Statistics say less than one percent of Americans are engaged actively in the business of farming. Nonetheless American agriculture supports a sizeable slice of U.S. gross domestic product, roughly 13 percent. A recent study by the Coalition to Support Iowa's Farmers and Iowa State University shows that in Iowa 1 of every 6 jobs is connected to agriculture.
Thanks to an inherent work ethic, scientific and mechanical innovation and conscientious stewardship, Iowa farmers for generations have produced wholesome commodities that help feed the world and increasingly contribute renewable energy alternatives to help displace foreign petroleum and fuel America's economic engine.
As a federal lawmaker and lifelong family farmer, I bring decades of dirt-under-the-fingernails work experience to the policymaking tables in Washington. Serving as a voice for family farmers and American agriculture, I work to secure tax relief that helps farmers invest and better manage the capital-intensive needs of running a farm and to ease the estate tax burden that can obstruct a family's ability to pass on the farm to the next generation. I work to make sure the farmer's voice is heard loud and clear through diplomatic channels and at the world trade negotiating tables.
Besides taxes and trade, I keep close tabs on the federal government's regulatory regime and its impact on American agriculture. Although there's universal agreement on the need to protect the environment, safeguard our natural resources and keep America's food supply safe and abundant, sometimes Washington bureaucrats and farmers don't see eye to eye on how to achieve the goal.
Consider the Environmental Protection Agency. Sometimes I have to wonder who is writing the rules and off-the-wall proposed regulations that seek to regulate particulate matter, i.e., dust; indirect land use changes attributed to biofuels; and greenhouse gas emissions.
A proposed ruling in 2007 that sought to regulate so-called particulate matter exposes the laughably absurd way Washington writes the rules. Any lifelong resident, let alone a one-time visitor, can vouch for the velocity and prevalence of the wind in Iowa. You don't need an atmospheric science degree to guarantee with 100 percent certainty that the wind will blow during harvest season. Nor, do you need a meteorologist to explain that gale-force winds, in fact, will carry soybean dust kicked up by the combine over the field and across the boundary of a farmer's property. The very idea that a farmer ought to be held accountable for the wind that blows dust from the soybean harvest, gravel roads and feedlots is ridiculous. We dodged a bullet when this proposal was exposed, but there's no time to rest on our laurels.
Earlier this year an EPA official testified before a congressional committee that she had never set foot on an American farm. It seems to me that it makes a great deal of sense for those writing rules and regulations that have a direct impact on family farmers
ought to get a first-hand look at a working farm. So I extended an invitation to do just that and I'm glad several EPA officials accepted my invitation to visit Iowa in September.
The goal of the visit was to facilitate a better understanding and appreciation for how food from the grocery store and alternative fuels at the pump originate on a farm. We heard from experts on biofuels, we visited a working farm to illustrate an Iowa farmer's stewardship practices, and toured a renewable fuel facility in Newton.
The EPA officials asked very good questions throughout the day and appeared to take the messages from family farmers to heart and promised continued dialogue, especially on the indirect land use arguments. These officials have a tremendous amount of power and authority. Their decisions have a great deal of impact on whether some of the new, renewable energy technologies survive and thus the rural economy, from the family farm all the way down Main Street.
Bad rulemaking by the EPA could have a long-term detrimental impact on the rural economy and American agriculture. By bringing a few folks out of Washington to where the rubber meets the road in Iowa and continuing to actively communicate the impact of EPA decisions on rural America, I intend to help remove the bureaucratic blinders so federal regulators and Iowa farmers have an opportunity to see eye to eye on the environment and agriculture.