[speechlesstx]

Not a joke, not an Onion headline... bureaucracy run amok.

It appears that the Environmental Protection Agency, in a story too weird to be fiction, has decided to regulate milk in the same way it does oil. In effect, milk spills will be considered just as hazardous as oil spills.

According to the Wall Street Journal, via Fuel Fix:

"Two weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that subjects dairy producers to the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure program, which was created in 1970 to prevent oil discharges in navigable waters or near shorelines. Naturally, it usually applies to oil and natural gas outfits. But the EPA has discovered that milk contains 'a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil,' as the agency put it in the Federal Register.

"In other words, the EPA thinks the next blowout may happen in rural Vermont or Wisconsin. Other dangerous pollution risks that somehow haven't made it onto the EPA docket include leaks from maple sugar taps and the vapors at Badger State breweries.

"The EPA rule requires farms — as well as places that make cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream and the like — to prepare and implement an emergency management plan in the event of a milk catastrophe. Among dozens of requirements, farmers must train first responders in cleanup protocol and build 'containment facilities' such as dikes or berms to mitigate offshore dairy slicks.

"These plans must be in place by November, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is even running a $3 million program 'to help farmers and ranchers comply with on-farm oil spill regulations.' You cannot make this stuff up."

Of course this makes sense since the U.S. has been plagued by catastrophic milk spills since colonial days when the founding fathers enjoyed and served ice cream.

The problem was exacerbated when someone had the dangerous idea of throwing a brick of Velveeta in a crock pot with a can of Rotel tomatoes on Super Bowl Sunday and serving it with chips.

Really?? What's next, scrubbers for fart fans?

[smoothy]

Strange they (the EPA) have managed to overlook their own feces laden emissions thus far.

[excon]

bureaucracy run amok

Hello Steve:

I'm a small government guy too, but I couldn't look myself in the mirror, if I only carped about the humongous government programs I DIDN'T like. For example, I don't hear you complaining about the NSA reading this very post... THAT kind of bureaucratic amok running doesn't bother you at all.

excon

[tomder55]

Meanwhile Congress mandated that we light our homes with mercury filled CFL bulbs.

[paraclete]

There must be unemployment where you live, since someone has decided to implement make work programs, is this the latest unemployment initiative?

[speechlesstx]

Perhaps the EPA is taking cues from the Navy and just throwing money and resources at 'whatever.'



I expect to be receiving bid requests from the feds for some thingamajigs, doohickeys and whatchamacallits any day now. And in the spirit of 'recovery' I'll bid.