Poultry Group Opposes Bay Restoration Bill

A poultry group says Maryland Senator Ben Cardin’s Chesapeake Bay restoration bill threatens the industry. Delmarva Poultry Industry, which represents poultry farmers, processors and employees, says the bill would put Delmarva poultry farmers at a disadvantage since they would face more regulation than the rest of the country. The group supports a reauthorization of the current Chesapeake Bay program and says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency already has authority under the Clean Water Act to achieve its clean water goals for the bay. The group says the bill will hamper innovative solutions such as nutrient trading. DPI says the nutrient trading program for pollution credits in the bill, for example, would leave many bay watershed farmers without credits to trade.