Home | Back

New Attempt to Exempt CAFO Toxics

August 16, 2007
............................

By JOLINDA BUCHANON
adniloj@earthlink.net

The bill to exempt CAFO waste (technically the toxic substances in CAFO waste, ammonia, phosphorus and hydrogen sulfide) from the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) is back again.

After failing over the last two years to attach it to appropriations bills and, more recently, the energy bill, the livestock and poultry industries and their Congressional allies are aiming to tack it on to the Farm Bill. Although the Ag Committee, which does the Farm Bill, does not have authority to address this legislation, its members are among the most ag-friendly in Congress, so this is their best shot, and they are going for it.

Please help defeat this awful legislation!

Here's what this legislation would do:

  1. CAFOs would no longer be financially responsible for cleaning up the damage their waste cause to rivers, lakes and drinking water supples. If CAFOs cause pollution, it's up to cities, states, drinking water suppliers and taxpayers to clean it up.
  2. CAFOs would no longer have to report their toxic air emissions, which can be significant.

The House passed the Farm Bill in July. The House Ag Committee, ever faithful to its corporate funders, tried to include the exemption, but Rep. Dingell (MI) forced them to take it out because it falls under the jurisdiction of his committee.

No markup date is set in the Senate, but it could start late the week of September 3.

The Ag Committees

Senators who oppose the exemption and fence sitters

The following members of the Senate Ag Committee need to know we oppose this legislation. They have not supported the exemption or are on the fence, and they are under great pressure from the livestock guys.

Harkin (IA), chair, Leahy (VT), Conrad (ND), Baucus (MT), Stabenow (MI), Salazar (C0), Brown (OH), Casey (PA), Klobuchar (MN), Lugar (IN)

Exemption supporters

The following members of the Committee support the exemption.

Lincoln (AR), the ringleader of this effort - Nelson (NE), Chambliss (GA), Roberts (KS), Coleman (MN), Crapo (ID), Thune (SD), Grassley (IA)

Senators who Would probably support the exemption

The following members have not co-sponsored the bill but would probably support it.

Cochran (MS), McConnell (KY), Graham (SC).

List of co-sponsors

If you would like to see all of the Senators who are co- sponsoring this legislation, go to:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN00807:@@@P

What You Can Do

It's especially important to weigh in if your Senator is on the Ag Committee, but all Senators need to hear from us as the Farm Bill probably will reach the Senate floor this fall.

Because of security procedures in Senate offices that adds several weeks to mail delivery time, it's best to fax your letter. You can find the fax numbers at:

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

I've attached a copy of a Clean Water Network action alert. Also attached is a model letter. If there are any questions, please contact:

Ed Hopkins
Sierra Club
408 C Street, NE
Washington DC 20002
202-675-7908 voice
202-547-6009 fax
ed.hopkins@sierraclub.org

Jolinda Buchanan
Farm Program Coordinator, Citizens Action Coalition
(812) 346-1311 office; (812) 350-4481 mobile
adniloj@earthlink.net

Clean Water Network Action Alert


Clean Water Network Action Alert
http://www.cleanwaternetwork.org/

TELL YOUR SENATORS TO OPPOSE EXEMPTING FACTORY FARMS FROM POLLUTER-PAYS AND COMMUNITY 
RIGHT-TO-KNOW LAWS

The animal factory industry wants to amend an Energy Bill (H.R. 6), currently in the Senate, 
to exempt all the wastes and air emissions from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) 
from the protections of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability 
Act (CERCLA or "Superfund") and the Community Right-to-Know Laws (EPCRA).

TAKE ACTION - CALL YOUR SENATORS TODAY

PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS TODAY AND URGE THEM TO OPPOSE ANY LEGISLATION TO EXEMPT FACTORY 
FARMS FROM CERCLA AND EPCRA. THE CURRENT EXEMPTION PROPOSAL WILL LIKELY BE OFFERED AS 
AMENDMENT NO. 1556 TO THE ENERGY BILL (H.R. 6). CALL THE CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD AT 202-224-3121 
AND ASK TO BE CONNECTED TO YOUR SENATORS' OFFICES. TELL THE RECEPTIONIST THAT YOU WOULD LIKE 
TO SPEAK WITH THE LEGISLATIVE STAFF MEMBER HANDLING ENERGY ISSUES.

TALKING POINTS:

* Please oppose the amendment to H.R. 6 or any other legislation that would exempt livestock 
and poultry operations from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and 
Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Emergency Planning Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).

* Large-scale livestock and poultry operations are often major sources of water and air 
pollution.  EPA and most states have failed to control their pollution using the Clean Water 
Act.  In 2003, when EPA published its CAFO permitting rules, it said that 29 states had 
specifically cited livestock and poultry operations as contributing to water quality 
impairments

* If large-scale CAFOs are mismanaging their manure and polluting downstream water supplies, 
they should continue to be responsible for any cleanup costs.  It's unfair to force cities and 
states to bear the costs of the livestock and poultry industry's pollution.

* Livestock and poultry operations that manage manure properly - by applying no more nutrients 
than crops can use - are already exempt from any potential liability under CERCLA and EPCRA.

* CAFOs may be exempt from CERCLA to the extent that its releases are permitted by its Clean 
Water Act permit.

* Potential CERCLA liability provides a strong incentive for factory farms to obtain a Clean 
Water Act permit, which can provide a framework to help ensure that their waste does pollute 
our waters, as well as incentives for all livestock and poutry producers to manage manure and 
other animal waste in an environmentally sound manner.
*CERCLA provides a unique safety net for cities and states to protect water resources which 
communities depend on for drinking water, recreation, and economic development.

TAKE MORE ACTION:  Please forward this alert to other groups who are concerned with 
environment health and safety issues, and to your group's members, friends, and volunteers.  
Consider sending this action alert to your list of e-activists and ask them to contact their 
Senators and Representatives, too.

Additional Background: The Clean Water Act regulations for CAFOs offer absolutely no 
protection when CAFO waste is taken away from the CAFO's land and dumped any where on the land 
to run off into surface waters. There is no federal law with adequate protection from CAFO 
pollution of groundwater sources of drinking water. EPA has spent years dragging its feet to 
avoid any effective protection from CAFO air emissions, including ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, 
and volatile organic chemicals that pollute the air and can lead to asthma and other severe 
health problems in children and adults.

In the last few years, only CERCLA and EPCRA have provided the public with tools to get an 
accounting, control and clean-up of CAFO waste. For example, Waco, Texas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma 
each experienced millions of dollars in higher drinking water treatment costs because large 
livestock and poultry operations had polluted their sources of drinking water.  Because their 
ratepayers should not have to absorb these extra treatment costs, the cities sued livestock 
and poultry operations under the CERCLA and eventually won better manure management practices. 
More recently, Oklahoma Attorney General W.A. Drew Edmondson sued large poultry companies in 
Arkansas to stop the pollution of the Illinois River Watershed and to recover cleanup costs. 
Environmental organizations in Idaho used these laws to make large-scale CAFO dairies measure 
the air pollutants and found the dairies to be major sources of air pollution.

Because of the success of these lawsuits in protecting public health and the environment and 
imposing costs for clean-up and control where they belong, the confined livestock and poultry 
industry is targeting CERCLA and EPCRA to escape responsibility for dealing with their 
pollution. Congress should reject any legislation that would reverse CERCLA's polluter-pays 
principle and exempt livestock and poultry operations from the responsibility for paying to 
clean up waters, including drinking water supplies, they pollute.

The livestock and poultry industry argues that the CERCLA and EPCRA threaten the nation's 
small family farmers with lawsuits.  But farmers who are applying manure containing nutrients 
in quantities their crops can take up are protected under the law.  CERCLA includes a specific 
exception for the "normal field application of fertilizer."  Only those factory farm operators 
who have so much manure that they have to dump it on the land to get rid of it, rather than 
use it to fertilize crops, have potential liability.  In addition, any animal feeding 
operation whose releases are covered by its Clean Water Act permit may be exempt.

If you need additional information or have further questions please email Ed Hopkins from 
Sierra Club at Ed.Hopkins@sierraclub.org  or Martha Noble of the Sustainable Agriculture 
Coalition at mnoble@sustainableagriculturecoalition.org.

Sample Fax Letter


The Honorable [name of Senator]
U.S. Senate
Washington DC 20510
VIA FACSIMILE

Dear Senator [name]:

I am writing to urge  you to oppose S. 807, which would exempt hazardous substances associated 
with livestock and poultry waste (such as phosphorus, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide) from the 
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the 
Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA).  This legislation may be attached 
to the Farm Bill.

When factory farms pollute rivers or drinking water supplies with their waste, they should 
have to pay the cost to clean up the mess.  That's what the CERCLA requires.  This legislation 
would make a radical change, allowing the livestock industry to escape financial 
responsibility and, instead, make cities, states and drinking water suppliers pay the cleanup 
bill.  Shifting the burden of cleanup from the polluter to the victim is completely unfair.  
It would remove a key incentive for factory farms to manage their waste properly and keep it 
out of our drinking water.  

In the 26-year history of CERCLA, cities and states have sued livestock operations for cleanup 
costs on only three occasions.  All of these suits have involved large operations and 
corporations, such as Tyson Foods, not small livestock farmers.  The law provides an exemption 
for the normal application of fertilizer, so a livestock operator using manure to fertilize 
crops, not simply dumping waste, would not face CERCLA liability.

This legislation would also exempt factory farms from giving the public the right-to-know 
about their toxic air emmissions. Some very large livestock operations emit as much toxic 
ammonia to the air as the nation's largest factories, and studies have shown that these 
emmissions can cause serious respiratory problems for neighbors. The EPA is in the process 
of what it describes as its most extensive study ever to determine the extent of emmissions 
from factory farms, and it makes no sense to eliminate this reporting requirement before 
that study is completed.

Factory farm lobbying organizations claim that livestock operations are already well regulated 
under the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.  That is far from accurate.  In Arkansas, which 
has the largest number of factory farms in the nation, only 3 percent of them operate under a 
Clean Water Act permit.  Ammonia emissions to the air are not even regulated under the Clean 
Air Act, and despite their significant air emissions, no factory farm in [my state] is 
regulated under federal clean air laws.

Pollution of water and air by factory farms is a serious health and environmental threat.  
This legislation takes us in the wrong direction, and we urge you to oppose it.  Thank you for 
considering our views, and we look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

St. Joe Valley Greens, South Bend, IN