After reading that Farm Bureau-pushed draft bill in search of legislative supporters that would benefit C&H Hog Farms, I’ve been thinking. And yes, that is in fact responsible for the odor of burning rubber you’ve been smelling the last day or so.
Readers may recall how word had it the Farm Bureau was busy enticing lawmakers to secure two-thirds of the House and Senate who’d support a draft bill to force the matter into a special session vote.
The draft I read was clearly protective and beneficial to the controversial and misplaced factory in the Buffalo River watershed. The proposed law would invalidate the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s recent denial of an individual permit to the factory. That action was based largely on insufficient subsurface water flow studies missing from their permit application.
Still, the very concept behind such a draft was enough to make me wonder why each of us can’t have our very own state law that protects our enterprises, even when state regulatory agencies issue unfavorable rulings against us, too.
Our state’s Department of Environmental Quality (cough) denied C&H a revised individual permit after granting a one-size-fits-all general permit in 2012. The agency has allowed the factory to continue operating on that permit while it appeals the denial.
The proposed unnamed draft bill I read was signed by District 4 Rep. DeAnn Vaught, a farmer from Horatio. That version might (or might not) have made it intact to this weekend. But this attempt to change state law, supported with an intensive full-court press by the Arkansas Farm Bureau, basically said that since this facility initially received a general permit, that permit alone would be sufficient to operate forever.
In other words, the factory wouldn’t even need no stinkin’ individual permit! Don’t worry. Be happy!
A nifty lawmaking deal for one family business supported and supplied by a Brazilian meat-packer, which in the past year has found itself under criminal investigation, accused of corruption and bribing some of that country’s top public officials.
The draft bill I saw said the proposed law would apply to all factory farming, but it obviously benefits C&H itself immediately. That fact to me and other adult Arkansans exercising common sense says the very reason for even attempting to create a new law overriding the permit denial is a purely political remedy for a single factory’s plight.
To pretend otherwise would be the very definition of disingenuous.
So, back to my idea. How nice would it be to each have our very own law that protects against bothersome state rules and regulations, especially if we’ve had conflicts with a state agency?
Making us all these new laws won’t be an easy or inexpensive undertaking since I see how things work. First we’ll need a lobbying group with enough money and clout to threaten legislators who don’t comply with losing votes. There may be enough representatives and senators intimidated by the Farm Bureau, for instance, to vote that its logo must be attached to the Great Seal of Arkansas.
Among other enticements, our special-interest group will have to arrange for persuasive political contributions and fine dining at preferred restaurants (along with refreshments to ease the pains from agonizing hours of making all those individual laws).
Such a lobbying group must exist somewhere. We need one that can actually convince two-thirds of the full-grown representatives and senators in our Legislature to defend each of us from, well, the state itself. I know, sounds crazy.
I’m probably fantasizing here. And it’s probably far-fetched to believe we could even afford a “Person Bureau” to champion our own cause. Reality says none of us is a hog factory with experienced Farm Bureau and Pork Producers lobbyists already in place and rootin’ to go.
Perhaps we should open a statewide “Go Fund Us Account” on Facebook to help cover my idea. What do you think, valued readers? What’s good for protecting 6,500 swine in the Buffalo National River watershed from state agency oversight must be good for you and me, right? In the interest of truth, justice and the American way, we all have businesses and lives that need protecting.
And just thinking wishfully, this revolutionary concept in personalizing our laws to assist individuals and their businesses might even initiate a revolutionary new form of lawmaking nationwide.
Under new personalized protection laws, folks could simply invalidate pesky state regulations and requirements by simply showing that, because they once abided by them under a different set of standards, they are free from further constraints and harassment. What a great country we share with the right politicos on our side.
Like I said up top, this is only a wishful thought, amounting to little more than the aroma of a smoldering tire dump. The icy splash of harsh reality assures me, unlike a hog factory misplaced in the Buffalo National River watershed, and although we vote and supply the money for our legislators to spend, you and I will never have our very own special-interest groups.
About the pigs
Speaking of swine, what do you call a band of hog thieves? Hamburglars! What’s the favorite color of 6,500 swine in a hog factory? Ma-hog-any. What do you call pigs engaged in a tug of war? Pulled pork! What did esteemed geoscience professor and hydrologist John Van Brahana and I do when we spoke about the hog factory in Fayetteville to the Osher Lifetime Learning Institute workshop for the third consecutive year? We boared ’em senseless and hammed it up.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at [email protected].