From Omaha.com, more indications that the EPA is out of control. I’m beginning to think the EPA is an enemy of the citizens of the United States with behavior like this. I guess we’ll need genetically engineered cattle with built in camouflage now.
EPA told to come clean on feedlot flyovers
By Joe Duggan
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU
LINCOLN — A spy in the sky over Nebraska and Iowa has gotten under the hides of some livestock producers and their representatives in Washington.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s aerial photo surveillance of livestock feeding operations in both states flew under the radar for nearly two years.
But now the flyover program, conducted to help enforce the Clean Water Act, has prompted a demand for answers from all five members of Nebraska’s congressional delegation.
The delegation delivered a joint letter Tuesday to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, listing 25 questions about the legality of the surveillance and the privacy rights of business owners. Although the letter stopped short of calling for an end to the flyovers, the two senators and three representatives want to know more about their purpose.
“Nebraskans are rightfully skeptical of an agency which continues to unilaterally insert itself into the affairs of rural America,” Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., said in a statement.
EPA representatives in Washington, D.C., did not immediately return messages seeking reaction. A spokesman for the agency’s Region 7 office in Kansas City said he was not authorized to comment.
In 2010, Nebraska had 862 concentrated animal feeding operations and Iowa 1,607, making them the two leading livestock states in Region 7, says the agency’s website. The region also includes Kansas and Missouri.
The livestock operations fall under an assortment of state and federal regulations intended to protect streams and aquifers from animal waste pollution, which can occur in the form of runoff from feed lots and discharges from manure lagoons.
The two-page letter was written at the urging of the Nebraska Cattlemen, an industry group made up of cattle producers.
“The frustration for livestock producers really is just the idea that the government has resorted to spying on facilities,” said Kristen Hassebrook, the group’s director of natural resources and environmental affairs.
Full story here. h/t to WUWT reader “Neo”.
AND the reply from the government bureaucracies…
You can say that again!
In 2001 the USDA swooped down on two farmers in Vermont and killed all their sheep without proof of any disease in the animals.
Rubenstein “POSITIVES” were done at an unlicensed lab using an unproven test method. He was also a pal of the USDA agent.
FOIA: shows sheep negative: http://foiamadsheepmadrivervalley.blogspot.com/
The government-industry revolving door puts industry-friendly experts in positions of decision-making power.
That was the USDA. Then we have the FDA
FDA’s Views on Freedom of Choice – FDA’s Response to FTCLDF Suit
The NANNY STATE in all its glory is alive and well. The USDA uses satellite surveillance to monitor farms. According to a friend whose daughter had a summer job dealing with the satellite data, they can even count the animals in your field!
Straight from the USDA:
Satellite Imagery – Global Crop Production Analysis – USDA.gov Very nice for the likes of Goldman Sachs and Cargill, ADM, Syngenta, Monsanto, and Yara who want to make money from starvation.
This ia an old article by Mary Zanoni who has done FOIAs on the USDA. She was correct NAIS did not die. Like the vampire it is, it arose again and again.
One authority estimated that not less than 40 million buffaloes lived on the plains, 30 million on the prairies (including the prairies of Arkansas, Louisiana, western Tennessee and Mississippi), and 5 million in the forest regions — a total of 75 million.
Others placed the total number at between 50 million and 60 million; and still others believed that the number must have been at least 125 million.
The ancient range of the buffalo was from the Atlantic seaboard west to the deserts of central Nevada, and from Texas and the Gulf States north to Great Slave Lake.
http://deltafarmpress.com/livestock/buffalos-decline-tragic-part-national-history
So William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody was an EPA agent protecting streams and aquifers from animal waste pollution.
TonyO says:
June 3, 2012 at 4:06 am
Maybe they’re worried about cows with guns????
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs4/i/2004/225/e/8/Cows_With_Guns.jpg
Fartgate?
http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/section7.htm
A) After all necessary expenses of a Federal reserve bank have been paid or provided for, the stockholders of the bank shall be entitled to receive an annual dividend of 6 percent on paid-in capital stock.
(c) Federal reserve banks, including the capital stock and surplus therein, and the income derived therefrom shall be exempt from Federal, State, and local taxation, except taxes upon real estate.
Myrrh says:
June 3, 2012 at 2:37 am
Time to bankrupt the bankers
Get your money from the bank and pay all cash no plastic money. Do not borrow money from banks save until you have the money . Invest in Gold and Silver. Vote Ron Paul.
I think We all know what 4 more years of Obama & Co means !
This type of behavior is the Progressive fixed point.
ozspeaksup says:
June 3, 2012 at 3:44 am
Not quite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
Whether or not it’s “safe”, has nothing to do with “still showing up in people”.
I would recommend you not have your blood analyzed for formaldehyde, lest you run off screaming into the night.
This is off the charts and likely to cause a huge law suit.
The HLS use of drones wasn’t authorized until recently and the EPA chose to violate Property Rights without any authorization 2 years ago.
Its a very good thing that we no longer tar, feather, and ride out of town on a rail.
Gail Combs says:
June 3, 2012 at 6:42 am
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…and everything that comes out of the back end of feed stock is a natural fertilizer.
This is a Stupid waste of tax dollars and a complete infringement of land owner rights.
So THAT’S what those black helicopters were all about. Who knew.
Obviously, if the EPA has money to waste on watching cows, they have too much money. What a waste of OUR money. The EPA should be gutted for wasting of money.
Government exists to serve the people, not to monitor and slap them down and waste their money on pointless endeavors which at best are an invasion of privacy.
1 year ago, I called my cousins and they tell me the regulations are flowing from Central Planning. There are much heftier regulations for feedlots that have over 1,000 head.
The USDA is involvd iwth agriculture. The EPA is clueless as we saw when Chu acted the rookie in the Gulf oil spill.
The EPA has been shamed in court recently due to the Idaho land grap and water contamination claims pertaing to drilling. They are on the war path and aggitated. Like african bees. The sister Comrades were shamed recently when they tried to use nanny laws pertaining to farmer children that work.
I like the idea that somebody is keeping an eye on these farmers. Do you really TRUST them not to empty that manure lagoon into the nearest stream when it gets full? With nobody watching? It costs real MONEY and EFFORT to manage waste runoff properly. You expect farmers to do that out of the goodness of their hearts?
There are certainly more, less invasive, ways to monitor these operations. Like, show up at the door and ask to inspect (I assume that’s perfectly OK’d-allowed. Random inspections of oversight authorities go way back). Really, helicopters? I’ll guess they’re black! It does just go to show you how out-of-control this agency and government is. Abolish it! Future monitoring of existing laws can easily be handled by other agencies.
Cite please?
(I’m guessing this is not a personal observation here in the states, since your handle is ‘ozspeaksup’ )
.
It’s a modern weapon in an ages old war :- the farm war.
Powermongers have always been at odds with farmers because farmers have some control over a vital resource – food. Today supermarkets and their suppliers are still giving small holder farmers a hard time. Every head of livestock has to be accounted for by the farmer. Any slip in farmers paper work will be an excuse for harrassment.
I heard my local farmers here in the uk talking about the same problem ( satellite survailence of live stock in europe ) a couple of years ago.
These satelittes will be at least sponsored or maybe fully owned by some supermarket group.
Hmm, if I were such a farmer I’d be tempted to go into the crop circle creation business, something incorporating the sentiments ‘eff off wankers’, ‘it’ll make you blind’.
“I’m beginning to think the EPA is an enemy of the citizens of the United States with behavior like this.”
It’s good you are beginning to come around, Anthony, but you are a little slow. What part of the outright lies that polar bears and spotted owls are endangered, Those lies along with the claim that the snail darter needed protection destroyed entire towns, farming and logging communities, and the livelihoods of the people who lived in those places. What about the hundreds of thousands of jobs destroyed with the EPA’s crusade against fossil fuels such as coal, and offshore drilling? There is more than enough evidence that the EPA, and in fact the entire federal government, is the enemy of the people of the US.
ferd berple says:
June 3, 2012 at 6:38 am
Myrrh says:
June 3, 2012 at 2:37 am
the Federal Reserve, a private bank, which has taken over control of your money supply since 1913 and sells notes to your government at interest.
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It is surprising how few Americans are aware that their money is not controlled by their government.
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Because tied in with your Constitution which is no longer taught if Obama’s statements about it are anything to go by, he taught the subject. I envy Gail’s filing system, mine works on the Chaos Principle; it’s there somewhere connected by some logic, but the pattern doesn’t always appear when I want it to.., somewhere there is a discussion where I found this peculiar teaching which showed Obama didn’t have any grasp of the basic principle.
From 1913 on I imagine it all became tweaked as the bankers sought to hide the real history of why independence became an issue. As they’d done in England they made their private bank appear to be government, Bank of England, so the Federal Reserve deceit a simple copy of what worked.
The history tweaked to fit as physics basics are tweaked now through the education system to support AGW, there’s just enough sounding as if it’s real physics that the majority who will never have the need to explore will just assume what they’re being taught is real, and those with interest but with no need for real facts will just blunder about as happens in these Global Warming arguments; only those who specifically require accurate information to make stuff work will know, and that is more difficult in ‘Constitution’ than in real science. Applied scientists who don’t know the real physics basics in their field wouldn’t get a job or would be taught on the job, but the ‘Constitution’ can be made to seem arbitrary even by those who are required to apply it, judges required to uphold it, but as one judge said, the Constitution was anything he ruled it to be.
We’re majority ignorant about the banking fractional reserve fraud and the reason for the War of Independence because we’re meant to be. Those who created the banking fraud have had centuries of practice in keeping control of it; manipulating history by taking over countries, starting huge wars lending to both sides, these aren’t amateurs… Those who do find out how it works who haven’t become part of it as have the smaller banks and politicians, have been relatively few, and it’s really only since the vast interactive personal library/school which is the internet that their knowledge has been able to spread.
It’s always been the pattern of dictators to destroy knowledge of those they’re in the process of subjugating, the difference now is that it is Fabian inspired methods not the mass murder of the educated and book burning, but through the gradual takeover of education. But even now, although the knowledge is out there, it’s still mixed up in the general confusion of information available, and, as in AGW science, there’s also deliberate misinformation mixed in designed to confuse.
I don’t know how I stack up in this compared with others, but I’ve only been discovering it in dribs and drabs over the last year or so – it would have been easier to put together if I hadn’t also become interested in the AGW arguments which I discovered only three or so years ago and my hackles raised at the deliberate dumbing down of science education and so what time I had available went into exploring this through discussions. I don’t know which it is, whether it’s because I’ve become more aware of the banking connection or that it is somehow much more ‘in the air’ – I have been verbally passing on the info on banking scam creating money out of nothing, but not until a couple of weeks ago when I was invited to a friend’s grandson and granddaughter’s confirmation that I found anyone who knew what I was talking about. I was introduced to the brother of the wife who was the sister of type of introduction to someone who not only knew, but had recently in his county taken part in a welcome crowd for some visiting elected member of one of the parties, with a banner with the members name and Nazi on it. It really surprised me, because of course none of this type of protest ever gets reported. Reminds me of the Monckton visual when last in Australia.
We still overwhelmingly voted to go with the next Lisbon scam.., though I don’t know anyone who voted yes, but this time no need for a second vote.., and, for the first time, no how did you vote survey at the poll’s exit..
However, there was a huge campaign to reject registering for the house tax – “Don’t register, don’t pay” – and I think around a million of us thought it a good idea; maybe more, because they would downplay rejection of it, wouldn’t they?
I think that history link I posted is the best summary I’ve seen, takes a lot of skill to precis the battles you’ve had against private central banking since independence – my gut reaction is to trust what stuff new to me because much of it I already knew and had checked out for myself, although I hadn’t understood the time line. I’d certainly recommend it as a blue print but obviously with the tacit caveat that people should check for themselves, as I shall continue to do.
This is where you have the advantage; your history is still documented, you know the characters in play, you have a wealth of historical arguments about this – since it was a private fait accompli in England between monarch and banker none of that exists. We, all in the British colonial system, need to understand this through you. As knowledge about the real reason for your fight for independence and the history to your loss of it in 1913 spreads as you get better educated, we all get better educated.
There’s a story told by a guide to one of the big houses torched in The Troubles here, the English owners had left it empty. One old local man who’d taken part in smashing up the place with a sledgehammer said with deep regret to the guide on the first tour of the place, “We don’t know how to create, all we know is how to destroy”. The bankers cartel appear to be huge and clever and powerful, but exposure shows them to be nothing but a miserable gang of organised criminals lacking real creativity. The Wizard of OZ.
Ian H says:
June 3, 2012 at 5:46 pm
I like the idea that somebody is keeping an eye on these farmers. Do you really TRUST them not to empty that manure lagoon into the nearest stream when it gets full? With nobody watching? It costs real MONEY and EFFORT to manage waste runoff properly. You expect farmers to do that out of the goodness of their hearts?
____________________________________
SAID the idiot City Slicker.
Do you KNOW how much commercial fertilizer COSTS??? I PAY a neighboring farmer to take that “waste run-off” and put it on my fields. No farmer in his right mind is going to dump “Black Gold” into a stream and then pay $70 to 80 bucks an acre for commercial fertilizer.
Gail Combs says:
June 5, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Do you KNOW how much commercial fertilizer COSTS??? I PAY a neighboring farmer to take that “waste run-off” and put it on my fields. No farmer in his right mind is going to dump “Black Gold” into a stream and then pay $70 to 80 bucks an acre for commercial fertilizer.
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…and that’s precisely the point, and intended outcome, and the end-result of Regulatory Capture where we have a revolving door between the Regulatory Agencies and the Industries they regulate. Doesn’t matter what Agencies. Commercial Banking to/from Treasury, CBO, Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac; USDA to/from Archer Daniels Midland and others; ‘Defense’ Dept. to/from Raytheon, Boeing, Rand, and an almost endless list of others.
Industrial bureaucrats become Agency Bureaucrats and impose regulatory edicts upon the industry. For the farmers the plan is *forcing* them into paying the “$70 to 80 bucks an acre for commercial fertilizer” – to the Industries who’ve captured the Regulatory Agency that’s imposing the force.
The outcome is, of course, that eventually the small family-type farmer is forced out of business due to the rising costs and we’re left with mega conglomerates who use only the “commercial fertilizer” – “Black Gold” be damned … there’s no money in it, for the Regulated Industry, so it must be stopped.
What’s not to like? … for the Industries producing the “commercial fertilizer”
What’s not to like? … for the bureaucrat who gets that great job with the Industry when he leaves his post at the Regulatory Agency
What’s not to like? … for the Industry sycophant looking for an appointment to a post in the Regulatory Agency.
What’s *to* like? … for the rest of us?
Incorrigible libertarian says: @ur momisugly June 5, 2012 at 8:01 pm
…and that’s precisely the point, and intended outcome, and the end-result of Regulatory Capture where we have a revolving door between the Regulatory Agencies and the Industries they regulate….
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I could not agree more.
You might like Dr Evans Climate Coup – The Politics: How the regulating class is using bogus claims about climate change to entrench and extend their economic privileges and political control. He really captures the essence of the current crisis in personal liberty as the bureaucratic octopus slowly strangles the tax paying class.