KMA Land - Young Targets EPA

News Article

by Mike Peterson

"It's the agency that won't go away"--that's how Iowa Congressman David Young is describing the Environmental Protection Agency.

Earlier this week, Young joined Iowa's congressional delegation in asking the EPA to hold a public hearing on the EPA's changes in renewable fuel standards. The Van Meter Republican tells KMA News agency officials need to hear from Iowans on how lowering the thresholds established by Congress will impact the ethanol industry and ag economy.

"The EPA proposed its RFS and renewable volume obligation numbers for 2014, 2015, and 2016," said Young. "They don't fulfill the levels set by Congress, so they're not fulfilling the levels set by the law. So, this creates a lot of uncertainty for the biofuels industry, stifles investment. We need to make sure our industry leaders--farmers, retailers, even consumers--get some real tangible feedback from the EPA about how these levels will impact the economy."

Young and other delegation members will follow up their initial request with phone calls to EPA officials. He says it's important for agency officials to come to Iowa.

"You know, as much issues as we may have in rural American and rural Iowa with the EPA," he said, "we do need to establish a relationship with them, and try to work with them and educate them, and to get them to Iowa, and to understand what we do here.

"When they fly over from D.C. to Berkeley, California, they look down and they think everything is the same down here on the ground, and what we do," he said. "We just need to bring them closer to the ground."

Young is also among congressional Republicans pushing for language in an appropriations bill that would prevent the EPA from implementing the Waters of the U.S. rule as it pertains to land use and water quality. The congressman says some of the EPA's standards are necessary.

"We all want clean water and clean air," Young said. "You know, they help enforce the law, where is against the law to knowingly dump chemicals into our ponds, and bays and waterways. Some people try to blur this line as to what is going on in our agricultural industry from runoff. Farmers are not dumping chemicals into our tributaries and waterways. But, some are trying to use these laws on the books already to go after our agricultural community. So, we have to draw that fine line, there."

Young made his comments in his weekly phone interview during KMA's 7:35 news segment Wednesday morning.

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