Dems Oppose Efforts to Prevent Job-Killing Regulations that Hurt America’s Farmers

December 8, 2011

FYI, a similar version of this release below went out to the following districts: Tim Bishop (NY-01), Lois Capps (CA-24), Russ Carnahan (MO-03), David Cicilline (RI-01), Gerry Connolly (VA-11), Jim Cooper (TN-05), Peter DeFazio (OR-04), Raul Grijalva (AZ-07), Brian Higgins (NY-27), Jim Himes (CT-04), Ruben Hinojosa (TX-15), Rush Holt (NJ-12), Steve Israel (NY-02), Bill Keating (MA-10), Rick Larsen (WA-02), Carolyn McCarthy (NY-04), Jerry McNerney (CA-09), Michael Michaud (ME-02), Brad Miller (NC-13), Frank Pallone (NJ-06), Ed Perlmutter (CO-07), Gary Peters (MI-09), Chellie Pingree (ME-01), David Price (NC-04), Adam Smith (WA-09), Betty Sutton (OH-13), John Tierney (MA-06), Paul Tonko (NY-21), Niki Tsongas (MA-05), Pete Visclosky (IN-01), John Yarmuth (KY-03)

Sutton Opposes Efforts to Prevent Job-Killing Regulations that Hurt America’s Farmers
Ohio Democrat Votes Against Preventing Federal Bureaucrats from Arbitrarily Setting New Devastating Rules on Farm Dust

Washington — Small businesses and farmers across the country continue to demonstrate that new government regulations pushed by Betty Sutton’s Democrat allies are hurting them at the worst possible time. However, Sutton today voted against providing struggling farmers certainty by preventing the EPA from creating new federal farm dust regulations that would greatly burden them and destroy jobs.

“Once again Betty Sutton has chosen to side with the Obama Administration’s red tape spree at the expense of struggling small businesses and middle-class families looking for work,” said NRCC Communications Director Paul Lindsay. “Sutton and Obama continue to get Washington in the way of American farmers and small businesses who are already struggling with too many burdensome regulations.”

President Obama demonstrated how Washington Democrats aren’t willing to listen to job-creators when these same farm dust rules were mentioned by a concerned farmer at a town hall:

“A farmer took his turn at the microphone and, after welcoming the President to town, said that drought conditions had made it an especially tough year in the Midwest. Then he said, ‘Please don’t challenge us with more rules and regulations from Washington, D.C.’ He added that farmers liked to rise in the morning and start tending their fields, not their paperwork.

“Mr. Obama asked which rules the farmer had in mind, and the man responded that pending rules on noise pollution, dust pollution and water run-off were of concern. Was this a valuable opportunity for the President to discover more of those unnecessary rules that he claimed to be hunting down and eliminating last winter?

“No, Mr. Obama quickly made clear that he wasn’t on a listening tour of the Midwest. He instructed the farmer, ‘If you hear something’s happening, but it hasn’t happened, don’t always believe what you hear.’

“He then described how lobbyists in Washington can mislead people like the farmer into thinking that ideas merely under discussion are about to become regulatory burdens. It must have been a thrill for the farmer to have the President tell him in public how he’d been duped and how little he knew about the regulations affecting his own business.” (Editorial, “Obama on the Farm,” The Wall Street Journal, 8/18/11)

Betty Sutton opposed the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act which prevents the federal government from changing current farm dust rules for the next year. (H.R. 1633, Roll Call #912, Passed 268-150: R 235-0; D 33-150, 12/8/11)

With her vote today, Betty Sutton demonstrated that she is unwilling to listen to struggling small businesses when her Democrat regulatory priorities are at stake. Middle-class families in Ohio will continue to watch a bad economy become worse if Sutton continues to defend and enable the red tape spree emanating from Washington.

Dems Oppose Efforts to Prevent Job-Killing Regulations that Hurt America’s Farmers http://ow.ly/7TmkO #madeinwdc

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