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Environmental groups ask EPA to target CAFOs

By Kyle K. Weldon and Jim D. Bradbury
James D. Bradbury, PLLC

In a two-page letter dated July 19, over 200 environmental groups escalated their attack on animal agriculture. Writing to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan, the environmental groups demanded that the EPA “exercise its existing statutory authority to protect communities from the harmful impacts of concentrated animal feeding operations….” Not to substantiate or give weight to the letter’s claims, this article summarizes some of the arguments and assertions made by the environmental groups.

Citing two of President Biden’s January 2021 Executive Orders ((1) Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, and (2) Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government), the letter claims that the EPA is engaging in “environmental racism” by failing to protect rural communities living near concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Specifically, the letter states that the vertically and horizontally integrated “meat production supply chain” generates as much as “one billion tons of manure each year” and degrades “air and water resources and destroys the quality of life” for communities located nearby, which are “disproportionately low-wealth and/or communities of color.”

Among the wastes created, the letter goes on to explain that CAFOs emit ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, both of which are associated with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other serious health issues. The letter cites a 2021 study that purportedly found that air pollution from “industrial livestock production” causes approximately 12,700 deaths in the U.S. each year, which is more than those caused from pollution from coal plants.

In addition to ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, the letter also addresses greenhouse gases, stating that animal agriculture, as the top source of methane emissions in the U.S., is contributing to climate change which “disproportionately affects communities of color, low-income communities, and other vulnerable populations.”

Moreover, the environmental groups complain that the EPA’s AgSTAR program, a collaborative program sponsored by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to promote the use of biogas recovery systems, has “failed to curb or, in some cases, exacerbated” air and water pollution. The letter claims that methane digesters only serve to “entrench the destructive factory farming model and marry it with the fossil fuel industry.” The environmental groups argue that the implementation of and use of methane gas from CAFO biogas recovery systems will create a “new subsidy” and only “compound the suffering of rural communities” from both pollutants from the CAFOs and fossil fuel infrastructure.

In response to the claims of pollution and climate change, the environmental groups urge the EPA to use federal law to “hold accountable the industrial livestock agribusinesses from profiting from the exploitation of environmental justice communities.” The letter says that “[m]any of our bedrock environmental protection laws – such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act – already authorize EPA to oversee emissions and discharges from CAFOs, but EPA has consistently exempted animal agriculture from standards meant to protect communities from industrial pollution.

Considering the ever-present adversarial nature of such environmental groups, continued efforts at the local, state and national level by proponents of agriculture will be critical to combat these sorts of claims. This letter, in combination with the current EPA’s interest in investigating and pursuing environmental justice initiatives, suggest that this is a concern that should be taken seriously by animal agriculture producers and organizations.

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