Legal Petition Challenges EPA Inaction on Factory Farm Air Pollution

Washington, DC – As President Biden continues to pledge his government to address the climate crisis and protect the air we breathe from industrial polluters, 24 advocacy groups are demanding that Biden’s EPA deliver on that promise by doing more to protect communities from factory farming. Today, the groups petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urging them to enforce federal air pollution laws against these major polluters, which the agency has refused for nearly two decades.

Over 16 years ago, the George W. Bush administration announced an agreement and final arrangement that it had secretly negotiated with the National Pork Producers Council. The EPA has agreed to refrain from enforcing key air pollution control and disclosure laws such as the Clean Air Act against all animal feed companies (AFO) that have signed up for the agreement. In return, the participating AFOs agreed to pay a small fine to fund a nationwide air monitoring program designed to help the EPA develop more accurate methods of air emissions estimation (EEMs) for AFOs. The methods should enable EPA and citizens to calculate pollution on factory farms and begin enforcing air pollution laws.

Almost 14,000 AFOs signed this sweetheart deal, known as the Air Consent Agreement, which, on its own terms, should have been closed in 2010. However, due in part to the fundamentally flawed way in which EPA has designed, operated and used data collected from the air surveillance study, the Agency has not yet established methodologies or terminated the air licensing agreement.

As a result of the EPA’s lengthy delay, thousands of the country’s largest AFOs continue to enjoy protection from EPA enforcement actions even if their air pollution emissions exceed legal limits or reporting thresholds. AFOs emit a range of deadly air pollutants such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and climate-changing methane. According to a recent study, air pollution from the livestock industry is responsible for over 12,700 deaths a year – more deaths than are attributed to coal-fired power plants.

Given the serious and unregulated public health effects of AFO air pollution, stakeholders are calling on EPA to end their “unacceptable breach of duty” by terminating the Air Consent Agreement and taking all measures consistent with President Biden’s orders to enforce applicable air pollution laws against AFOs.

Applicants include: Animal Legal Defense Fund, Buffalo River Watershed Alliance (Arkansas), Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Clean Water for North Carolina (North Carolina), Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment (California), Earthjustice, Environmental Integrity Project, Farm Aid, Friends of the Earth, Friends of Family Farmers (Oregon), Friends of Toppenish Creek (Washington), Food Animal Concerns Trust, Food & Water Watch, Government Accountability Project, Humane Society of the United States , Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa), Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, Johns Hopkins Center for a Liveable Future, North Carolina Conservation Network (North Carolina), Public Justice, Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, Southern Environmental Law Center, and Waterkeeper Alliance.

“Air pollution from AFO not only harms human health and our environment, but also worsens the suffering of the animals that live in these facilities,” says Stephen Wells, executive director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. “This air pollution free pass is another way our federal government is subsidizing this cruel industry and helping it thrive and expand.”

“Air pollution from factory farming kills nearly 13,000 people a year, but the EPA continues to sit on their keister as the meat industry continues to pollute the air without any consequences,” said Hannah Connor, attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Multiplying the agency’s 16 year old practice of ignoring these hazardous emissions makes them complicit in likely more than 200,000 deaths and innumerable damage to the environment and wildlife. Enough is enough.”

“Communities around Oregon mega-dairies have suffered from air pollution long enough,” said Amy van Saun, Senior Pacific Northwest Attorney for the Center for Food Safety. “Nobody wants to live near these smelly and dangerous businesses, but the EPA continues to sacrifice the most marginalized people for the benefit of the industry.”

“We are simply asking the EPA to level the playing field and treat this industry just as it treats any other industry,” said Abel Russ, Senior Attorney in the Environmental Integrity Project. “We strongly support the agency’s efforts to bring science up to speed, but this process is always going on – it should never be used as an excuse to put critical environmental protection on hold. No other industry receives such special treatment. This is unfair and has serious consequences for overburdened communities across the country. ”

“The EPA has given a free pass to the pollution since 2005 when it negotiated a backroom amnesty agreement with industry that exempted it from state air pollution laws,” said Emily Miller, Human Resources Attorney at Food & Water Watch. “Since then, factory farms have been spewing dangerous air pollutants into the environment unhindered, which not only threaten the health of the surrounding communities, but also contribute to climate change. That has to stop.”

“For decades, factory farming has isolated itself from the enforcement that is critical to a just food system and a healthy climate,” said Brent Newell, Senior Attorney at the Public Justice Food Project. “The now more than 16-year-old air permit agreement gives factory farms a free pass to environmental pollution and reflects the failure of previous administrations to take urgent measures and put human health above the for-profit interests of the Big Ag. We urge the EPA to grant this petition and finally abandon an agreement that not only undermines the law but also consolidates factory farming in ways that harm black, Latin American, indigenous, Asian and white rural communities. “