State Sen. Steve Stivers, the Republican candidate for a central Ohio congressional seat, misrepresented a bill that he co-sponsored in 2003 dealing with the ability of counties and townships to regulate egg farms, dairies and the like, his opponent said today....
....On the egg farm issue, her (Kilroy's) campaign today accused Stivers of misrepresenting a 2003 bill he co-sponsored that weakened the ability of local governments to regulate livestock, egg and dairy operations. The Kilroy campaign cited comments Stivers made to a Marysville newspaper, in which the state senator said local governments were stripped of their regulatory powers in 2000, before he took office.
Stivers was referring to a bill that requires the farm operators to get written statements from local officials about improvements to infrastructure that would be made to accommodate the farming operation. That bill, however, puts the permitting and regulating of such operations in the purview of the state, not counties and townships....
Stivers just refuses to take ownership and responsibility for the bill he co-sponsored. Isn't that just incredible?If you are interested in reading more about the problems that arise from factory farms, here a something from the NRDC:
Giant livestock farms, which can house hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens, or cows, produce vast amounts of waste -- often generating the waste equivalent of a small city. While a problem of this nature -- and scale -- sounds almost comical, pollution from livestock farms seriously threatens humans, fish and ecosystems. Below are facts and statistics that tell the story.....
....Runoff of chicken and hog waste from factory farms in Maryland and North Carolina is believed to have contributed to outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, killing millions of fish and causing skin irritation, short-term memory loss and other cognitive problems in local people....