If you didn’t know how closely linked Buckeye State Blog is to the Ohio Democrat Party, you need to check out this post. After Jerid left the site to go chase ambulances, his former site has been basically asleep. But out of BSB’s slumber came this post from out of the blue:

So, State Sen. Steve Stivers, the GOP nominee in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District, appears to be pulling an old GOP trick: when in doubt, act like a Democrat. That’s why he is saying he has opposes construction of factory farms (called Concentrated Anmial Feeding Operations or CAFOs in bureaucratic parlance) in the 15th district. But, his track record in the Ohio Legislature tells a different story.

In 2003, Steve Stivers was a co-sponsor of House Bill 152, which limited localities right to challenge factory farms in their townships by placing all permitting authority with the state. The bill also further reduced the EPA’s power to regulate factory farms, stating that the EPA had to be able to prove the CAFO is polluting ground water before it can regulate it. This bill was passed and eventually signed into law by Gov. Taft.

CAFOs are of particular interest to Columbus because two are planned in Madison and Union counties, which would place the city downwind of the pollution they generate. Orleton Farms wants to build a factory farm housing 5,428 cattle in the watershed of Little Darby Creek in Madison County. Since factory farms can produce up to 500 million tons of animal waste each year, there is a high risk that this farm could contaminate the ecologically sensitive Little Darby Creek.

Similarly, Hi-Q Egg Farms wants to build a factory farm with 4 million chickens on 473 acres in Union County.

Steve Stivers says he opposes both projects. But his record in the State Senate indicates that’s either talking out of both sides of his mouth, or this is a flip-flop of massive proportions. What’s it gonna be, Stevey?

That seems extremely specific from blogger “Nick D”, who so far has only contributed some generic lefty posts typical of Soros-bots and sufferers of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Here is the report from the Ohio legislative services committee for this HB 152, which is the bill Nick refers to. As it turns out, the bill was passed by the legislature because of changes in the Federal Clean Water Act Rules, which became final on April 14, 2003. Afterwards, Ohio had no choice but to pass a bill so Ohio could keep it’s federal authority to run it’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program. In that legislation, no changes occurred preventing local government from regulating Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), because no prior authority existed anyway.

This is a very specific attack coordinated by far-left Mary Jo Kilroy to local farmers and others who may be opposed to CAFOs. I live in the 15th cdistrict, and fully support the creation of such farms because economic growth and increases in productivity should never be limited by the whims of special interests and environmentalist wackos. But regardless of that debate, Steve Stivers has been consistently opposed to such projects and he is certainly no flip-flopper.

If this is the best Kilroy can do to attack Steve Stivers, she is going to get her clock cleaned in November.