Farmers who do not have a permit through no fault of their own are given ‘higher priority’ in the government’s nitrogen registration system (SSRS). Minister Christianne van der Wal (Nature and Nitrogen, VVD) has on Monday a letter to the House of Representatives let them know that they are changing the order in the SSRS and that so-called PAS reporters will be given priority.
Available nitrogen space is allocated on the basis of the national nitrogen bank. The previous cabinet decided that this space would first go to housing projects and a number of infrastructure projects, such as the widening of the A27, but the current cabinet is now going back on that. According to Minister Van der Wal, the cabinet is doing this because it feels a “heavy responsibility” to solve the problems of the PAS reporters. There are more than two thousand PAS reporters in the Netherlands.
For the farmers involved, it was sufficient for the period between July 2015 and May 2019 under the Nitrogen Approach Program (PAS) to report their nitrogen load on vulnerable nature; they were exempt from a permit requirement. But after the Council of State ruled in 2019 that the approach was in conflict with the European Habitats Directive, and the farmers therefore still had to apply for a permit, they were faced with a problem. They were, in fact, illegal. The national government and provinces tried to prevent enforcement, a legalization program and a claims counter were set up.
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Available space ‘very limited’
Minister Van de Wal thinks that the problems of the PAS reporters can now be solved in part with an amendment to the law. If the amendment to the law has been approved by parliament, the first PAS notifiers should be able to use the new prioritization from October. Before the end of the summer, the minister also wants to have a picture of a number of concrete housing projects that also qualify for available nitrogen space, which she expects to be “very limited”.
This concerns nitrogen space released by the remediation of pig farms. 277 pig farmers signed an agreement with the government in which they in exchange for a grant notices to stop. PAS detectors are also given priority in the case of nitrogen space that is released by buying out so-called peak loaders – companies with a high nitrogen load on vulnerable nature areas.