Weekly Column:   –  Late last year, I petitioned the State of Missouri for an exception for three Eighth District counties from a list of places in our state that have not attained new air quality standards.  Part of my objection is that the standards are unfair to rural counties that will not grow as fast as urban counties and lack the same population density.  A major highway through one county, for example, can throw off measurements for everyone who lives there.  We have to be sure the standards we set are fair.

The process gives some insight on how the everyday lives of Missourians can be affected by the Environmental Protection Agency and the rules it sets.

In our forest nurseries and on tree farms, we use products called soil fumigants to increase the survivability of saplings by preventing disease and staving off pests.  No one I can find has ever gotten sick from a soil fumigant, but new rules are in the works nonetheless.  Unfortunately for our tree farms and forests, there’s more to the regulation than following new rules.  The businesses which use soil fumigants can look forward to an overnight tripling of their costs.

Similarly, forest management falls by the wayside because new rules are needlessly excessive or compliance becomes too expensive.  When our forests are not properly managed, pests and diseases can make quick work of them.  The quality of the wood declines and, in cases like the one currently in Wayne County, disease results in forest ‘quarantine,’ under which no wood products can be shipped out.

The coming years will force us to grapple with many environmental issues which have the viability of our farms, forests and ranches at heart.  Ranches and dairy operations would never be able to survive an environmentalist-driven EPA permit process or a tax on the methane emissions of livestock. 

Likewise, carbon taxes on drivers would disproportionately come down on rural Americans who have no ready access to public transportation and routinely drive three times the distances of their city-dwelling counterparts’ daily commutes.  Our farms, ranches and manufacturers rely on light trucks, heavy trucks, and diesel-run machinery to keep them in business.  The survival, and I hope the expansion of, the economy in Southern Missouri and rural parts of our country depend on affordable energy.  Much of my work in Congress over the last two years has been centered on formulating an American energy policy that explores American resources and uses alternative fuels to stabilize energy prices and keeps costs down.  Carbon taxes run counter to that purpose. 

At the end of the day, the people who live on and near the land are the best stewards of it.  A perfect case in point is the biggest conservationist I know: the American farmer.  Like farmers and ranchers, we all depend on the land to provide for us, so we must take care of the resources with which we have been blessed.  Finding that delicate balance can be difficult, but for the good of our planet and of our rural economy we must work hard to do so.