Noem Dust Bill Heads to the House Floor on Thursday

Noem Dust Bill Heads to the House Floor on Thursday

Momentum Continues as Democrat Sen. McCaskill Introduces Companion Legislation



WASHINGTON, DC– According to U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on Thursday the House will take up a bill sponsored by Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) to prohibit any further regulation of rural dust by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The bipartisan bill, H.R. 1633, was approved by the House Energy & Commerce Committee last week.



“Farmers and ranchers, like most businesses, desperately want more certainty when it comes to regulation and taxation. It’s nearly impossible to make business decisions a couple years out when you don’t know if the EPA, or some other Washington bureaucracy, will regulate away your profit margin with a single, ridiculous new regulation. That’s why there is a growing consensus behind this common sense bill,” said Noem. “This bipartisan bill reins in a regulator that too many farmers and ranchers fear will go wild without additional constraints.”



Noem’s bill, which is expected to pass the House, would exclude farm dust that is regulated at the state or local level from federal standards. If there are no state or local regulations in place, the EPA can step in if they find that there are adverse health effects associated with rural dust and that the economic benefits outweigh the cost in the local communities. There is nothing on the books today that would prohibit the EPA from further regulating farm dust at some point in the future.



If the House approves the measure, it will then head to the Senate where Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) recently introduced a companion bill.



For more information, read Rep. Noem’s testimony on the bill before the House Energy & Commerce Committee here.