by Carla Klein, Ozark Chapter Director
When the gavel fell the final day of the historic 2003 Missouri General Session, Sierra Club members drew a collective sigh of relief. We had survived the session where more anti-environmental bills were introduced and moved further along in the legislative process than ever before.
We had stopped the most offensive bills form being passed into law. We had won a hard fought victory on SB 36, the “Environmental Destruction Act.” SB 36, you may remember, was the worst environmental bill introduced in years, including “no stricter than federal” language, environmental audit privilege, and unregulated dredge and fill operations in Missouri streams – just to mention a few. Yes it was a time of celebration!
The celebration unfortunately was short lived. We learned that in the final hours of the session the corporate agribusiness and their allies in the House and Senate managed to push through confusing amendments on HB 257. What began as something positive had ended up being a disastrous bill that would roll back most of the environmental and health protections we had fought so hard for in the past decade.
Under the guise of being good for the small family farmer this huge bill was pushed through without many portions of the bill being heard on the House floor or many legislators knowing what all the changes were. HB 257 in its final version removed all but the largest Corporate Animal Factories, CAFOs from regulation.
- Factory farms with up to 17,499 Hogs or 699,999 chickens could move into communities without any notification to adjacent landowners or County officials.
- County governments who have fought to protect their communities by limiting the number of these huge facilities for health reasons would loose that local control.
- Laws requiring these huge polluters to line their waste lagoons would no longer apply, leaving our groundwater and streams unprotected.
- HB 257 is in violation of the federal law 40CFR.122.23.
- Changes the definition of “point source” pollutant to exclude agricultural storm water discharges and return flows where hog and chicken waste are applied for fertilizer. This has been a major contaminant for Missouri streams and groundwater.
HB 257 was an attempt by big agribusiness to exempt highly polluting facilities from any regulations that protect the environment and our communities.
Once we realized the true implications of the bill we went to work with our friends at the Missouri Rural Crisis Center and the Missouri Farmers Union,
representing real family farmers. All three organizations began contacting the Governor asking him to veto this bill. Once again our members rose to the challenge, hundreds of calls and letters helped to convince the Governor that this bill was wrong for Missouri.
The Governor vetoed the bill July 9th and once again it was cause for celebration! Every other year this would have definitely been the end of the story. However with Republicans being in charge of both the House and the Senate we knew the possibility of an override was looming in the future.
The Missouri Constitution requires that a veto session be held which gives the legislators a chance to override the Governor’s vetoes. It takes a 2/3 majority in both the House and the Senate to override the Governor’s veto. Only three override votes have been successful in the last 100 years in Missouri. The issue needs to be something that has a broad base of support for an override to occur. Of course the hot issues this year were guns and abortion.
House Republicans were really flexing their political muscle to see how many bills they could override their first veto session in control. We learned HB 257 was listed as one of the bills they had targeted for an override.
The first morning of veto session the abortion bill requiring a 24 hour waiting period and the concealed weapons bill flew right through with more than 2/3 majority votes required. They broke for lunch and came back with HB 257 to be the first bill to be considered for an override. What a nail biter! The attempt to override the Governor’s veto failed by a vote of 59 no and 96 yes, 109 votes are required for the 2/3 majority. Because the override did not happen in the House we finally put this horrible piece of legislation to rest.
Thanks to everyone who worked to get the message to their legislator that the Governor did the right thing to protect Missouri family farmers and the environment by over riding this botched up bill. I’d like to give a special thanks to Representatives Wes Shoemyer and Rick Johnson for raising concerns on the house floor. I can tell you there was more celebrating done on our third and final victory!
We won the battle but the war to protect Missouri’s environment continues to be waged everyday. It is a victory every time we see a letter to the editor talking about environmental concerns. Every time someone cares enough to write a letter make a phone call to their elected official or talks to a friend about an environmental concern it is a victory. Our greatest weapon is the truth about how important a healthy environment is to our children’s future.
When dealing with these issues on a daily basis it can be a bit wearing; knowing that we have over 9,000 members in the state of Missouri that care enough to support our work and take action at what ever level they can really helps keep us going. So, keep up the good fight because loosing is not an option.