The FDA gets some credit for pushing through egg production safety regulations that are just now taking effect, despite intense opposition from some in the egg industry (See this letter as an example: Ohio Poultry Association“The proposed regulations will cost the producer, cost state government, and cost the federal government.” and “These barns/houses have (and will always have) manure and waste products associated with them, so it seems unuusal to hold barns to the same standards as food processors.” and “The Ohio Poultry Association has great concern over FDA’s proposed direct involvement in raw agricultural production, when in fact, USDA APHIS and FSIS are far more qualified to address disease and pathogen risk reduciton in live animal production operations.”

Since May 2010, there has been a four-fold increase in the number of cases of Salmonella Enteritidis infections.

FDA Site

CDC’s Tips to Reduce Your Risk of Salmonella from Eggs

1. Wood Pallets can follow products shipped around the world.
2. Wood can contain a large variety of diseases, insects, and pests if not treated.
3. Wood pallets can be a vector for exotic diseases and pests that can infect local trees once the pallets reach a new destination.
4. An international standard has been developed mandating that pallets and other wood packing material be heat or chemically treated before it can be used for overseas shipping.
5. One of those solutions is an ozone-depleting gas – methyl bromide.

Something one never thinks about.

Such is the state of affairs in the legal world. If I want to buy some software to help my legal practice, the software company’s licensing system requires that I pay a “per seat” fee that is multiplied by the number of attorneys in my firm, regardless of whether they want or would even use that software. So, before I can buy software, I have to convince dozens of attorneys that it is worth spending $30,000 so I can have some software (unlikely) or that it is worth them getting the software as well and supporting me in my effort to get the rest of the firm to get the software as well.

I can understand this approach for basic software such as the Microsoft Office products, which is ubiquitous and used by all. What I can’t understand is why this marketing and business model is supposed to work for other products. Take CAD/CAM or photo editing software. This software is used by many large companies. Those companies buy the software to the users in the design or art departments and are not forced to buy copies for, say, the marketing or maintenance departments.

Of course, this monolithic approach has been used so long that software companies have written their products so that they must be implemented on an enterprise-wide level. Even if they wanted to allow a smaller number of users to use the product, it would require re-writing the code and a wholesale rethinking of how the product works. However, there is a market out there for individual productivity products that is not being me. Create the product and the market will be there.

Des Moines Register Article

Biofuels Journal Article

Rules Link

Potential Impact. The current crop of more than one million acres of the GMO sugar beets can still be harvested, but the next crop cannot be planted until after the USDA submits an environmental impact statement, which could take years and be the subject of further judicial and administrative scrutiny. This may be complicated by the fact that 95% of all sugar beets are now genetically engineered. Since half of the sugar in the United States comes from sugar beets, look for production problems next year. Any non-GMO seed stock would already have to be nearing harvest in order to be available next year. It is likely that there will be disruptions and price increases.

It is obvious that other GMO agricultural products could be subject to similar attacks. If a court issued a permanent injunction on a major food crop such as corn or soybeans, the resulting chaos can hardly be imagined. The variety and competition available in those products may make the likelihood of a single ruling having a major market effect unlikely. However, this does outline the necessity to avoid short cuts (I am giving the plaintiffs and the court the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument) when regulatiing GMO products.

This ruling followed a lawsuit filed on January 21, 2008 by the Center for Food Safety and other groups in the District Court for the Northern District of California challenging the deregulation of Roundup Ready sugarbeets by the USDA. These sugarbeets have been on the market since 2005.

Order Regarding Remedies

This is described as the first time that genetically (transgenic) modified organisms have established a wild population in the U.S.

Source:

http://www.organicauthority.com/foodie-buzz/genetically-modified-organisms-found-in-the-wild.html

http://news.discovery.com/earth/gm-plant-canola-wild.html

Every five years the EPA must review the current scientific research relating to criteria pollutants under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) of the Clean Air Act to consider changes. What most people call “dust,” the EPA calls “particulate matter” or “PM.” Every five years the EPA can be counted on to reduce the amount of particulate matter that can be allowed in a cubic meter of air. The next five-year review is currently underway and there is evidence that the EPA is considering taking steps to clamp down on the Western and Midwestern propensity to generate dust. In the Policy Assessment for the Review of the Particulate Matter National Ambient Air Quality Standard: Second External Review Draft, the EPA staff concluded that depending on the emphasis placed on the evidence and uncertainties, the Administrator would be justified in either retaining the current PM10 NAAQS of 150 ?g/m³, or in revising it to make it more stringent.

Members of the United States Senate, led by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa have recently issued a letter calling on the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, to use “common sense” on future regulations on dust, and reminding her of the administration’s focus on rural America and the negative impact such regulations could have on Main Street.

Of course, common sense has never played a role in environmental regulations, so it is not likely that this request will find favor with the EPA. Still, there are immense policy considerations that must be weighed if the rural areas of the Western and Midwestern states are going to be forced to comply with these standards. As an example, how do you draft air permits and regulations to govern dust blowing across farm fields? Which field is deemed to be responsible? Will rural impoverished areas be forced to lay asphalt or concrete over millions of miles of roadbeds and trails? Can the logging industry provide enough tree sap to supply rural counties with enough dust suppressant to keep the dust off of dirt roads? This move would come at a time that rural areas are actually tearing up their asphalt roads because they cannot afford to maintain them. South Dakota ground up 100 miles of roads to gravel in 2009 alone. http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748704913304575370950363737746.html Much of the desire to eliminate paved roads stems from the high cost of the petroleum used to make asphalt. It would be ironic indeed if the EPA’s actions on particulate matter forced rural counties to feed the continued need to refine oil.

Iowa has 114,740 miles of roads. If the national average of 50% roads being unpaved is applied to this figure, then there are about 70,000 miles of unpaved roads in Iowa. (no firm data was found). At $75,000 per mile this would cost more than 5 billion dollars in initial capital, and that is just for one Midwestern state.

This calculation does not address dust generation by combining and livestock operations. I am at a loss as to what sorts of technology livestock operators would have to employ to keep their cattle from kicking up dust as they walked across fields. Perhaps the EPA would require a tiny portable sprayer to mount on the back of each cow. I also suppose it would be possible to design and build giant portable bag houses (basically semi-trailer sized vacuum cleaners) to run along combines as they removed crops from the fields, but that does not strike me as a very economical approach. First, it would require a capital outlay of at least $100,000 per combine (taking the $50,000 cost of a small baghouse plus $50,000 for a bare tractor chassis). It would also double the labor requirements as another farmer would be required to drive alongside the combine in order to try to collect the errant dust.

While rural dust is a real issue for those who live near unpaved dirt or gravel roads or for drivers passing by ongoing field operations, it seems that the local government level ought to be the place for these issues to be resolved, as they have been for decades. It is common for property owners to request dust suppressant on roads in front of their homes. I just don’t know that the heavy regulatory hand of D.C. is the appropriate way to deal with this issue.