Proposed bill exempts American farmers from federal emissions reporting

Mar 20, 2018

National Pork Producers Council welcomes bipartisan bill

By Kate Ayers
Staff Writer
Farms.com

A bill to exempt farmers from reporting emissions to the U.S. Coast Guard was introduced in the U.S. House last Wednesday.

If passed, the bipartisan bill would exclude livestock producers from having to roughly estimate and report emissions from the natural breakdown of manure on their farms, according to a National Pork Producers (NPPC) Council release on Thursday.

Congressman Billy Long, R-Mo., and Jim Costa, D-Calif., and 85 other cosponsors supported the Agricultural Certainty for Reporting Emissions (ACRE) Act.

The act comes as a response to a rejected rule from April 2017. In that case, a U.S. Court of Appeals denied a 2008 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule that excused farmers from reporting farm emissions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, the release said.

“Livestock agriculture was exempt because the natural breakdown of manure is a ‘here-and-gone’ event. So, there is nothing to clean up, which is why EPA gave (farmers) an exemption. But last April, a court essentially overturned the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency),” Dave Warner, director of communications for NPPC, said to Farms.com yesterday.

The 2017 ruling could subject farmers to citizen lawsuits from activist groups.

“The law also has a third party right of action, meaning that an environmental group or animal rights group … can sue” farmers, Warner said.

NCCP supports the reinstatement of an emissions exemption. The current reporting protocol is unnecessary and impractical, the organization said.

“We need to have that exemption reinstated, and NPPC calls on the House and Senate to pass their respective common-sense bipartisan bills as soon as possible,” Jim Heimerl, NPPC president and Ohio pork producer, said in the release.

The original deadline to report emissions was Nov. 15, 2017. To comply with the ruling, farmers tried to phone in their emission reports but the Coast Guard’s National Response System was overwhelmed, according to the release.

“The pork industry was prepared to comply with the reporting mandate,” Heimerl said.

“But EPA, the Coast Guard and state and local emergency response authorities said they didn’t want or need the information, which could have interfered with their legitimate emergency functions.”

As a result of petitions from the EPA and motions from the NPPC, the reporting deadline has since been extended twice. The latest postponement moved it to May 1.

“Both the House and Senate bills have broad bipartisan support, so it seems like everyone recognizes (this situation) needs to be corrected,” Warner said.

UPDATED March 21, 2018

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.