EPA Not Planning "Gulf of Mexico Diet"

At least not yet... 


No curbs on nitrogen ahead, EPA official says
Farmers should not fret about such rules elsewhere, he tells agribusiness officials.

A regional Environmental Protection Agency director told agribusiness officials Tuesday that regulators wouldn’t impose numeric standards for nitrogen levels in water that could impede the use of nitrogen fertilizers.

Similar rules for the Chesapeake Bay and in Florida have raised concerns that Iowa farmers could eventually be subject to regulations restricting nitrogen use. Farmers’ use of fertilizers has been blamed for poor water quality in Iowa rivers and lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.

“The rules have little application for row crop farming in Iowa,” Karl Brooks told the Agribusiness Association of Iowa’s conference.

Brooks, who is the top EPA official in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas, said his agency has been beset by inflammatory rhetoric “that sounds good on talk radio.” But the EPA, he said, has gone out of its way to try to find common ground with farmers.

This, of course, puts agriculture in the Chesapeake Bay drainage at a competitive disadvantage compared to Mississippi River basin farmers, having more restrictions on their land uses, and greater compliance costs.  Does that count as unequal protection under the law?

Do they not care about the Gulf of Mexico?  It's a far bigger system than Chesapeake Bay, and the water quality problems the Gulf has have far greater impacts on living resources than the Bay?

Is this an election thing; most of the Bay states (MD, NY, Del, Penn) are all but locks for the democrats, but many more of the Midwestern states are red.  Could the administration be trying to curry a sympathetic vote in farm country?