Chalk me up as one of those who didn’t get overly excited about the dust regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency proposed under the Clean Air Act. I know that the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) worked feverishly on this issue for quite some time and warned us all about the difficulties this measure could create for rural America.

And it wasn’t that I didn’t believe NCBA, but I certainly never took the time to call my legislators either. It all seemed so absurd to me. I just couldn’t fathom how – with all the real issues we have to deal with in this country – that discing a field or hauling cows down a gravel road would be something anyone could consider a health risk.

Yes, the proposed regulations seem ludicrous to people like us who understand life in rural America. However, the people dreaming up these types of regulations aren’t stupid; they just feel they’re doing the right thing by protecting us from ourselves.

It may seem to those of us who operate in the country that these people are crazy, but it’s a grave mistake to think that way. These folks are uninformed and don’t know it; that’s a far more dangerous situation than simply being crazy, especially when they have the power to act on their ideas.