Posted on 08/03/2011 9:16:10 AM PDT by bkopto
Tractors lumbering down country roads are as common as deer in rural Montana, but the federal government wants to place new driving regulations on farmers and ranchers.
“It’s a huge deal for us,” said John Youngberg of the Montana Farm Bureau. After years of allowing state governments to waive commercial driver’s license requirements for farmers hauling crops or driving farm equipment on public roads, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is poised to do away with the exceptions.
Regulators are suggesting that all wheat shipments be considered interstate, even when farmers making short hauls to local grain elevators aren’t crossing state lines. The change would make commercial driver’s licenses — and all the log books and medical requirements that go with them — a necessity for farmers. Some might not qualify.
(snip)
FMCSA argues that because grain will ultimately be shipped out of state, it should be regulated as an interstate product at every transportation step. Treated as a product destined to cross state lines, grain becomes federally regulated under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at billingsgazette.com ...
The Federal government, and the courts who have foisted tortured interpretations of the Commerce Clause upon us, are broken beyond belief. And these idiots who are strangling all of us are funded by OUR tax dollars. We taxpayers are underwriting our own destruction.
This agency should be eliminated, right after the BATFE and Dept. of (re)Education.
So let’s make it harder for the people whom grow your food to do their jobs?
“Growing the economy” by making businesses jump through regulatory hoops.
So the farmer whose property is cut in half by a public road with fields on one side and grain storage on the other would technically be in violation if the grain trailer is hauled from the field to the silo?
Mental illness permeates government these days.
I drove grain from the field to the elevator in town by truck and tractor when i was 12-13 years old. Do what you have to do to survive..
To hell with the lawyers. “First, we kill all the bureaucrats...”.
It is time to start ignoring the fed’s. T
The Feds must think it’s called the Kill Commerce Clause.
Let them regulate it, then let them enforce it too. When the feds start stopping farmers here in Indiana then the brown stuff is going to hit the fan big time.
Hell, I drive my tractor to work all the time when I need to work on it here, are they going to demand I get this license also, when I don’t farm? Screw them, this is enough to start shooting over.
We had a state road that went through the farm back home. They wanted us to register, insure, have all rolling equipment inspected and have plates issued for anything on the farm that had wheels.
I might consider it if and only if they require the same for bicycles
I grew up on a farm. Many summers were spent on the tractor, taking a couple wagon-loads of grain to the local Elevator; while Dad was on the combine filling another couple wagons for me to pick up and haul, on my return trip.
Now, the laws back then allowed children as young as 14 to drive a tractor on the road to town.
This law will hamstring the farmers - as it will prevent their children from contributing to the success of the farming operation. If the farmer has to HIRE someone to drive his grain to market, instead of relying upon his kids - this will drive even more farmers under.
I was driving grain trucks and machinery the week after I got my driver’s license. Most summer farm labor is under 21 and part of that is driving and moving equipment. Most states require age 21 to get a CDL.
This is stupid.
Chickens, coming hom to roost . . . baby.
I'm ambivalet on this. I hate to see more regulation, but I've also seen farmers here in GA drive farm machinery on the roads like they were total morons. Pay absolutely no attention to stop signs, and then go 30 mph below the speed limit down the middle of the road once they get in front of you. Hold up a string of 25 or 30 vehicles while going 10 mph and failing to pull over periodically to let them pass (as is required by state la here in GA).
This is all part of the plan.
Unmitigated BULL$HIT!
How can we eat our peas if the farmer can’t get them to market?
I’ve also seen farmers here in GA drive farm machinery on the roads like they were total morons. Pay absolutely no attention to stop signs, and then go 30 mph below the speed limit down the middle of the road once they get in front of you. Hold up a string of 25 or 30 vehicles while going 10 mph and failing to pull over periodically to let them pass (as is required by state la here in GA).
That is an awful lot of people for an agency that has only a few basic functions under “interstate commerce”.
Keep your equipment in good repair when crossing a state line.
Don’t drive for too long or in a unsafe manner when crossing state lines.
Don’t overload your vehicle when crossing a state line.
Unless it crosses a state line or directly related to it, it’s not “interstate”. Unfortunately the courts folded on that issue back the second Roosevelt administration.
These days breathing is “interstate commerce” for the Obama administration.
We are being funneled into a hell of tyranny.
90% of what the fedgov does is not only unconstitutional, it’s downright evil and hatefully destructive.
Why in hell is there something called the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and why the hell can it make up whatever crap it wants to and force everyone to obey it? Who died and made it god????
TMG - this type of creeping oppression - especially against the few producers left in the country - boils my blood. Pitchforks!
Properly, that is a state issue. All highways are state highways (yes all of them, including interstates and US highways, those just get federal funding under the “post roads” clause). The state sets the rules of the road. If farmers are driving in an unsafe manner the state needs to rewrite the rules for that state.
This is my only complaint. They should pull over and stop acting stupid. They aren't paying road upkeep taxes. I have no problem with slow moving farm equipment as long as they pull over periodically
Huh?
Words can mean whatever the dictatorship wants them to mean. At any given moment, they can change the meanings arbitrarily as it suits their purposes.
I don’t know who these people are.
Can you just say “Yeah yeah yeah” and go on like you have been?
Or does it take more of a smackdown?
Seems to me if its a rural area, fed presence won’t be much.
The jackasses driving the farm machinery just don't follow the laws. I don't know if they're ignorant of the laws or just too inconsiderate to care. I hate to see more regulation - just the same as anyone else, but years of following idiots driving farm machinery, almost getting killed by idiots driving farm machinery (running stop signs), and occasionally getting run on to the shoulder by idiots driving farm machinery has reduced my sympathy toward them to about zero, and I suspect that A lot of other people won't be very sympathetic to them for the same reasons.
“It was planned this way. Ohh, Mr. Soros will be sooo pleased!”
We should be really concerned that these Federal bureaucrats seem to have no fear of proposing this now.
Since the Whiskey Rebellion up until the dawn of this century the Feds have proven highly reticent to take on farmers, out of fear of taking a pitchfork up the arse.
The fact that they are no longer worried about that is very troubling indeed.
....”We taxpayers are underwriting our own destruction.”
Very true words. Especially NOW at the time of the current administration of what was OUR government.
LOL! Post of the day!
Well they better be hitting all of the mexician drivers crossing the border down south first.
And the EPA... I agree.
We could easily lop off half the federal employees, never notice, and then get down to the real decision making.
These animal control people are going rabid too.
I’m sick of what government employees think they have a right to do.
The one thing that permeates government is lack of experience in anything other than academic or government enterprises.
They don’t even know anyone who has had a job outside of academics or government.
I learned to drive on a tractor in a very big hay field...speaking of which, will this apply to garden tractors as well? Will the government decide that only people over 21 can drive mowers? (Of course, illegals would be exempt, because they get special privileges)
Something the government is never able to answer...
How did farmers get by without these for hundreds of years?
How did our nation get by without these news laws?
How did consumers get by without them?
Could we all survive just fine without them?
Of course...
This relates to the Federal Food Safety Bill passed last fall. They want control of all our food stocks one way or another.
Actually this might get interesting.
How is big brother going to treat the illegals caught driving farm equipment without all the proper federal licenses?
just like they do now.
nothing.
I see this as 1 step closer to being forced to join a Union. The will be considered truck driversand not farm workers, subject to interstate laws and their unions. I am almost sure that is the main objective.
They are going after any source of revenue they can generate on the American people....if they can’t take it by tazes they will indeed do so by regualtions.
When I moved from Ohio to Pa. I couldn’t believe the costs associated with transfering an auto driver’s license to this state! Amazing! and you pay a $30 fee for re-newal every year....
Well then change your route! No different then one we get behind school buses. Know their route and adapt yours if it troubles you so much.
32 Attorneys in all including the Dir. Litigators all— all adding cost to business. It is one thing to regulate interstate trucking. Quite another to try to say that grain taken from a field to a silo by a farmer is “eventually going to be shipped interstate” is somehow interstate when it comes off the farm. Idiocy and not defendable.
They are abusing the Commerce Clause again, as justification.
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