LINCOLN, Neb. — Reports of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compliance flyovers in Nebraska, Iowa and maybe elsewhere have people feeling a little paranoid. Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) talked about it late last month to a local radio station.

“They will fly a feedlot or series of feedlots in northeast Nebraska. Apparently the purpose is to see if there’s compliance with the Clean Water Act,” Johanns said. “They will shoot pictures from the air. If they see a problem, it will be followed up with any kind of enforcement action they have the power to do.

“Do they have the power to do this? If they don’t have the power, that raises all kinds of issues about privacy, because they are shooting pictures of your operation. Obviously, they can get a picture of how many cattle you have out there, and this and that. At some point that could become a public record, so I just think there’s a whole lot going on here that makes me feel uncomfortable …

“I tell you, EPA has no trust out there in the country and I think this is going to get people fired up. It certainly concerns me. Producers are justifiably concerned, and you know, I want to know under what authority they think they can do this,” he said.

Johanns might have found out about the flyovers from a concerned farmer who was informed about an EPA compliance flyover from the agency itself, according to Paul Donahue, press secretary for Johanns in Washington, D.C. But the information so far on the nature and extent of the program is sketchy, which is part of the problem from Johanns’ perspective, as well as for other members of the Nebraska Congressional delegation.

On May 29 they sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson asking various questions about the program. Johanns was dissatisfied with the EPA’s answers.

“He just feels that some of the answers are inadequate,” Donahue said. “They’re not comprehensive enough. They’ve been vague about the national scope of the program.”

Last week the legislators sent a second letter to Jackson asking for more information, and they told her they would not attend a closed-door meeting being held by regional EPA officials until Jackson provides a better response to the delegation’s questions.

Also last week, Johanns introduced an amendment to the 2012 proposed farm bill that would prohibit the flyovers.

“This is a trust issue, and farmers and ranchers don’t trust EPA doing low-level surveillance flights over their operations,” he said in a statement. “EPA’s surveillance program only adds to the deficit of trust this closed-door agency has earned of late. It’s past time for Congress to put an end to EPA’s use of aerial surveillance.”

Donahue said there are about 200 amendments to the farm bill, altogether. “Right now it’s up to Majority Leader (Harry, D-Nev.) Reid,” he added. “He has it and we hope he acts on it. We’ve received multiple comments from constituents; I think people are concerned about it.”

Last week the EPA Region 7 office – which includes Nebraska – issued the following statement to Farm World’s request for a comment: “Any reports of EPA using unmanned aircraft, or drones, are wrong. The only aircraft EPA has used to verify compliance with environmental laws are manned aircraft – i.e. planes with pilots – which have been used, in full knowledge of the states where the aircraft may be deployed, for nearly a decade, including by the previous administration.

“EPA and other state and federal agencies also use aircraft for responding to emergencies such as chemical releases or to assess environmental disasters. Aerial over-flights are a cost-effective tool that helps the agency and our state partners minimize costs and reduce the number of on-site inspections across the country as the agency focuses on areas of the greatest concern.

“For animal feeding operations, EPA uses over-flights, state records and other publicly available sources of information to identify discharges of pollution. In no case has EPA taken an enforcement action solely on the basis of these over-flights,” it concluded.