A proposal requiring Oregon farmers with more than 200 irrigated acres to report their fertilizer use to state regulators will not move forward this year.

Senate Bill 747 has succumbed to the first deadline of the 2025 legislative session, as the Senate Natural Resources Committee didn’t schedule a work session to vote on the proposal by March 21, which means it has automatically died.

Supporters insisted SB 747 wasn’t “a punitive measure” but rather meant to fill a void of data about fertilizer use in Oregon that could better inform regulatory decisions.

However, a coalition of agriculture groups and other critics argued the proposal amounted to “regulation for the sake of regulation,” as state agriculture regulators would be unable to process all the fertilizer information submitted to them.

The environmental concerns underpinning the bill relate to nitrogen and other nutrients from farm fields potentially seeping into waterways and underground aquifers, thus polluting aquatic habitats and the drinking water source of nearby communities.

“Transparency is an integral first step in addressing the issue of nitrate contamination across our state,” according to submitted testimony from the Food & Water Watch nonprofit.

The bill would have required qualifying farmers to report the type and amount of fertilizer applied to specific crops in each of their fields to the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which would rely on targeted education, technical assistance and enforcement measures to prevent excessive usage in the future.

The Oregon Farm Bureau, Oregon Association of Nurseries, Oregon Cattlemen’s Association and 18 other natural resource organizations came out against the proposal, claiming it’d impose “an expensive and impractical program” on farms that are “already over-burdened with unworkable regulations.”

Opponents of SB 747 argued that farmers have no incentive to over-apply fertilizer, in light of its expense, and claimed the ODA would require an “army” of agronomists and other experts to analyze nutrient data, as fertilizer absorption depends on crop type, soil class, weather conditions and other variables.

“Rates alone cannot determine over-application,” the coalition said in submitted testimony. “Standardized guidance on rates is not available, due to the many factors impacting nutrient needs and uptake.”

The Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit that supported SB 747, said that arguments against the proposal during a public hearing in early February came straight from “the Big Ag playbook” of deflecting blame for environmental problems.

Given that large farms have “sophisticated equipment” that monitors fertilizer applications, it “strains credulity” they don’t already keep records about such data and would be burdened by reporting it, said Amy Van Saun, senior attorney for the group.

“We hear the same refrain from representatives and Big Ag lobbyists every session: any type of regulation on this industry will kill it,” Van Saun said in submitted testimony. “This sky-will-fall scare tactic has never proven true.”