What does BBB want? It is the question occupying The Hague after the party's monster victory. BBB expects a lot from innovation in the agricultural sector, an accelerated halving of nitrogen emissions by 2030 is unnecessary, compulsory buy-out of farmers a no-go and in the long run the party wants to halve the number of Natura 2000 areas. https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/biodiversity/natura-2000 Ambitions and plans enough, for which the party has also already made a concrete proposal: together with JA21, at the end of last year the party came up with the own-initiative memorandum "Fast track out of the nitrogen crisis. Will the Netherlands get out of the lock step quickly with these plans? And what about the legal possibilities? Nieuwsuur puts the three concrete legislative changes to three experts: Nitrogen Professor Jan Willem Erisman, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Systems Analysis Leen Hordijk and lawyer administrative and environmental law Christine Visser. The limit now used to determine how much nitrogen nature can handle, known as the critical deposition value, is too much of a goal. **From the initiative note of BBB/JA21.** Jan Willem Erisman: "The critical deposition value can indeed be removed from the law. That is possible, but then there has to be an alternative that allows you to implement policy and meet European obligations. There are so many sectors that contribute to nitrogen precipitation: agriculture, industry and foreign countries. You want to bring that all down with policy, but then you have to have some measure of the carrying capacity of nature". Christine Visser: "Removing that value from the law does not broaden the possibilities. It does not in itself ensure that nature areas will be in a better state, which is necessary to solve the nitrogen problem". Leen Hordijk: "The calculation method is actually scientifically irresponsible. We don't know very accurately how many emissions there are from farms or from Tata Steel, for example. The precision you need for a hectare of land cannot be provided by the model". The threshold of 0.005 mol per hectare per year is too strict and should be increased to 1 mol per hectare per year, provided the nitrogen deposition in the area has decreased in the last 12 months. Leen Hordijk: "I think this is a good step from the point of view of precision in the calculations. If at the same time government policy in another way - with standards and emission limitations - ensures that the total goes down". Jan Willem Erisman: "You could compare it to a bucket of water filled to the brim with water, in this case nitrogen. Every little drop you add makes that bucket overflow. First you have to make sure that you can empty some of the bucket, so that you have room again to slowly but surely add some drops. Then it comes down to: how far can you empty the bucket? That has to be substantial, if you want to allow the 'drops' again. The level has to stay the same". Christine Visser: "I am in favor of introducing a threshold. Only that is not legally tenable at the moment. We tried that with the Program Approach to Nitrogen (PAS). Of that, the judge said: as long as it is not guaranteed that nature will be in a good state, and you have actually devised the measures for that, until then you cannot set a threshold value". The term "nitrogen" should be replaced with "ammonia and nitrogen", with the latter referring to nitrogen oxides (NOx). Nitrogen monoxide (NOx) is a gas produced by combustion processes. Ammonia is what is mainly emitted by agriculture and can deposit as nitrogen on nature. Nitrogen oxides come mainly from industry. BBB wants a clearer distinction between the two. Jan Willem Erisman: "You shouldn't make agriculture responsible for foreign policy or industrial policy. You can separate policy better this way. So I think it's a good way: this way everyone becomes responsible for their own reduction. Agriculture has to bring its own reduction down first, before they are allowed to add another small contribution to nitrogen deposition". Christine Visser: "I don't quite see in the paper itself what kind of solving effect that will have. It is correct that these two substances have different effects, including for dispersion. But including a distinction for that in the law adds nothing". Leen Hordijk: "It's complicated: on the one hand it's about ammonia and nitrogen. Those are two different sectors. I can imagine that it is difficult to legislate with that. If the Chamber were to decide to follow some of the BBB's proposals, they would still have a big job". **Quality of nature.** The promise of BBB and JA21 to get out of the nitrogen crisis "quickly" does not seem to be working with these plans, according to the experts. "They don't solve the problem themselves. Setting a threshold could lead to us issuing permits in the short term that will all go under afterwards if a judge says they violate European rules. Then we are further from home", Visser says. "As long as you don't have a successful nitrogen policy that actually shows a reduction, you can't go to more nitrogen" says Erisman. We are now looking at whether it is possible to remove the critical deposition value (the amount of nitrogen before damage occurs to nature) from the law. Whether we can then still guarantee to the European Union that we maintain the quality of that nature. https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2467981-stikstofplannen-bbb-halen-nederland-niet-snel-van-het-slot