EPA Considers Relaxing Pollution Laws for Factory Farms

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http://ens-news.com/ens/may2003/2003-05-06-09.asp#anchor1

EPA Considers Relaxing Pollution Laws for Factory Farms

 

WASHINGTON, DC, May 6, 2003 (ENS) - Environmental groups are worried that the

Bush administration is cutting deals with the livestock and poultry industries

behind closed doors to exempt factory farms from existing pollution laws.

 

According to state and local air pollution officials that have pulled out of

negotiations to revise regulation of air pollution from large factory farms,

administration officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are

contemplating an agreement proposed by the meat industry that would shield

polluting animal factories from enforcement for Clean Air Act or Superfund

violations

Environmental groups say the confidential proposal, which was submitted by the

meat industry last summer, would provide animal factories the opportunity to

enter a " safe harbor agreement " with the Bush administration.

Larger animal factories would opt-in by consenting to possible monitoring of air

emissions and in return would receive amnesty from enforcement for Clean Air Act

or Superfund violations. The agreement would also protect smaller animal

factories, with no risk of monitoring.

" This backroom deal smells every bit as bad as the stench from these animal

factories, " said John Walke, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's

(NRDC) Clean Air Program. " It is yet another example of the Bush administration

trying to dismantle our bedrock environmental laws at the expense of public

health. "

NRDC is part of a coalition of environmental groups that sent a joint letter

Monday to EPA Administrator Christie Whitman urging the Bush administration to

neither remove animal factories from the Clean Air Act's permitting and

pollution control programs nor grant immunity to animal factories violating

federal law.

The coalition also includes the Association of Irritated Residents, Center on

Race, Poverty & the Environment, Environmental Defense, Environmental Integrity

Project, and the Sierra Club.

The proposal relies on redefining emissions from confinement buildings and

manure lagoons at feedlots as " fugitive emissions " - a definition that

effectively shields the U.S. livestock and poultry industry from the Clean Air

Act.

Large feedlots and poultry plants, often called concentrated animal feeding

operations (CAFOs), are the dominant force in American agriculture, with some of

the largest facilities with capacities exceeding one million animals.

" We are suffering from the effects of toxic emissions from local feedlots, " said

Tom Frantz, a resident of California's San Joaquin Valley and president of the

Association of Irritated Residents. " We object to federal policy devised in a

secret, back-room deal, a practice that has become all too common with the Bush

administration and its friends in polluting industries. "

EPA officials are expected to issue a decision on the air regulations later this

month.

Environmental groups have already filed a legal challenge against the Bush

administration's revisions to water pollution regulations for CAFOs, which were

issued in December 2002.

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