Better sit down and get a cup of coffee, pull a few eggs out of the hen house and pull Betsy up for a milking before you read this. Take a deep breath and have the nitroglycerin somewhere near you!

As announced on July 28th, 2011, The federal Government via the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, an arm of the Department of Transportation, the DOT/FMCSA has new standards in the public comments stage of new regulation that would require all farmers and everyone on the farm to obtain a CDL (Commercial Drivers License) to operate any farming vehicle on Bradley County farms.

Yes, you heard it right! To drive any farming vehicle on your farm will require the driver to jump through many hoops to become a CDL approved driver and repeat those requirements every two years the same as Commercial Truck drivers do. Strenuous health physicals, drug testing, a CDL exam, driving tests and much more.

The DOT wants to reclassify farm vehicles and implement everything from tractors to cattle haulers as CMVs (Commercial Motorized Vehicles).

As a CDL “farmer” driver you would have to display DOT numbers, track mileage, track and limit hours worked, pay highway use taxes, probably higher insurance costs and maintain a Health Card, proving you are healthy enough to drive a vehicle which would require people with poor eyesight (greater than 20/40) and or diabetes to turn over their health card and stop driving or never meet the requirements to work on the farm and if you cant work the farm then……..you know!.

Long will be gone the 12 year old son or the 80 year grandpa working the farm into the wee hours of the morning or getting up before school and doing a few “driving chores.” If you aren’t old enough to drive or unfit to drive, you want be driving on the farm, at least not legally.

Just as a customary cost of doing business the farmer will probably have to assume the task of making everyone a “legal CDL” driver that works the farm. This will in turn, place a larger financial burden on the already cash strapped farmer. This cost will surely be passed on to the consumer in the form of paying more at the grocery store.

Just thinking out loud here, but after a farmer makes a sizeable investment in helping his hired help get a CDL license, what reassurance do they have they want hit the road and go drive a truck.

Legally and Constitutionally the DOT and the Federal Government should keep their grubby paws out of the states business but the fed has figured out a way around this also. The DOT plans to identify all agricultural commodities delivered to a processor as “interstate commerce” because their exists the possibility that the crop might actually leave the state.

This simple regulatory change would allow all federal agencies to override local, state and personal oversight of farms. The federal government would have full jurisdiction and the ability to micro-manage a farms day to day activities and practices.

Further thoughts on the farm should be the existing long simmering bills that would mandate the use of farmland based on a supposed importance of the environment or require the tracking of all farming inputs and activities to supposedly prevent outbreaks of diseases like e-coli. Does having the EPA in your backyard send a chill down your spine?

What can you do? The public comment period (the time you can call and gripe about it, which may or may not stop it) for these pending transportation rules changes is set to expire at the end of this month. Convenient, they gave you plenty of time, huh?

Farmers, let me warn you now!

I have been preaching about these and changes like them and how they will affect you and the new regulations that are coming your way for months now.

I have warned you that a huge property grab is coming your way in the form of the BCC 2035 Growth plan. I have written about the White House Rural Council and the multi member task forces that will eventually take your farm.

I still get the same response from most of you, “Mr Commissioner or Mayor said that will never happen or do you think we would ever vote in something like that?” The Constitution and the 10th amendment along with our forefathers warned us this would one day happen, well, that day is here. The local guys no longer have the correct answer, their authority has long been removed.

We are beyond the local level. The federal government will and can override any and all local regulations and replace it with their own and then provide oversight to make it happen. We are no longer in a wait and see pattern, we are in an implementation pattern and we have the right President in DC to pull this off. The tyranny our forefathers warned us about if we didn’t protect our republic, well its here and its happening.

Farmers are really the last bastion of Americana. You are the last of a dying breed. We need and value you. Future farmers if they have their way will be federal farmers hired by the states to run your farm the day after they over regulate your farm and take it away from you.

Only the will of the people” can stop this madness! You can go to http://www.regulations.gov and complain on the public comments section. Get busy or its going to get even uglier.

They are counting on you to stand, watch and do nothing.

Contributing Source: WXXR Channel 25 NEWS, New America website.