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Commentary: Eco-rules pose major threat

Posted by: Maven on September 28, 2009 at 8:11 am

From the Santa Maria Times, this commentary by Richard S. Quandt, president of the Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties:

“There is a dangerous movement afoot in California to force businesses that rely upon natural resources to pack up and leave the state.

This is being done indirectly, through legislative mandates implemented by various state agencies, boards and commissions under the guise of protecting the environment.

Those industries targeted by eco-regulations are farmers, loggers, miners, drillers, truckers and builders. They are some of the oldest and most important businesses that provide us with food, fuel, housing and transportation.

Our state Legislature, dominated by urban environmental interests, continues to pass unattainable environmental mandates on rural business, such as farming. The clearest example of this trend is taking place in the rural San Joaquin Valley, where water deliveries that would irrigate over 150,000 acres of crops and orchards have been curtailed. The pumps that convey this water have been ordered turned off by U.S. Fish & Wildlife, a federal agency, due to concerns over the delta smelt, a finger minnow that is thought to be inadvertently swept into these pumps.

Under environmental mandates, the smelt is to be protected at all costs – even if it means fallowing farmland, increasing food imports and displacing some 40,000 workers who work in agriculturally related jobs. …”

Read more of this commentary by clicking here.

September 28, 2009 · Filed Under Wildlife & Endangered Species

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