Arkansas Advocate
Permit moratorium bill passes Arkansas House
End is in sight for legislation related to a long-standing permit moratorium in the Buffalo River watershed
The Arkansas House passed a bill Tuesday that would maintain a permit moratorium for hog farms in the Buffalo River watershed, while setting out a process for future watershed-based bans to be considered by lawmakers.
Senate Bill 290 now nears the end of a long-running legislative process that began at the beginning of the session, spanning multiple amendments, before finally passing the Senate earlier this month.
The Senate will need to concur in the amendment introduced last week before SB 290 is sent to the governor’s desk.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders previously released statements saying she didn’t support any legislation that did not protect the Buffalo — a key tourism driver — but pivoted to support it last week after it was amended again.
During remarks on the House floor, Horatio Republican Rep. DeAnn Vaught, the House sponsor, apologized to her fellow members for the number of constituent communications they had received regarding the bill.
She said that the issue of the moratoriums had become “political,” instead of being based in science. Vaught added that she did not believe the original versions of the bill, which would have removed or made it easier to remove existing moratoriums, would have hurt the Buffalo River.
“Some of you asked why we didn’t exclude the Buffalo River and Lake Maumelle to begin with. My answer is because the moratorium that was put on … the Buffalo River actually made the farmer look like he had done something wrong, when science had proven he had done nothing wrong,” Vaught said.
She said the final version of SB 290 would give legislators a seat at the table for any future moratorium, adding that lawmakers had been forced out of the decision when it was made a decade ago.
“We lost a voice in the earlier fights with the Buffalo River watershed. Our voice was taken from us,” Vaught said of legislators having a say in permit moratoriums.
She added: “Farmers work hard, they are conservationists; they are environmentalists.”
The Department of Energy and Environment and the Department of Agriculture — both of which are in charge of administrative rules that currently contain the moratorium — support the bill with the latest amendments.