Bipartisan legislation recently introduced by U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) would rollback federal standards that could add production costs and bring uncertainty to farmers.
The Fertilizer Access and Responsible Management (FARM) Act, introduced by Fischer and U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), would prevent federal standards handed down by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to regulate anhydrous ammonia, a fertilizer input.
“Farmers in Nebraska rely on fertilizer so they can provide safe food to the world,” Fischer said. “OSHA has circumvented Congress and public input by introducing new rules that will make it harder for farmers to do their job. The bipartisan bill Sen. Heitkamp and I are introducing today would protect farm families by rolling back OSHA’s unilateral decision to create harmful rules without following the law.”
OSHA issued new standards last year that would require facilities that store or transport more than 10,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia to obtain Process Safety Management Standard documentation. The standards could also force facilities to purchase new storage tanks that cost more than $70,000 each.
“We’ve heard this burdensome standard will force more than a dozen North Dakota retailers to stop selling this critical fertilizer, severely hurting farmers across the state who will need to travel much longer distances to access fertilizer and incur higher costs,” Heitkamp said. “Such sweeping and harmful actions need to be more thoroughly thought out before going into effect, and they must take into account the needs and impacts in each state. The bipartisan bill Sen. Fischer and I introduced would make sure retailers and farmers have meaningful input into the process if OSHA wants to make such major changes to existing policy.”
Under the bill, OSHA would be required to withdraw the standard and adhere to formal rulemaking when instituting future policy changes.