Agricultural News
Gebhart Urges Producers to Comment on WOTUS by Friday
Mon, 10 Nov 2014 15:57:25 CST
Ag producers and the general public only a few more days to comment on the 'Waters of the US' proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers. The public comment period will close on Friday, November 14th. Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association President Richard Gebhart has been talking about the impact this rule would have on agriculture for the past four months. Gebhart said its extremely important producers submit their comments by Friday.
"It is still the biggest threat in my opinion to farmers and ranchers to their livelihood that's out there," Gebhart said. "It's still in the Federal Register, I think we had hopefully a turning point in Tuesday's election. Our Senator Jim Inhofe will be the Chairman of the Environmental Committee and hopefully the Senator can something done about it, but its still crucial that producers get out there and say what they think about it."
In this past week's election the GOP took control of the Senate. Gebhart said that will not prevent EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy from publishing the WOTUS rule. He thinks there are some things the Senate and House can do that prevent her from spending money to implement the rule.
One easy way to submit comments on the 'WOTUS' proposal is to go to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association website. There is a form letter that producers can use to submit a comment.
Radio Oklahoma Network Farm News Director Ron Hays interviewed Gebhart recently at the quarterly board meeting of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association this past week in El Reno. You can listen to the feature by Clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
Hays and Gebhart also discussed the recently ruling from the World Trade Organization ruling over US mandatory Country of Origin Labeling. The US was found to be out of compliance with trade rules according to WTO officials. Gebhart said this is something the US needs to realize that we have made a mistake and we need to redo the whole concept.
"I don't know how many times we have to told that this thing is not going to work the way it is," Gebhart said. "I want to be clear that my support for labeling food in a free market, a voluntary system, let people label it anyway they want to. I am fully in support if producers want to or retailers want to label that product, but let the marketplace position that as it should be."
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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