Release Date: July 9, 2006
ARLINGTON, VA – The National Milk Producers Federation today expressed its support for a new bill introduced in the Senate to clarify laws regulating industrial waste sites. At issue is whether dairy farms and other livestock operations should be governed by the same laws that were intended to address Superfund toxic waste sites.
The new bill, S. 3681, amends the so-called Superfund laws passed more than 20 years ago to affirm that those laws do not, and should not, regulate animal manure as a toxic waste.
“Manure happens on farms, and there are plenty of existing federal and state laws, including the Clean Water Act, that help ensure the nation's waterways are protected from any negative impacts from the nutrients found in animal waste,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “But Congress never intended for the CERCLA and EPRCA laws to be applied to farming, and this new legislation will help ensure that the laws remain focused on regulating and cleaning up industrial waste sites.”
The lead sponsors of the Senate bill are Republicans Pete Domenici (NM) and Larry Craig (ID), along Democratic Blanche Lincoln (AR). Already, 20 other Senators have signed onto the legislation. The Senate bill is identical to H.R. 4341, a bill introduced earlier this year in the House of Representatives, which now has 174 cosponsors.
CERCLA is the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. EPCRA is the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act. Both have been used in the recent past to regulate nutrient emissions alleged to have come from farms, including some dairy operations in Texas.
“If current trends continue, regulators and activists are going to step up their efforts to put farms out of business using these Superfund laws. The good news is that Congress created these laws, and they can also amend them to prevent the continued exploitation of them for purposes for which the laws were not intended,” Kozak said.
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