Desert Area Initiative--Heavy Handed Regulation

Unnecessary government regulation is one of the most serious challenges facing the farming community in the United States.

Federal agencies alone enforce over 144,000 pages of rules affecting agriculture. In addition to that, state and county agencies add their own pervasive layers of bureaucracy and mandatory regulatory compliance. Of course some of these regulations benefit farmers and society as a whole, but much of this regulatory maze does not and serves only the interests of the $3.5 billion a year environmental lobby and other activists who seem dead set on enforcing their often unscientifically supportable and radical political agendas on society.

Then comes the Borrego Springs Community Sponsor Group’s “Desert Area” initiative. This plan will impose strict new permitting requirements, create new bureaucracies of subcommittees, districts, and trusts, and lock down property rights in Borrego in the name of dubious values like keeping the sky dark, changing productive farms to “habitat,” and requiring houses to be built in “mid century” modern style.

The “Desert Area” initiative is a prime example of how uncurbed regulation can impact everyone, farmers and non-farmers alike.

Please contact County Supervisor Bill Horn and ask him to reject this ill-conceived “Desert Area” idea. Several people have asked that I include his contact information. Here it is:

Bill Horn
San Diego County Supervisor
1600 Pacific Highway, Room 335
San Diego CA 92101
1.800.852.7335
Bill.Horn@sdcounty.ca.gov