08/30/06 Clean Air and Water

Clean Air and Water. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. A number of the nation`s leading farm organizations are working together in support of a bi-partisan Senate bill - S 3681. Dairy Farmers of America - the American Farm Bureau Federation - American Meat Institute - National Cattlemen`s Beef Association - National Milk Producers Federation - and the National Pork Producers Council have all come together as the Farmers for Clean Air and Water with the common goal of confirming Congress never intended to regulate animal manure under Superfund regulations. That`s why - according to Senior Vice President of Communications for National Milk Chris Galen - the coalition is supporting the legislation that would amend CERCLA and EPCRA laws - also known as Superfund laws. GALEN: This is the next step in our effort to work with Congress, both the House and the Senate to clarify that these 25 year old Superfund laws which are used to regulate industrial sites, aught not be used to regulate livestock operations including dairy farms and they aught not to be treating manure like some form of toxic waste. The Senate bill - introduced a couple of weeks before the August recess - already has 27 cosponsors. Companion legislation was introduced in the House in May. Galen says that measure has 177 cosponsors. According to Galen - that momentum toward clear definitions of environmental regulations is important to all dairy and livestock operations. GALEN: Really what's happening here is, environmentalists as well as governmental agencies are looking to use new laws to try to target and go after livestock operations of all sizes, and that's why we need to have Congress specify and clarify these laws which were meant to control industrial wastes are not meant to be applied to livestock operations. If current trends continue - Galen says regulators and activists will step up their efforts to use these Superfund laws to put farms out of business. In fact - Galen says the laws have been used to regulate nutrient emissions alleged to have come from farms. And just recently - that had a major impact on Texas dairy farmers. GALEN: The City of Waco used these Superfund laws in the past few years to go after dairies in the Bosque River Watershed and several of those dairies have gone out of business. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.