Editor's note: For those outside of rural Pennsylvania, some background may be needed to convey the significance of this story. Over several years, various PA townships have passed anti-corporate farming ordinances and other rules to protect family farms and quality of life from giant agribusiness operations. At least two townships went a step further. In response to corporate legal attacks on these local ordinances, they passed laws constricting corporations' ability to challenge the laws by denying corporate claims to enjoy constitutional rights. Porter Township (which lies within Clarion County) was the first of these.

The ACRE law is nothing less than a state assault on citizens' right to democracy at the local level. An editorial in the Clarion News aptly summarized the problems with the ACRE bill: "Challenges to local ordinances should follow the established procedure for any law and be appealed to the proper higher court, not an elected official beholden to campaign contributors."

More background information is available from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

HARRISBURG - A bill authorizing the state attorney general to overrule local ordinances affecting farming practices was approved by the legislature and signed into law July 6 by Gov. Ed Rendell.

House Bill 1646, known as the ACRE bill, was approved by the House June 30 by a 131 to 65 vote and by the Senate July 4 by a 49 to 1 vote. The governor signed the bill July 6, the same day it reached its desk.

"This comprehensive plan not only addresses nutrient management issues, but strikes the proper balance between farmers and the communities they call home," Rendell said in announcing his approval of the bill.

As originally introduced, the bill would have set up a five-member board of appointees empowered to review local ordinances and rule them invalid if the board found them to interfere with "normal agricultural operations."

The bill was heavily amended, and the ordinance review power was placed in the hands of the state attorney general.

Proponents of the bill claim it is needed to protect family farms from municipal laws that would interfere with traditional farming practices.

Opponents say the bill unjustly strips local governments of the power to protect citizens' health, safety and welfare from factory farms owned or contracted to corporate agribusiness.

Support for the bill was led by the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, the state's largest agricultural advocacy group, but opposed by the Pennsylvania Farmers Union, the second-largest farm group. Sustainable agriculture groups and environmental groups also opposed the bill, as did, at least initially, the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors (PSATS).

Township opposition
Some members of PSATS have been unhappy with what they see as the organizations apparent reluctance to oppose the ACRE bill in spite of membership votes directing PSATS to do so.

PSATS staff did express opposition to the bill, but after the bill was amended to change enforcement from the review board concept to the attorney general's office, PSATS leadership told legislators the organization was essentially neutral, according to Tom Linzey of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF).

Linzey, an attorney and a former township supervisor, said 197 township governments adopted resolutions opposing the bill, and a group within PSATS, known as the Local Control Caucus, has long opposed the ACRE bill and similar bills introduced in the past.

Linzey said he was in the state capital building and observed PSATS officials "signal neutrality" to legislators. "That was all the signal legislators needed to feel comfortable voting for (HB 1646)."

Township government opposition was an important consideration for legislators leery of alienating local government officials, Linzey said.

Rural, suburban, family, corporate
Proponents of the bill say that the expansion of suburban developments into farming regions has led some townships to adopt ordinances restrict traditional farming practices to placate suburbanites unused to living near farms. These ordinances threaten the continued viability of family farms, proponents say.

Proponents say they object to ordinances which bar roadside produce sales or set unreasonable set-back rules for farm structures.

But opponents say rural townships are not trying to favor new neighbors over family farms, but to protect citizens against factory farms and other undesirable corporate farming practices.

In much of rural Pennsylvania , non-farmers have long lived next to farms and have no objections to traditional farming practices, including the normal use of manure. Rural citizens do object to farm practices such as factory farms and sewage sludge spreading, which are more offensive and not traditional at all, opponents say.

At one point, the bill was amended to allow ordinances regulating concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as factory farms, but that amendment was later removed.

The bill does not apply to local ordinances regulating the use of sewage sludge as fertilizer.

An amendment in the final version bars local ordinances that restrict the kind of ownership of agricultural operations, particularly ordinances that bar or restrict corporate ownership of farms.

Some municipalities have adopted or considered ordinances barring corporate ownership as a way of discouraging factory farms.

Crafting the legislation
ACRE and similar legislation has been under consideration for some years; a similar bill was vetoed by Rendell because it was made part of a crime bill; the state constitution bars bills addressing unrelated topics in the same legislation.

But Rendell expressed support for the ACRE concept and has consistently backed HB 1646.

"The crafting of this bill brought all parties to the table and, coupled with new Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Department of Agriculture regulations, it forms a package that responds to the concerns of both the agricultural and environmental communities," Rendell said.

But Linzey disagrees that all parties took part in developing the bill. "That's bull, absolute bull," he said. Family farm groups were not invited to take part in discussions, he said, and while PSATS took part, its leadership did not adequately represent the wishes of the organization's membership.

Local control
One basis of opposition to the bill was the power of an un-elected board to overrule ordinances approved by elected local government officials.

The final version of HB 1646 puts that power in the hands of the elected attorney general, but Linzey says that change was no improvement.

"It's worse than it started," he said, because now only one person makes the decision to sue township governments, and because township governments, with limited legal resources and funding, must defend their ordinances against the state attorney general's office.

In the approved version of the bill, the attorney general would ask a Commonwealth Court Judge to rule on a local ordinance. The court would appoint a "special master" to study the issue and deliver an opinion, and the judge would make a ruling based on that opinion.

The judge may call hearings on the matter, but Linzey notes the use of the word "may" in the bill means hearings and trials are not required.

Linzey said the ACRE legislation "comes awfully close" to violating the state constitution, though more study is needed to see if it would be unconstitutional.

"There may be some separation of power issues," he said. "We have the legislature screwing around with the executive and judicial branches."

Votes for and against
Local legislator Fred McIlhattan was one of ten Republicans to vote against the bill; 97 Republican state representatives, including all other Republican legislators in the local region, voted for the bill. Democratic state representatives opposed the bill 59 to 37, in spite of heavy support by Gov. Rendell and the state secretaries of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Dennis Wolfe and Katherine McGinty.

Linzey said he and his organization met with McIlhattan a couple times and the legislator did not like the ACRE bill.

"Fred McIlhattan was opposed to the end," Linzey said. "He was one of the few Republicans to vote against it."

The ten Republican no votes were likely cast because the bill goes against long-held Republican values of supporting local control and opposing excessive government. "The idea that townships must seek permission (to adopt ordinances) from a state official rubbed some Republicans the wrong way," Linzey said

© 2005 The Clarion News

Go to Home Page