ANNAPOLIS, M.D., March 29, 2013 – Maryland is one step
closer to a regulatory certainty bill after the state’s Senate Education,
Health and Environmental Affairs Committee voted last week to move the legislation
to the Senate floor.
The bill (S.B. 1029) would create a voluntary program that
would allow farmers and other producers flexibility in meeting new regulatory
requirements. Participants would have to meet all local and Chesapeake Bay total
maximum daily loads (TMDLs) and adhere to Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs)
before they could become certified. Certification would last ten years.
Participating farms would also agree to submit to yearly
inspections and data collections forays by both the state’s Department of
Agriculture and third-party auditors.
Certainty program proponents say the scheme cuts down on
regulatory oversight, allowing state and local agriculture departments to make
better use of their limited funds. They say certainty programs also allow farmers
to plan ahead – if producers know they are following current best management
practices (BMPs), they can count on being in compliance for the next ten
years.
But the bill has its opponents, and with a floor debate
ahead, its future is still uncertain. Environmental groups such as the National
Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club have come out against the legislation,
accusing it of playing favorites with an industry that has proven resistant to
environmental regulation in the past.
All of Maryland pays into pollution reduction, argues Tony
Caliguri of the National Wildlife Federation’s Mid-Atlantic Center. “But our
plans could be completely upended if we start treating one single sector,
agriculture, with such favoritism,” he told the Wall
Street Journal.
Others fear that the program simply will not be popular. “On
balance, we agree with the state and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation [which has
come out in support of the bill], although we wonder if many farmers will
actually sign up for the program,” wrote the editors of Maryland’s Capital
Gazette in an editorial published last Friday.
Buddy Hance, Maryland’s Secretary of Agriculture, is
optimistic that stakeholders will come to a consensus about the bill. “I can't tell
you that everyone is happy,” Hance told Agri-Pulse
– but “we are all having conversations together.”
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