EPA to Regulate Dairy Milk Spills as per Oil Spills « Hot Air

EPA to Regulate Dairy Milk Spills as per Oil Spills
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posted at 12:15 pm on February 5, 2011 by Jazz Shaw
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No, it’s not a headline from The Onion. It appears to be real. The Wall Street Journal editorial board provides the details:

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.

Thank God the EPA has finally stepped in and realized the critical milk spill dangers which have been plaguing this nation since its inception. Fortunately for many of our younger readers, you don’t recall how it was in the bad old days before the EPA came into its full powers. Why, in our day, my own mother used to feed us hot dogs that were boiled in water rather than being cooked on an open flame. And – prepare yourselves – she would dump the hot dog water right down the sink.

I can only imagine the number of harmless carp in the Erie Canal and Hudson River who died at this woman’s hands.

The EPA clearly has far too much time on its hands. We’re looking to cut costs. This is a hint, Washington. You don’t need to get rid of the agency entirely, but a rapid, sharply focused review of the mission and the resource requirements should clearly be in order after this. I’m sure we can trim more than a bit of fat here.