NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS — Calling farmers and ranchers the original environmentalist, Agriculture Commissioner Rick Perry warned against a growing burden of overregulation threatening private property rights and pitting agriculture against government.
Perry said landowners must be involved in helping government find environmental solutions that neither infringe on property rights nor saddle producers with devastation costs.
“Instead of bludgeoning those who feed us, government must take a cooperative, incentive-based stance on working with agriculture to protect natural resources,” Perry said.
Perry cited the Endangered Species Act as one example of legislation that restricts property rights and ignores private solutions to wildlife preservation. For generations, “good land management practices have provided viable habitats for many endangered species,” he said.
While recognizing the need for some government regulations, Perry said overregulation has become so extreme many producers don’t even know how to comply with the law. Others have to hire someone to do increasing amounts of government paperwork.
He said the TDA wants to work with producers and not against them - for example, by making compliance with pesticide laws clearer and easier. TDA staff will also rewrite state Right-to-Know regulations to mirror new federal WPSs as much as possible.
TDA regulations are not the only ones that must be simplified, Perry said. Air- and water-control regulations that threaten to put producers and agricultural industries out of business, must also be rewritten.
Texas Department of Agriculture
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