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Your hyperbole here is incorrect and unwarranted. Agricultural chemicals in the US are highly regulated. Many types of fertilizers and pesticides have been ba
by mynewwork 13y ago
Your hyperbole here is incorrect and unwarranted. Agricultural chemicals in the US are highly regulated. Many types of fertilizers and pesticides have been banned, others have restrictions on the volume and timing of their use.
The EPA has a 10 Billion dollar budget, which it uses to do massive amounts of research to help control and mitigate negative externalities. Fines and penalties for violating EPA rules are severe.
- alexqgb 13y agoSorry, but the EPA isn't nearly as formidable or effective as you make it out to mb. As recently noted in the NYT: "The Environmental Protection Agency is obliged under the Clean Water Act to monitor America’s waterways and shield them from the toxic runoff from factory farms. But the growth of that industry, and its courtroom tenacity, has far outstripped the E.P.A.’s efforts to restrict runoff from manure lagoons and feedlots. Last year, the agency meekly withdrew two proposed rules. One would have gathered basic information from all factory farms. The other proposed rule would have expanded the number of such farms required to have a national pollution discharge permit. Fewer than 60 percent do now. Then, last week, in yet another retreat, the agency announced that promised new regulations governing feedlot discharges nationally would not be forthcoming." This is an op-ed, and leads to advocacy for a particular response. But the facts it's based on are not in question, and they seriously undermine any assertions that the EPA is as effective as it needs to be. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/opinion/the-epa-backs-off-on-factory-farms.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/opinion/the-epa-backs-off-...