The Boondocks blog, No. 22 for the week starting April 2, 2007.
Snowmobile Trail Fund Fees Exemption Not In Budget
CAFO Permits Increased Removed from Budget
Energy looks at high energy prices and our future.
Enviroman looks at man and the environment.
Hayseeds looks at politics and life in our nation.
Individual looks at myself and how I'm changing
Outblog is all about my outdoor experiences.
Transit looks at the changing ways we get around.
Truck gives you stories and trips in my Ford Ranger.
At least for now the Senate Republicans didn't get their way on one part of the budget—Part GG of S.2109-B relating to getting an exemption for hunters and fishermen who only use their snowmobiles to get to their favorite fishing and hunting spot.
That issue isn't over for sure as Senate Republicans still want it, and while it got excluded from the budget, the issue did not go away. Without violating any priveledge on this issue, I have to say there will be further discussions on this matter and it's not clear what will happen with this in the future.
The budget resolutions in the Assembly and Senate made it clear where both houses stand on this issue—the Assembly is oppose and the Senate supports it. While the Assembly might not be perfect (remember, they have to please a lot of liberal members most of whom are less then pro-sled) most their proposals have been pretty reasonable and balanced over the years.
It looks like the dairymen and others in the budget got a reprieve, with their increase of permitting fees being removed from the budget. They were suppost to go from $50 to $150 for medium CAFOs and $50 to $500 for large CAFOs.
Some farm people grumbled about this, although on more detailed consideration it didn't seem all that offensive—as it only really applied specifically to large CAFOs as the medium fee wasn't that bad. The reality is the state needs the money to implement their medium CAFO regulations, and pay for inspectors to check on the manure handling equipment of those falling under the new regs.
That said, the whole CAFO regulation system is a bit arcaic as it requires a seperate set of DEC inspectors in the Divison of Water/CAFO section to inspect farms at random, seperate from milk quality inspectors who work the Division of Milk Quality and Dairy Services. You can understand why dairy farmers don't like this too much.
In New York medium CAFO has between 200-699 mature dairy cows or 300-999 non-dairy cattle, which is not all that uncommon on dairy farms today. A large CAFO obviously is larger then that.
Of course for those of us who are not professional farmers this doesn't make much of a difference. But for those up to knees in cow shit every day of the week, this is big news for them.
This issue as far as I know is totally off the agenda for this year. Might it come back in next year's budget? It's possible as the DEC needs more money to implement their programs, and maybe some reorganization of the program is possible.
