The Environmental Protection Agency Monday afternoon announced what it calls new protections for farmworkers. The EPA says the new standards will give farmworkers health protections under the law similar to those already afforded to workers in other industries. The American Farm Bureau Federation though has concerns over the regulations that will be published in the Federal Register within the next 60 days. Farm Bureau’s Paul Schlegal said that Farm Bureau shares the desire to protect workers, but that “we are concerned that the agency is piling regulatory cost on farmers and rancher that bear little if any relation to actual safety issues.” The new rules will include annual safety training and that children under the age of 18 are prohibited from handling pesticides. AFBF filed extensive comments on the proposal more than a year ago. Then, as now, AFBF said EPA itself could not justify the regulation it was proposing.