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Hasting Amendments Protecting Ag Pass House by Dan Wheat Capital Press, June 2, 2014

Amendments protecting grant recipients from buffer requirements and urging rewriting of biological opinions
have passed the House. They were authored by Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Measures to protect Central Washington agriculture from questionable buffer requirements for salmon recovery and encouraging the National Marine Fisheries Service to rewrite six biological opinions have passed the House.

HR4660, the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2015, authorizes funding for federal agencies, including the Department of Commerce, which has jurisdiction over the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The bill, with amendments by Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., passed the House with bipartisan support, 321-87, on May 30 and are headed to the Senate.

"Our farmers deserve for their federal government to take the time to develop sound policies that are based on the best available science, instead of flawed regulations that are rushed through because of expediency," Hastings said in a news release.

The National Research Council and 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have affirmed the biological opinions are baseless, he said. The bi-ops include buffers that would prohibit use of vital crop protection tools 500 to 1,000 feet from any body of water or dry stream bed, jeopardizing production on 60 percent of farmland in Washington, he said. The bi-ops put human health at risk by restricting the ability to control disease-carrying mosquito populations, he said.

The amendments prevent the federal government from imposing questionable buffers on recipients of Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Funds.

The Washington Farm Bureau issued a statement thanking Hastings for his work, saying it was in direct response to the bureau's request for help in stopping implementation of buffer requirements.