BOND FIELDS PROTESTS AGAINST REGULATIONS

Area agribusiness leaders leveled charges of what they called heavy- handed government regulations Thursday at a hearing sponsored by U.S. Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond at the Show Me Center.

Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, also listened to the group after his own testimony on the Republican Congress' role in cutting the regulatory bureaucracy.

Dexter farmer Charles Kruse, president of the 80,000-member Missouri Farm Bureau, called for easing government intervention in several areas, including capital gains taxes and environmental regulations.

Instead of cooperation, Kruse said, "many federal agencies seem more inclined to judge their success by counting the notches in their 'regulatory' belts to determine how many fines, lawsuits or regulatory actions have been taken to penalize farmers."

Several others echoed Kruse, including Cape Girardeau County Auditor H. Weldon Macke, who sold his farm equipment firm in 1993 because of government red tape.

"My government put me out of business," Macke said. "It hurts to say that, but it's true."

Macke said he was assaulted by regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Macke said one inspector found a can of bug spray in the back of a company truck and took two weeks to determine if it was legal or not for Macke to have it.

A longtime employee of Macke's was almost fired after an inspector found out the man, who had worked for Macke for 17 years as a truck driver with no health problems, was a diabetic.

"I actually thought he was going to throw us in jail," Macke said.

Macke was forced to enroll the driver in a special program, costing $5,000, a month of lost income, some customers, and his time.

He said regulations, including workers' compensation, insurance and mandated health care, cost his business upwards of $100,000.

Stan Petzoldt of the East Perry Lumber Co. in Frohna said "greenies" -- radical environmentalists -- are wreaking havoc with regulations in the timber industry.

Petzoldt said in the late 1980s, endangered species in the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois halted logging in the region.

"Eventually this evolved to the point where the Forest Service was spending all its time looking for endangered species instead of practicing forestry," Petzoldt said.

Petzoldt raised Bond's interest when he told of his efforts to find what the Mississippi River Heritage Corridor Study Commission is doing. The group, headed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, is examining the creation of a corridor the length of the Mississippi River with a 2-county-wide area of land on each side.

Endangered species were studied, but not farmland or timber in the area.

Petzoldt said despite coming to meetings to protest the concept, minutes of the meetings received two months later included no mention of any protest.

"Congress should cut this corridor study plan off at the knees," he said.

Bond said he would examine the issue when he returns to Washington and promised to help roll back government regulations.