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Texas Agriculture Archive

January 3, 2003

FB says revised livestock
waste rules workable

Regulations to curb pollution from livestock waste announced by the Environmental Protection Agency "represent a reasonable approach that will help solve the problem without overburdening farmers and ranchers," the nation's largest farm organization said.

"The new rules are workable and are compatible with the environmental initiatives authorized in the 2002 farm bill," said American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman. "It is unlikely we could achieve much progress on this front if the rules are too costly for farmers to carry out or they work at cross purposes with existing environmental programs."

While Stallman said the rules "balance various interests" and "lean toward site-specific, rather than "one-size-fits-all solutions," he said Farm Bureau does have some concerns about the plan.

"We believe the land application restrictions on spreading manure and other nutrients go beyond the reach of the federal Clean Water Act," said Stallman. In addition, he said the lack of an exemption for discharges caused by rare and severe storms would be "troublesome for farmers." He also said the rules are more stringent for new poultry and hog operations than they are for other operations, which he called "inequitable."

The Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFO, regulations announced today were first proposed two years ago but were revised after more than 12,000 comments—many of them critical—were submitted to EPA. Farm Bureau had questioned the accuracy of the data used to formulate the rules, which would have expanded EPA's regulatory scope from an estimated 3,000 livestock operations to 39,000. Under the new rules, 12-15,000 operations would be covered.

"The new rules underscore the importance of maintaining and funding the water quality programs contained in the farm bill," Stallman asserted. "These programs authorize about a $1 billion a year to address problems from livestock waste but the rules announced today will achieve little if we don't go forward with the programs already in place."