Byron Dorgan: “The amendment is one I have worked on for some while. It deals with a relatively small issue with respect to the context…”

“The amendment is one I have worked on for some while. It deals with a relatively small issue with respect to the context of this bill, but a rather large issue for family farmers. Let me describe what it is. There was a justifiable effort to address issues dealing with homeland security by the Department of Transportation. They issued regulations that would regulate the shipment and transport of hazardous material in commerce in amounts that require the shipment to be placarded and also to implement security plans for that shipment. The difficulty and the problem is this. The way the Department of Transportation developed this rule, the rule will apply to family farmers, for example, who have a 120-gallon fuel service tank in the back of their pickup truck. Those farmers are not going to have a security plan for that pickup truck and for that service tank. It is perfectly logical to want to regulate for safety purposes the shipment of hazardous materials.”