Government proposed regulations - family farms

(CNSNews.com) – Labor Secretary Hilda Solis faced congressional opposition Wednesday over the Obama administration’s proposed regulations that would curtail what chores children are allowed to do on their own family’s farm.

Among other things, the Labor Department wants to bar children under age 16 from participating in the cultivation, harvest and curing of tobacco; operating almost all “power-driven” equipment; and working with animals in feed lots, grain silos, stockyards, or livestock auctions.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) told Solis that the proposed regulations would change the way family farms work, preventing farm kids from learning their parents’ trade.

“This is an issue that fundamentally alters an historic and familiar relationship [that is] so important to America and particularly important to rural America,” Moran said during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday.


Sen. Moran called the regulations "overly broad," giving a few examples:


"Regulations prohibiting a young person from working six feet off the ground mean that no child, no young person, is going to be in the cab of a tractor or a combine. And in fact, your rules suggest that a young person could not even use a power-driven screwdriver.”

Moran said in his view, “If the federal government can regulate the kind of relationship between parents and their children on their own family's farm, there is almost nothing off-limit” when it comes to government intrusion….

As proposed, the new rules would prohibit workers under age 16 from:
-- Working in feed lots, grain silos, stockyards, or livestock auctions.
-- Participating in the cultivation or harvest of tobacco.
-- Handling animals and pesticides, working in timber operations, and transporting farm product raw materials.
-- Operating “almost all power-driven equipment.”
-- Using electronic devices – including communication devices – while operating power-driven equipment.

The regulations would exempt children working on farms owned by their parents – but not children working on farms owned by other relatives. (The latter provision is being reconsidered by the Labor Department.)

More at the link http://cnsnews.com/news/article/cultivating-tobacco-harmful-farm-kids-labor-secretary-under-fire-overly-broad