Federal wood burning rule prompts rural backlash

[Android3.14]

Federal wood burning rule prompts rural backlash

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal proposal to clean up the smoke wafting from wood-burning stoves has sparked a backlash from some rural residents, lawmakers and manufacturers who fear it could close the damper on one of the oldest ways of warming homes on cold winter days.

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And they say humans are an intelligent species...

[elleng]

1. SOME humans!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112764735

[30cal]

2. It's an attack on the blue collar working class

It's pretty damn easy to rule from a perch.

Not one of those people proposing this law go to work and struggle to pay
a gas or oil bill.

And yeah I'm one of those that struggle to make ends meet.
My stove is the only thing that keeps my house warm all winter.
I couldn't afford to heat my house with oil

[REP]

4. In California, no-burn days don't apply if burning wood is only source of heat

I don't know if this provision is in the Federal proposal, but it should be. Up where I live, many houses are heated by only woodstove or fireplace.

[ladyVet]

6. Yeah, more crap to pile on poor people, while BP gets away with spilling oil willy-nilly.

I'm all for environmental controls, and cleaning this planet up. But let's look at the big offenders and get them in line before we worry about people heating with wood.

When I was a kid, we lived in a house once that only had a fireplace for heat. We ran out of coal one winter, and we scrounged for anything that would burn. I remember taking a bucket and going along the railroad tracks behind the house, gathering the coal that fell off the trains. It's a lot better to be warm.

[Fumesucker]

3. With propane at $6.00+ a gallon I can see their point

Lots of rural communities have propane heat and as propane has soared in price lately it has become necessary to burn wood to keep from freezing to death in this unusually cold winter.

[Igel]

5. I've known families who lived on large plots of land.

They sustainably used wood from their plot to heat their house for 30 years, with the wife's mother and father using the same plot for the 30 years before that.

From their viewpoint, the fuel bill isn't "$6.00 per unit" of propane versus electricity or natural gas. It's $0/unit versus something more than that.

They also grew most of their own non-staple food, as well as chickens and sheep and the occasional cow and goat. Wheat, rice, pasta, oil, aluminum foil, even milk and cheese they bought.