Committee adopts amendment, passes bill to codify state chemist fertilizer rules

Chairman Baird opened the committee’s first bill and offered Amendment No. 2 to House Bill 13‑61 to align fertilizer administrative rules with the Indiana Code and to clarify the state chemist office’s authority over certain on‑site manure storage.

The bill’s supporters told the committee the amendment was largely technical and necessary for the underlying measure to function. Josh Trenary, representing the Indiana Pork Producers and the Indiana Farm Bureau, said the change would give the state chemist authority over staged manure stockpiled at farm sites that are not regulated by IDEM and avoid a patchwork of county ordinances. “All we want to do is make it so that the state chemist office has the exact same authority over staged manure that’s stockpiled at a farm field as it would be if it were stockpiled at the production site,” Trenary said.

Kendra Leatherman, director of government relations for Purdue and speaking for the Office of the State Chemist, explained that the governor’s Executive Order 25‑17 directed administrative rules unchanged for eight years to be codified into statute. She said the underlying bill largely moves existing fertilizer rules into the Indiana Code and that, aside from specific ammonia rules anticipated to change, the amendment does not alter current regulatory requirements. “It makes it all in one location,” Leatherman said, “which is beneficial to the consumer.”

There were no sustained committee questions after the agency testimony. Representative Ellsworth moved to pass the bill as amended and the committee called the roll. The clerk reported 13 yeas, 0 nays; House Bill 13‑61 passed out of committee as amended.

The committee’s action will send the amended bill to the next stage in the legislative process, where further floor consideration may follow.