This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/keep_track by /u/rusticgorilla on 2024-03-14 11:29:09.

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Wisconsin

Wisconsin legislators are considering a bill to prohibit localities from implementing stricter animal welfare standards than the state already imposes for agricultural operations. Assembly Bill 957, passed by the House last month, would block cities and counties from more tightly regulating how farms keep, treat, kill, and dispose of livestock animals. Supporters argue that a patchwork of inconsistent regulations across the state would create “uncertainty and instability in farmers.” Opponents disagree, pointing to the environmental and health harms caused by large livestock farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), that local governments have a right to regulate.

There are CAFOs located across Wisconsin but the highest concentrations are in the eastern part of the state, with over 80 in four counties (Manitowoc, Brown, Kewaunee, and Fond du Lac) alone. Due to the high number of animals confined in small spaces, CAFOs produce immense amounts of waste and pollutants. Just one CAFO farm can produce as much raw sewage as the city of Philadelphia. But unlike human sewage treatment plants, most CAFOs do not treat animal waste products to reduce disease-causing pathogens or remove chemicals and other pollutants. Instead, this untreated waste is stored for months in anaerobic pits and then often applied to farm fields. Pollutants produced at each step contaminate the air, soil, and water of surrounding regions, leading to a “significantly higher risk” of mortality for nearby residents.

Eureka (Polk County), Wisconsin, is one of five towns that recently enacted its own permit regulation for CAFOs, requiring any new large farms to submit plans for preventing infectious diseases, air pollution, and odor, as well as for managing waste and handling dead animals. Uniquely, it also mandates that any CAFO outside of town must obtain the permit if the owners intend to spread manure within Eureka. A family who owns a dairy operation in Polk County (but not in Eureka) threatened to sue last year, arguing that the town’s ordinance requirements are illegal and need to be approved by the state.

  • Further reading: “Massive Kewaunee factory farm, DNR reach settlement on manure spreading, water monitoring,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Senate is taking up a bill passed by the House last month to shield poultry companies from lawsuits over pollution. HB 4118 would “insulate the poultry grower, integrator, and waste applicator from any private right of action” as long as they have an approved waste management plan from the state. Companies that violate the plan—by mismanaging chicken litter (waste and bedding) and contaminating the water supply, for example—would still avoid liability.

“I can’t think of another industry that has this type of immunity,” said Matt Wright, chairman of the Conservation Coalition of Oklahoma, a nonprofit that opposes the bill it calls a “license to pollute.”

“If an oil and gas company had a spill but said they at least had a plan that tried to avoid the spill, they can still be held liable.”

The poultry industry in Oklahoma has flourished in recent years, with more than 500 farms raising over 215 million chickens for consumption in 2022. These large-scale poultry farms are allowed to build near residential areas and waterways with little oversight due to the state’s industry-friendly classification: As long as a farm transports its chicken litter off site, it does not have to register as a CAFO.

Oklahoma gives numerous large industrial chicken farms an alternative registration process that doesn’t require notice to neighbors or as strict a setback requirement. Expanding poultry operations have used that alternative system to double the number of chickens raised in the state in recent years, ushering in a new wave of industrial poultry farms that many residents and environmental groups said is bringing with it increased traffic and pollution…

Residents living near the new poultry farms complain of offensive odors and debris, increased truck traffic, and contaminated well water systems. Environmental groups believe the litter from poultry farms has polluted area creeks and lakes after being sold as fertilizer to many area crop farms…Levels of enterococcus, which indicates the presence of pathogens from animal feces, have been found to be as much as 36 times higher than the state standard of 61 colonies per 100 milliliters set by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board [in an area with a high concentration of large industrial poultry farms].

Rep. David Hardin, a Republican from Stilwell, proposed HB 4118 less than a year after the state won a long-running court case against poultry industry giants Tyson, Cargill, Peterson Farms, and Simmons Foods for polluting the Illinois River. However, the case is in limbo after mediation efforts reportedly fell through.

Kansas

Legislators in Kansas are on the verge of passing two bills that boost fossil fuel reliance despite the state’s suitability for increasing solar and wind power sources.

SB 455, approved by the state Senate last month, would allow utilities to charge customers for operating and maintaining coal plants that run infrequently and may otherwise be slated for retirement. Additionally, the bill only permits coal plants to be closed for economic reasons, “not principally based on achieving environmental, social and governance goals.”

One of the bill’s main proponents in the state Legislature is Sen. Mike Thompson, who rejects the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the climate. He said the measure is a response to the Biden administration and EPA’s proposed regulations to limit power plant emissions. EPA “has been trying to implement through fiat various rules about emissions and carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, [nitrogen] oxide,” Thompson, a former television meteorologist, said on the Senate floor. “They’ve arbitrarily clamped down on this, and it’s causing coal plants all over the United States to be prematurely closed.”

The second bill, HB 2527, creates a mechanism to fund the construction of a new gas-burning power plant in the hopes of attracting investors and developers. Evergy, the largest electric utility in Kansas, proposed both HB 2527 and SB 455.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are also considering a bill to prohibit localities from banning single-use plastic bags, cups, and straws for a second time. Gov. Laura Kelly (D) vetoed similar legislation in 2022.

House Bill 2446, the most recent iteration, was proposed after the town of Lawrence banned single-use plastic bags last year. Supporters of the bill argue that businesses would be unreasonably harmed by forcing them to purchase reusable bags for use in certain towns but not others:

Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican who chairs the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee,…

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