EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson told lawmakers today that his agency is developing a proposal to exempt farms from some reporting requirements under federal toxic waste and right-to-know laws.

The agency is stepping in after Congress has rebuffed efforts to grant farms broad exemptions from environmental rules that cover waste produced on animal feedlots.

The proposed rule, which would be narrower than the languishing bills in Congress, will be released later this year, Johnson told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment.

Susan Bodine, head of the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, said the proposal would exempt farms from reporting their air emissions to first-responders and to the federal government’s National Response Center if the pollution reaches a level deemed an emergency.

“The local emergency response committees are telling us they don’t do anything with these reports,” Bodine said in an interview. “They’re not responding to manure emissions.”

Bodine said it would “reduce the burden” on first-responders and eliminate “uncertainty” on the farm industry on its reporting obligations of air emissions.