The top republican in the Legislature plans to kill newly-written Iowa Environmental Protection Commission rules that would establish new air quality standards for livestock confinements. House Speaker Christopher Rants of Sioux City says, though, the rules for emission of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide go far beyond what the law permitted. Rants says the emission standards apply to every business and manufacturer, and the proposed state standards are lower for exterior air than the federal standards for interior air. He says he could be anywhere in the state and be legally allowed to breathe the air inside, but not allowed to breathe the air on the outside.Rants says “heaven forbid, if you open a bottle of Windex outside your house, you’d be in violation of the E-P-C’s proposed rules.” Rants says a House Committee will meet this morning to pass a resolution that’d nullify those rules, and he expects it to sail through the House and Senate.
