assault on Rural America: How New Regulations and Proposed Legislation are Stifling Job Creation and Economic Growth."
Experts from across the country traveled to Washington, D.C. to discuss EPA regulations and provide real-life examples of how these regulations and related legislation have affected their work, families, and communities. Representatives from the Idaho Water Users Association, the Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy at the University of Wyoming's College of Business, the National Sorghum Producers, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the U.S. Coal Corporation, Lincoln Paper and Tissue and the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation offered testimony and answered questions during the forum.
"Every day the EPA seems to demonstrate how vastly disconnected it is to the folks who feed us," said Representative Lucas, Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee. "With little oversight from the Democratic leadership that controls both the House and the Senate, the EPA has become an agency gone wild, creating regulations and policies that are burdensome, overreaching and that negatively affect jobs and rural economies. If the EPA is allowed to continue down this path, the only choice for many farmers and ranchers will be to stop farming altogether."
"Federal EPA bureaucrats are on the verge of killing thousands of rural jobs and communities through an arcane maze of rules and regulations that can only make sense to a lawyer in Washington, D.C.," said Representative Hastings, Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee. "At a time when Republicans are focused on stabilizing the economy, these top-down policies will only kill long-term jobs and future economic development. Many rural communities are not asking for massive spending and handouts in times of a $13 trillion debt; they are simply asking for the government to exercise some common sense and abandon its pursuit of higher taxes and more red tape."