Rounds: FARM Act will Prevent Farmers and Ranchers from Being Subject to Needless EPA Regulations
Stanley County Rancher Todd Mortenson Testifies at D.C. Hearing
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management and Regulatory Oversight, today held a legislative hearing on the Fair Agricultural Reporting Method (FARM) Act, which he introduced earlier this year with seven of his colleagues, and is now cosponsored by 33 other senators. One of the witnesses at the hearing was Todd Mortenson, owner and operator of Mortenson Ranch in Hayes, S.D.
“Cattle producers pride themselves on being good stewards of our country’s national resources,” said Mortenson in his testimony, “We maintain open spaces, healthy rangelands, provide wildlife habitat and feed the world. But to provide all these important functions, we must be able to operate without excessive federal burdens…The FARM act will ensure that precious time and monetary resources are not siphoned from important cleanup efforts to address a paperwork requirement with no environmental or public health benefit.”
“American farmers and ranchers are already required to comply with multiple federal regulations governing how they run their operations,” said Rounds in his opening statement. “Complying with these federal regulations require hours of paperwork, time, money and resources, all of which take them away from actually being able to work on their land. We should not make them subject to additional layers of bureaucracy that Congress never intended them to be subject to… The FARM Act prevents U.S. farmers and ranchers from being subject to needless regulations that have no environmental benefit.”
Full text of Rounds’ remarks can be found here.
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