On few issues is the line dividing Democrats from Republicans 100 percent pure and obvious, and the CAFO issue is not one of them. 

Democrats don’t always behave as I would have them do.  Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton (pictured), for example, is sponsoring House legislation (a companion bill to one being offered by Kit Bond) to have CAFO (Contained Animal Feeding Operation) waste declared non-toxic.  Such a law would effectively remove CAFOs from EPA oversight.

To pretend that animal waste in those concentrations isn’t toxic is horse hockey.  McDonald County, in the very southwest corner of the state, is dotted with CAFOs, and every water body in that county is on the impaired water bodies list.

But when I called Skelton’s office to ask why he is sponsoring this legislation, the aide brushed me off.  I’m not one of his constituents and “congressional courtesy” requires that I bring the matter up with my own rep–as if Lacy Clay has any notion why Skelton would initiate such a law and might be offended if Skelton’s people spoke to me.  Oh.

So I asked our resident “follow the money man” to look into Farm Bureau contributions to Bond and Skelton.  You can examine what he found here, but the bottom line is that both men have had regular contributions from the Farm Bureau. (So have Graves, Hulshof, Emerson, and Akin.  The Bureau gave no money to McCaskill, Cleaver, Carnahan, or Clay.)

Which brings us to the gray area of Claire’s stand on CAFOs.  Her website bemoans how the hog farming industry has been cornered by CAFOs and tells us:

Claire believes we need to stop giving taxpayer subsidies to CAFOs and allow for local control and oversight of CAFOs.

Since she’s not paid by the Farm Bureau, she has the good sense to stand up for family farmers.  Sort of.  At one of Claire’s recent meetings in a rural area, Day Kerr asked her if she supports the Bond/Skelton legislation.  Day tells me that Claire said she did because it would be a hardship on farmers if manure were considered toxic.  Hold on.  That’s not the point.  It isn’t a problem on small family farms, but in CAFO concentrations, it is a problem, especially when that waste is chock full of growth hormones and antibiotics. 

That position seems contradictory to what her website says, so I called to find out about it.  Called three times and left voice messages with the appropriate person.  Nada.  I guess the resounding silence is my own fault.  I made the mistake of letting the office know I’m a blogger, and they probably figure that not commenting is better than digging the hole deeper.  I figure that not commenting just makes her look inconsistent … and evasive.  Difference of opinion.

So much for our D.C. legislators.  Now we come to how Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature deal with the issue, and we’ll start with a man who is from both parties in a way:  Chris Koster.  Last spring, as a Republican, he sponsored legislation that would remove the power counties have to create zoning ordinances and health ordinances that might keep CAFOs out.  There were some sops to the other side (money for odor control and such), but the power to oversee those improvements would have remained in the hands of Farm Bureau proxies. 

Knowing that once they lost their right to zone their own counties, getting those rights back would be near impossible, rural people organized and fought S 364.  They put pressure on their Republican senators to buck the leadership.  When it became obvious that enough Republicans would join the Democrats on this issue to defeat it, the bill was withdrawn.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jeff Harris (D-Columbia) had been trying to get legislation heard that would ban CAFOs nearer than five miles to any state park, historic site or national historic landmark.  That was an exercise in butting his head against a wall. 

The Republican leadership refused to give the bill a hearing.  Next Harris tried attaching it as an amendment to appropriate bills dealing with agriculture, state parks, or tourism bills.  Every single time, though, the leadership ruled him out of order, pretending that his amendment was not “within the scope” of the bills they were attached to–which was a flaming … misrepresentation.

Harris feels that, considering the number of Republicans willing to switch sides to defeat Koster’s bill, his bill and amendments stood a good chance of passing.  The Republican leadership was simply too scared to put it to a vote.

The Democratic record on CAFOs is not, as I said, 100 percent pure.  Skelton, McCaskill, and Koster have some ‘splainin’ to do.  But on the whole, I’ll take the Democratic record on this issue over the Republicans’ record. 

One thing for sure:  it’s going to take a huge commitment from local activists to prod the legislature into staring down the forces of the Farm Bureau.