Senate concurs with House amendments to S.124 after committee compromise on Clean Water Act language

The Vermont Senate concurred in the House proposal of amendment to S.124, an act relating to miscellaneous agricultural subjects, after committee discussions about changes tying state rulemaking to the federal Clean Water Act and language on emergency manure application.

The measure returned to the Senate with House-edited language in Section 31352 altering how the statute references the Federal Clean Water Act. Senior Senator from Rutland said the House change replaced wording that had required administration "consistent with an equivalent to the federal Clean Water Act" with wording that the state standard be "at least as stringent as the federal Clean Water Act," a shift committee members said could broaden the Secretary of Natural Resourcespowers.

Senators described the shift as changing the relevant federal requirement from a ceiling to a floor — potentially allowing state rules that are more stringent than current federal requirements. The Senate Agriculture Committee conducted a straw poll and, while some members expressed reservations, the committee majority "reluctantly" favored concurrence to avoid stalling passage of the bill this year, the senior senator from Rutland said. The Senate Natural Resources Committee reported its own straw poll supporting concurrence by a 4-0-1 vote.

Committee members also noted a House amendment addressing emergency application of manure; the committees heard from the commissioner of agriculture that the House language better reflected original intent and that provision was therefore acceptable to the department, the chair of Senate Natural Resources said.

On the Senate floor the motion to concur was approved by voice vote. The Senate recorded that it "concurred with the House proposal of amendment on S.124."