Legislative Involvement

Legislative Issues 

• Stopped a bill to cover or net live-haul trucks.
• Passed legislation making it illegal to discharge a weapon within 300 yards of a poultry house without permission of the owner.
• Passed the Right to Farm.
• Introduced and passed legislation that would grant sales tax exemptions on building materials, equipment and electricity used in the housing and production of poultry.
• Stopped a bill requiring all dead birds to be incinerated.
• Revised legislation requiring special stormwater management building license be obtained when building a poultry house to read, “Only if the poultry house is over an acre in size.”
• Stopped bill making it illegal to take, catch or kill a game bird that has been released from a cage.
• Passed State funding for the NPIP.
• Passed the Farm Animals & Research 
  Facilities Protection Act.
• Stopped legislation that would impose a user fee on water for all individuals, not on well water. This would amount to an increase of approximately $.50 per month per family. However, businesses such as our integrators would have been required to pay as such as $150,000 per year.
• Stopped a bill that would prohibit trucks that weigh over 24,000 lbs from operating on secondary highways.
• Stopped four separate attempts in the House version of the Appropriations Bill to repeal our sales tax exemptions including electricity, building materials, equipment, and other exempt products such as natural and LP gas.
• Stopped a bill that would require all self-propelled farm equipment (i.e. tractors, combines, etc.) to purchase liability insurance same as autos.
• Passed a bill requiring all ratites entering the state to have a certificate of health insurance indicating they are free from diseases that would affect the poultry industry.
• Introduced and Passed in the State Budget Bill $5,097,000 to build a new Clemson University diagnostic laboratory, replacing the old Pontiac facility.
• Stopped a Senate amendment that would have placed more restrictive setbacks on poultry operations.
• Passed the Confined Livestock & Poultry Regulation with as little negative impact on the poultry industry as possible
• Passed in the State Budget Bill $200,000.00+ to obtain state meat inspection for quail at no cost to the company.
• Passed legislation that would include food producers and processors as essential water users should the state be declared in extreme drought.
• Passed the Right to Farm bill that prohibits counties from passing more restrictive ordinances than the DHEC regulations for permitting of animal agriculture facilities require.
• EVERY effort is being made to keep us visible throughout the state for the betterment of your industry. We urge you to support the SCPF through dues, purchase of annual conference tickets and SCPF PAC contributions.