A day after President Obama spoke about American innovation and how we need to get the economy going again, and blamed Congress for all of his own problems, his regulatory state is setting up for another predatory move.
The federal Department of Transportation is looking at reclassifying agricultural machinery as commercial vehicles. The impact of that decision would be to require licensing and other regulations, on vehicles that seldom leave the property where they’re used.
Tim Strobel has been driving a tractor for 20 years, so he’s a bit puzzled that federal officials are kicking around an idea that could ultimately force him – and anyone else operating farm machinery – to get a commercial driver’s license.
Yes, the same kind of license that interstate truckers must have to operate their rigs.
“I am not against some training, but this is going a little bit overboard,” said Strobel, a dairy farmer from Watertown.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has been collecting public comments on the notion, which the agency insists doesn’t yet merit being called a “proposal.”
But it’s far enough along that the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, state Agriculture Secretary Ben Brancel, and a bipartisan group of 21 U.S. senators, among others, are speaking out against it.
Farm Bureau officials say Transportation Department proposals aimed at reclassifying agricultural machinery as commercial motor vehicles could lead to a requirement that farmers get a commercial license to move equipment on roads between fields and to their local grain mills.
It’s “overreaching and unnecessary,” said Karen Gefvert, Wisconsin Farm Bureau director of governmental relations.
The additional public safety gained from increased federal regulation is unclear at best, but the additional costs for farmers would come at a time when they could least afford them, Brancel said in a letter to federal officials.
In one scenario, farmers hauling grain to local elevators would be treated as if they were engaged in interstate commerce because grain, in many cases, eventually leaves the state.
Read the article. The DOT is taking a “We didn’t intend to stir up controversy” attitude. Some effects of this policy change could be requiring farmers to log and file the miles they drive in their tractors, and other unnecessary paperwork and expense at a time when inflation is already threatening US household budgets. And it’s another infringement on individual and state authority that’s just not needed. We’ve gotten along just fine without this sort of requirement for more than 200 years now.
Which side of the fence?
If you ever wondered which side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test!
If a Republican doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a Democrat doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.
If a Republican is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.
If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Democrat wonders who is going to take care of him.
If a Republican doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Democrats demand that those they don’t like be shut down.
If a Republican is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.
A Democrat non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.
If a Republican decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A Democrat demands that the rest of us pay for his.
If a Republican reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A Democrat will delete it because he’s “offended.”
There’s a very old Army saying that goes:
If it moves, salute it.
If it doesn’t move, move it.
If you can’t move it, paint it.
Bureaucrats and Democrats think along these lines:
Tax it.
After you’ve taxed it, regulate it.
If the regulations make no sense, regulate it some more until it does.
Once you’ve regulated it, tax it some more.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Logging and filing the miles driven in tractors, aside from being an unnecessary waste of time and effort by the farmer, is a means of gathering data on fuel usage—which, for an administration obsessed with forcing Americans to use “less” fossil fuel regardless of whether or not they decide they can afford it, suggests that this is the first step towards a program of allocation or rationing.
I suspect you’ve hit on the REAL reason behind this latest government garbage. There’s always a hidden agenda with this bunch. We need to impeach obama and get his minions out of our government. But I sure don’t expect the republicans to grow a pair and do the job, so it looks like we’re stuck with the Won for another year.
First, this has been in the making for years as agri equipment and operations have evolved. Any farmers and ranchers worth their salt would not be claiming some suprise attack by the government. We have been working together to implement standards for the times and reevaluate some long standing exemptions granted to farmers and ranchers. ‘For-Hire’ operations have already adjusted too several changes over the past couple plus decades with no blood lost or flat wallets. There will be implement and equipment exemption conditions and anybody who thinks otherwise has not been engaged over the years or have some other motives. New policies and laws NEVER come about but through substantial data indicating individual and collective irresponsibility.
Though surveyed since 1930, in 1988, the National Coalition for Agricultural Safety and Health (NCASH) reported that “A sense of urgency” arose mainly from the recognition of the unabating epidemic of traumatic death and injury in American farming. If one wants to become educated around all the safety variables, spend some time reading through the National AG Safety Database. Agriculture is the Nations SECOND most safety hazarderous industry. Apart from on-site oerations, we share the public roads and highways with our fellow citizens while operating our equipment. Show we not have optimized safety for all concerned? All to often, policy…even laws have to eventually come to the forefront to circumvent continued irresponsibility.
Troll alert! Government bureaucrat justifying dumb law. For humor, note comment that “new policies and laws NEVER come about…”
T.T. –
Farmers being forced to get commercial licensing to drive tractors they have driven all their lives…..Four-year-old’s lemonade stands and Church lady bake sales closed for not having ‘commercial kitchens’….Gun stores forced into new regs by executive fiat…..the list is endless.
I am sure you can come up with a rationalization for it all. I can come up with reasons. Go sit on a sharp stick, I will help you pick one out.
From the Declaration of Independence -
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
Vladimir Lenin –
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”
["Farmers being forced to get commercial licensing to drive tractors they have driven all their lives."]
My, my, you have really great informed insight…don’t you?
First, let me repeat! Farmers were given a ['special exception'] to the DOT ['motorized vehicle'] laws some many years ago. Things change and so does safety data. Let me just leave it again, with this bit of thought. No laws or regulations ever come about but through irresponsibility of the people involved.
“No laws or regulations ever come about but through irresponsibility of the people involved.”
Agreed. Most laws, from the current administration (others, too) DO come about “through irresponsibility of the people involved”… the GOVERNMENT PEOPLE involved.
Yes, I am a farmer, have only one property, and live on that property. Although I have a CDL (for OTR animal transport) my occasional farm help does not. Oh yes, they’ll be able to get exemptions. If a law is going to grant exemptions, why have the law.
The time is NOW to stop the government strangulation of the people. In the immediate, Barack Obama and his regulatory miniions need to be purged from Washington and exiled to somewhere like (Communist) China, where they’ll fit right in. For the long term, every governmental Agency, Department, and Bureau needs to be reviewed for necessity and constitutional authority and closed or redirected as appropriate.
Greetings Jess!
You’re over sensationalizing the issues. The ‘implement’ issues is NOT going to be the issue as you’re beleiving and will receive just conditional exemptions….in all probability. However, the one sticking point well outside the pervue of the DOT is the statistical data on farm safety injury and death. This is reviewed and addressed long term, every year.
We have been CDL for our own motor vehicle operators including field implements whom, on most occasions transport the implements we use. We’ve required all our contractors, primarily harvesters and bull haulers to be CDL since the same year.
A little story! We lost our labs manager, his wife and three children to a 15 year old operating an old 1976 R-model Mack 10-wheeler (in 1990) headed to the elevator on a very busy, hilly and curvey road. The kid severely injured, survived and said he “wasn’t able to get the RPM’s right to shift the transmission and lost control trying.” I’ll end the story with that!
Mr/Ms Thomas: “*We* have been *working together* to implement standards for the times and reevaluate some long standing exemptions granted to farmers and ranchers.”
In my experience the only people who use “We have been working together to [write laws that will make you do certain things]” are not the people who are about to be more stringently regulated, but the other team: the bureaucrats, pols, govt employees and “progressives.”
Tell me, Mr/Ms Thomas: Are you a farmer or rancher? If so, where do you have your farm/ranch?
Here’s another Thomas gem: “New policies and laws NEVER come about but through substantial data indicating individual and collective irresponsibility.”
“Collective irresponsibility”, eh? I’m sorry, but I can’t picture any rancher or farmer I’ve ever known using that particular phrase. Of course I live in the West, not back east. Maybe farmers there talk that way. Personal or individual responsibility or lack thereof, makes sense. But collectives are something the Soviets pushed–utterly repulsive to Westerners.
So how ’bout it, T.T.? Are you really a farmer/rancher with that “We have been working together”?
sf….My you’re a redundant one! Obvious, you’re not a legitimate farmer or rancher, otherwise you’d be more informed.
["Collective irresponsibility"] For you city slickers, that would mean the collective national data of farm safety as opposed to an individual farm or a particular States farms.
[“We have been working together to..."] Again you’re obviously not a legitimate farmer or rancher or you’d know that the involved government agencies all the way down through the CDC have been openly and publically working with us and we with them, systematical over the past two plus decades on these matters.
["Are you a farmer or rancher?"] Both, we’re incorporated and operate in five states, which none are anywhere in the “East” as you suggest. I personally have a retirement home and a few head of my favorite purbred cows with me in the Southeast if thats really any of your business. After 83 years, I think my wife deserves to have some time in her latter days back home where she was born and raised…..is that alright with you?
Now tell me, what your sod busting, cow punching credentials are!
In other words, you’re a rich liberal cashing in on farm subsidies, who enjoys showing off his ivy league education.
Sad how this thing called the internet, has become a manufacturing venue of idiots.