Committee moves to fold S.100 into miscellaneous agriculture bill to address EPA CAFO concerns

The Vermont Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday began moving language from S.100 into its miscellaneous agriculture bill to address an EPA directive that the state take corrective action on permitting for concentrated animal feeding operations, the committee chair said.

The move is intended to make the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) the clearer lead for inspection, permitting and enforcement of point-source discharges from confined animal facilities and to make nutrient management plans used by farms more publicly accessible, according to Legislative Council counsel Mike Grady.

The issue matters because EPA accepted a petition by advocates concluding Vermont was not adequately administering its CAFO permitting program and ordered corrective actions; the committee’s work is aimed at keeping Vermont’s federal permitting delegation. "I think what you have in front of you right now is the administration's preferred option for dealing with EPA's request for corrective action," Mike Grady said.

Committee discussion focused on three main points: which waters the federal CAFO program should tie to ("waters of the United States" vs. Vermont's broader "waters of the state"); what facilities trigger CAFO permitting; and transparency and inspection authority for nutrient management plans.

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