The Hill News

You don’t have to live in rural America to be impacted by agriculture. If you eat, agriculture impacts your life. As we celebrate National Agriculture Day this week, it is important to remember the tremendous contributions our nation’s agriculture industry has made to our economy, communities and American way of life. Over the years, I have come to understand the significant challenges of farming in today’s environment, including federal rules and regulations that seem to govern nearly every aspect of the industry. Too often we have seen proposals come out of a variety of federal agencies that would adversely affect our rural communities by increasing costs and making it harder for agricultural producers to make a living.

Farmers who live in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed know firsthand the impact of tightening regulations. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), which sets the limit on the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus an! d sediment discharged into the Chesapeake Bay and each of its tributaries by different types of sources, and the President’s Executive Order 13508 (Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration) force more costly mandates and overzealous regulations on all of those who live, work and farm in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. I believe that we must restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay. However, this strategy will limit economic growth and unfairly over-regulate local agriculture producers and economies.

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