The Wall Street Journal‘s Best of the Web Today often runs a group of items it calls “Bottom Stories of the Day,” which are either stories with obvious headlines (“Sun will rise in east tomorrow”) or headlines of something not happening (“World doesn’t end”).

Continuing our agriculture theme from Tuesday, this might be an example of the latter, from The Hill:

The Environmental Protection Agency said [Oct. 14] it will not tighten controls on farm dust, the latest effort to quell concerns by Republicans and others that the agency will impose new regulations on the agriculture industry.

In a letter to Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said she will soon recommend to the White House Office of Management and Budget that existing regulations governing coarse particulate matter from industrial and agricultural operations — often called farm dust — remain in place.

“Based on my consideration of the scientific record, analysis provided by EPA scientists, and advice from the Clean Air Science Advisory Council, I am prepared to impose the retention — with no revision — of the current [coarse particulate matter] standard and form when it is sent to OMB for interagency review,” said the letter, which is dated Friday, but was released [Oct. 17].

The current farm dust standards have been in place since 1987.

Jackson’s letter is intended to end longtime speculation by Republicans and some farm-state Democrats that EPA will tighten farm dust regulations. The speculation formed the basis for Republican allegations that EPA is imposing unnecessary and burdensome regulations on various industries.

But EPA has been trying to tamp down that speculation for months, insisting that the agency has no plans to tighten the regulations.

“This is a myth the administrator has debunked personally on several occasions,” EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan told The Hill in August.

It is a myth that appears to have legs, according to comments on the item. The federal Clean Air Act requires an EPA review of air quality standards, including farm dust, every five years. That apparently led to speculation that the EPA was going to tighten farm dust standards, irrespective of EPA’s denials.

(Something similar happens at the Federal Communications Commission, which has a much longer lasting rumor it seeks to dispel — that someone wants the FCC to ban religious programming on TV or radio. The rumor began with a request that the FCC “inquire into the operating practices of stations licensed to religious organizations,” a request the FCC denied in 1975. The FCC’s website says “There is no federal law that gives the FCC the authority to prohibit radio and television stations from broadcasting religious programs.”)

One comment on the farm dust story echoed the EPA line:

There has never been and will never be regulations on rural farm dust. EPA never said they were going to place rules on farm dust. The only statute/rule that discusses “rural agriculture dust” says that EPA is required to ASSESS the impact of the dust on human health and environment and must do that every five years. No further action necessary. Lots of effort spent to stop something that wasn’t happening. Sigh.

The reason why farmers might be skeptical about that comment comes in the next comment:

When a feedlot, mega dairy, chicken or pig confinement owners are willing to live and raise their family’s in the closest house next to their industrial farm they can expect everyone else to put up with it. When the farm industry starts policing them selves by preventing the industrial operations who shouldn’t even be considered farms from the doing damage to the environment we won’t need the EPA. In the mean time so we don’t go back to dumping every thing down stream we need EPA. EPA is not just sitting around thinking of ways to make life difficult for farmers, they are trying to protect us from our selves. Farmers them selves would have had less protected from chemical and bad farming practices in the past with out the oversight of EPA. Tying their hands behind their back so they are less effective does make them worthless. Our legislatures need to stop doing that.

I’ll pause while those with a farm background stop laughing over the latter comment’s assertion that government agencies don’t sit around “thinking of ways to make life difficult for farmers.” (Three letters: DNR.) Nothing in what you read there says that the EPA will never stiffen farm dust regulations, only that the EPA isn’t going to now. And at whatever future point Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives, the farm-state Democrats are likely to be overwhelmed by the enviro-wacko Democrats.

Back in the early 1990s, the state Department of Natural Resources started focusing on what euphemistically was called nonpoint source pollution — water pollution that couldn’t be traced to a single source, such as an EPA Superfund site leaking who knows what into the water. The result is this set of DNR “agricultural performance standards and manure management prohibitions”:

Agricultural performance standards

• Control cropland erosion to meet tolerable rates.
• Build, modify or abandon manure storage facilities to accepted standards.
• Divert clean runoff away from livestock and manure storage areas located near streams, rivers, lakes or areas susceptible groundwater contamination.
• Apply manure and other fertilizers according to an approved nutrient management plan.

Manure management prohibitions

• No overflow of manure storage facilities.
• No unconfined manure piles near waterbodies.
• No direct runoff from feedlots or stored manure into state waters.
• No trampled streambanks or shorelines from livestock.

When the DNR began its nonpoint source pollution efforts, someone — a DNR employee or politician, most likely — floated the trial balloon of requiring farmers to fence off bodies of water on their farmland to prevent their cattle from contributing to nonpoint source pollution. Politicians then fell all over themselves denying that farmers would be required to fence off water on their farmland. A decade later, look at what the DNR foisted on farmers, particularly the last bullet point.

Farmers who are negligent with their own farmland aren’t going to be able to make money on their farm. The irony of stiffening farm regulations is that, for those who believe “industrial farms” are the bane of our existence, stiffening farm regulations makes the growth of megafarms more likely. The larger your ag operation is, the more you are able to absorb the costs of regulations. The small farms that can’t end up selling their land to another farm, which then grows larger.

What this demonstrates is that a substantial number of Americans, some of whom  probably voted for Barack Obama in 2008, don’t trust the Obama administration or the federal government. A rumor about farm dust regulations is certainly less likely when a Republican is living in the White House. (Of course, remember that the EPA came to life during the Nixon administration.) It doesn’t help when the Obama administration regularly derides those whose points of view differ from the administration’s. (Two words: “Bitter clingers.”)

Morning coffee break update: My claim that an effort to legalize raw milk sales hadn’t been made in the current Legislature was corrected by a reader, who points at Senate Bill 108, which has been parked in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Higher Education since late May.

Food Safety News does not approve:

If raw milk doesn’t again spread some deadly pathogen around the Badger State, Wisconsin could yet clear the way for expanded sales of the unpasteurized product.
That’s because there is a new raw milk bill, Senate Bill 108, before the Wisconsin Assembly, which is one of seven state legislatures that meets year round. Just as the bill was introduced and assigned to committee, Wisconsin experienced a truly embarrassing outbreak for raw milk advocates.
Sixteen people, adults and students, who attended a June 3 potluck at a Raymond, Wisconsin elementary school were infected with Campylobacter jejuni from a local raw milk dairy. State officials nailed the local dairy as the source of the illnesses, but said because the raw milk was given to a parent for the school event — and not sold — no legal violation had occurred.
Coming so quickly after SB 108 was introduced, the latest raw milk-related outbreak just caused sponsors to lie low for a bit. No public hearing has yet been held on the new bill, which was introduced almost exactly one year after former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed a similar measure. …
With Doyle retired, Wisconsin is now governed by the Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Walker wants more “safety provisions” than are provided in the bill as written, but is inclined to sign the bill.

The cynical might see this as similar to Gov. Tommy Thompson’s promise to sign a death penalty bill if it reached his desk. You’ll note that Wisconsin still has no death penalty, since a death penalty bill never reached his desk. More recently, there is the matter of the effort to eliminate the state’s stupid anti-Indian mascot bill, which languishes in committee as well.

One big reason raw milk sales should be legalized (whether through SB 108 or the previous legislation or other legislation) is that raw milk sales are already legal in all but one state surrounding Wisconsin. Wouldn’t you prefer that Wisconsin farmers be allowed (while being regulated) to sell raw milk instead of having raw milk brought in from elsewhere?