BOISE - For the second consecutive year, the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee approved a bill that would allow people living more than a mile from a proposed confined animal feeding operation to testify in permit hearings.

The bill, which heads to the full Senate, amends an old law and permits public testimony from "affected persons," which would include nearby businesses, school districts or people with secondary residences. Current law provides only for primary homeowners, but counties can change the terms themselves.

Last year, the Senate passed the same bill - with CAFO disputes in Jerome County named as thedriving force - but thebill languished in aHouse Committee.

The one-mile dispute emerged at its strongest point in November when the commissioners denied a feedlot application made by Big Sky Limited Partnership.

"If it's going to affect our way of life, why shouldn't we have the right to testify?" Jerome County resident Dean Dimond told the committee Thursday. Dimond was one of the strongest supporters of allowing written testimony because his father owned property near the Big Sky site, but lived more than a mile from it and could only provide limited testimony.

Thursday's committee work bore little resemblance to last year's two-hour hearing that had to be held in a large conference room to accommodate a crowd that included almost a dozen people who testified. Instead, only four people testified, none in opposition.

"I think everyone knew what the outcome was going to be ahead of time so they kept the testimony short," Committee Chairman Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, said after the meeting. The bill is expected to pass the Senate.

The only opposing vote was Sen. Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton, an elk rancher who last year was one of four senators to oppose the bill on the Senate floor. He said the issue should be settled by counties, and that a better bill would include the entire public, not just "affected" people. He cited rules the Legislature often adopts during crowded hearings, such as time limits.

"Do you have a better way to give the testimony?" he asked. "Do you just let the meeting run all the rest of the evening and into the next morning and just keep going until everybody has said everything they want to say or do you somehow limit it?

Siddoway recently said he helped kill last year's bill in the House with Rep. Lenore Barrett, R-Challis. Barrett could not be reached for comment Thursday

After the bill failed to get a hearing last year, Jerome County allowed oral testimony from people living farther than one mile of proposed CAFOs but has not allowed written testimony, despite promises to do so more than eight months ago.

Senate Minority Leader Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum, the bill's sponsor, said that he's hopeful the bill will receive a hearing in the House once it passes the Senate.

"To me it's not constitutional. And it's certainly un-American," he said after the meeting. "We're going to keep bringing it until this aberration in Idaho code goes away."

Jared S. Hopkins may be reached at 420-8371 or jhopkins@magicvalley.com.