Usually it’s Democrats that are pushing radical ideas. But this state is turning heads.
Because they made a gross move that no Republican was expecting.
Oklahoma Edges Closer to Legalizing Human Composting — And Not Everyone Is On Board
The Oklahoma State House voted Tuesday to advance HB 3660, a bipartisan bill that would legalize the use of decomposed human remains as agricultural soil fertilizer. The measure passed 59-37, with a majority of Republicans joining Democrats in support — a vote that has drawn sharp criticism from some of the state’s own lawmakers and raised uncomfortable questions about where exactly Oklahoma is headed.
A “Blue State” Trend Creeping Into Red Country
Under HB 3660, so-called “natural organic reduction” — a softer industry term for grinding and decomposing human corpses into usable soil — would be classified as a legal form of cremation in Oklahoma. Supporters of the bill include its Republican sponsors, Rep. Eddy Dempsey and Sen. Casey Murdock, both farmers from rural districts, along with Republican House Speaker Kyle Hilbert. Yet the optics trouble some of their colleagues considerably.
“Today the House advanced HB3660, a bill to legalize the use of composted human bodies as fertilizer. If this bill is put into law, Oklahoma joins 14 BLUE states that have legalized this process,” Republican State Rep. Jim Shaw posted to X following the vote. “So, instead of outlawing this type of practice outright, we’re on track to take the use of humanure as fertilizer another disgusting step forward.”
Forty-three of 81 House Republicans voted yes, while 36 Republicans and just one Democrat — Rep. Mickey Dollens — voted against the measure.
A Tense Exchange on the House Floor
Before the vote, Rep. Shaw confronted the bill’s sponsor directly, and the exchange — which Shaw shared on social media — didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the process.
“I just gotta ask, do you really believe that human remains, or even my favorite subject, human poop, are okay as compost or fertilizer? Do you really believe that?” Shaw asked Rep. Dempsey on the floor. “In this situation, yes,” Dempsey replied, followed by a few seconds of silence.
For Shaw, who represents a rural district where the issue hits close to home, it was more than a rhetorical sparring match.
A Pattern of Failed Pushback
What makes the vote especially galling to Shaw is that it comes on the heels of his repeated — and repeatedly defeated — efforts to move Oklahoma in the opposite direction. He has twice tried to ban the application of biosolids as fertilizer on Oklahoma farmland, only to be turned away.
“They’ve been spreading ‘humanure’ aka biosolids on Oklahoma farmland for decades. This bill is throwing in composted human remains to be used as fertilizer,” Shaw wrote online. “I’ve proposed a bill two sessions in a row to ban the application of biosolids as fertilizer in our state and it has been killed outright. This bill would take that practice to another level. It’s disturbing to say the least.”
Shaw expanded on his frustration in an interview: “That’s a major issue in my area within Oklahoma. And I presented legislation the last two sessions in a row, and they failed every year. And so now we’re looking at this piece of legislation from Rep. Dempsey on human composting, and the majority of my colleagues in the Oklahoma House being in favor of essentially turning up and baking human bodies into soil.”
The bill now heads to the state Senate, where it will need to pass before reaching the governor’s desk.
