Bill would exempt dairies from air-quality laws

GOODING, Idaho – As the Idaho Conservation League fights to force dairies to submit air quality reports, U.S. Sen. Larry Craig is fighting to make sure the agricultural operations are exempt.

Craig, R-Idaho, is planning to introduce legislation that would exempt dairies from air quality laws under the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. The laws require polluters to report their air emissions.

Craig contends the laws, which were passed in the 1970s, were not meant to include livestock operations, his spokesman Mike Tracy said.

“There are those in the environmental community who would like to use every federal law that is out there to regulate agricultural livestock operations with so many layers of rules and laws that they put them out of business,” Tracy said.

Craig’s proposed amendment comes at the same time as a court case pitting the Idaho Conservation League against K&W Dairy. The conservation organization claims the manure and urine produced at the dairy sends enough ammonia and hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere to require a permit.

The Idaho Conservation League has had success with similar efforts. Last year, the group threatened to sue Desert Rose Farms operator Hank Hafliger to get him to report air emissions at his 8,800-cow dairy in Filer. Hafliger agreed to the reports, according to the Conservation League, making his dairy one of the first dairies to report toxic emissions in a federal registry.

But Bob Naerebout, director of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, said the registry laws were meant to address smoke-stack polluters, not livestock operations.

Craig’s amendment to the laws would exclude emissions produced through biological processes – including those produced by a cow’s digestion or the through the breakdown of manure.

The federal Clean Air Act and state and local regulations are already sufficient to take care of livestock operations, Craig’s spokesman said.

“They give regulators what they need to get the job done,” Tracy said.

But the Conservation League claims Craig’s proposal could have implications beyond just dairies.