Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson is joining his colleagues in opposing EPA’s efforts to regulate dust by becoming a cosponsor of H.R. 1633, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011. This legislation would stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its current review from imposing more stringent dust standards for one year. 

Simpson, like many of his western colleagues, has deep concern about the impact of the dust regulation on communities in the arid west and believes the increased regulatory burden associated with dust standards would cause extreme hardship to farmers, livestock producers, and other resource-based industries throughout rural America.

“The EPA acknowledges that the evidence that rural dust is damaging to human health is inconclusive, yet they continue to regulate it in the same manner as other forms of particulate matter, for which evidence is more definite,” said Simpson. “This is a prime example of the EPA overstepping its authority without justification. Once again, the EPA has failed to recognize the everyday impacts of over-regulating based on inconclusive evidence.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is in the midst of a five-year review of the Clean Air Act’s National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for Particulate Matter (PM). One form of regulated matter, coarse PM (dust), becomes airborne when a person drives on unpaved roads or farmers work in their fields, and is composed primarily of soil particles and naturally occurring organic materials. 

Simpson is the Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and the Environment, which oversees funding for the EPA.