From:
Defenders of Wildlife
Rural Updates!
March 14, 2003

URGENT ACTION: PROTECT FUNDS FOR THE CSP

Senate Budget Committee this week passed an amendment by
Senator Grassley (R-IA), instructing the Department of Agriculture
to enact a strict payment limit law at $300,000 max per farm,
saving $1.4 billion annually.  Under Grassley's proposal this money
would be transferred to the new Conservation Security Program
widely heralded as an innovative new working lands farm
conservation program.   The amendment closes loopholes:
payments made as generic certificates are brought under the limits,
and large farms could not exceed these limits by dividing into
several corporations.  There is certain to be an attack on the
Grassley amendment when the Senate Budget Committee
resolution goes to the floor next week.  Please take a moment
TODAY to call your senators and ask them to support the Grassley
provision that enacts solid payment limitations and uses the savings
to restore funding to the Conservation Security Program.  The
Capital Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.  Calls are especially
needed from the following states: California, Colorado, Idaho,
Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, Washington and Wyoming.

Please call Senator Grassley to thank him for introducing this amendment.
202-224-3121

ENVIROS SUE OVER CAFO RULE

The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the
Waterkeepers' Alliance filed suit last week challenging the EPA's
rule on confined animal feeding operations.  The groups contend
that the rule, finalized by the EPA last December, violates the Clean
Water Act by allowing large-scale farms to pollute waterways with
animal waste.  Under the rule, which has dramatically weakened
since its original drafting during the Clinton administration, large
animal factories would be allowed to continue to dump millions of
gallons of liquefied manure into open lagoons, and then spray the
liquid over fields.  The rule exempts from the Clean Water Act the
polluted runoff that typically results from these practices by calling
it "agricultural stormwater." The new rule also allows CAFOs to
write their own nutrient management plans without public input or
agency oversight, and fails to mandate monitoring of waste seepage
into groundwater supplies.  Not everyone thinks the new rule is too
weak, however -- the American Farm Bureau Federation and the
National Chicken Council have filed suits "questioning the EPA's
authority to require pollution permits."

For more information, visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2003/2003-03-10-10.asp

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