After California residents voted to tighten the regulations on poultry farms to avoid animal cruelty, Idaho’s senate is preparing for a large expansion of the state’s own poultry industry.

The Senate has passed a bill that restricts the size of poultry farms on the grounds of what impact it will have on the environment. Idaho leaders feel that many poultry farms will relocate from California to avoid the new law.

Senator Tim Corder (R-Mountain Home) and the chairman of the Senate Agricultural Affairs Committee proposed a 40-page bill on March 16. The bill asked that the poultry and swine regulations be moved from the Department of Environmental Quality and placed under the Idaho State Department of Agriculture.

As we go forward in these times, we find more and more groups that are critical of the state’s management of water quality and air quality, and we want to provide some assurances that we’re serious about that as a state and not only that, but the industry’s serious,” Corder said at Tuesday’s hearing

The bill puts a limit on the size of the farm, the permits allowed per poultry farm and groups the various operations across the state by size.

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