The Environmental Protection Agency’s latest decision means it does not intend to regulate air emissions from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) under the current administration, leaving emissions from factory farms largely unmeasured and unmonitored for the foreseeable future. The decision does not eliminate existing Clean Air Act requirements: facilities that exceed emissions thresholds may still need permits, and livestock operations remain obligated to comply with federal law.
EPA decision leaves emissions rules unresolved
Rob Brenneman, president of the National Pork Producers Council, which has long supported the decision, said in a statement: “This move confirms what farmers have known for years: every farm is different and there is no one-size-fits-all model that will work for them.”
Heinzen said the agency’s decision indicates that the current administration has no intention of regulating air emissions from CAFOs. For now, however, the Clean Air Act still requires permits for facilities that exceed emissions thresholds. The amnesty previously granted to these facilities is no longer valid now that the agreement has been signed.
“There is no methodology published by the EPA to estimate emissions,” Heinzen said. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t good research available on emissions from different types of animal feeding operations.”
California has developed a livestock-emissions model that it uses to enforce its own air-quality regulations, Heinzen noted. “We don’t have a single set of national emission factors from the EPA,” she said. “This does not exempt these factory farms from the obligation to comply with federal law.”
Even so, factory-farm air emissions are likely to go unmeasured and unmonitored for some time under the current administration. “No one can estimate anything,” Heinzen said. “As EPA stated in a press release, we are in no way trying to enforce the law.”
Methane reporting remains limited
Air compliance agreements did not cover methane. The US livestock industry is the nation’s largest source of methane, but Congress has effectively blocked livestock facilities from reporting methane emissions in annual expense bills.
Georgina Gustin covers agriculture for Inside Climate News and has spent much of her journalism career reporting on the intersection of agriculture, food systems, and the environment. Her work has earned her numerous awards, including the John B. Oakes Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism, and she has been named Glenn Cunningham Agriculture Journalist of the Year twice, once with colleagues at ICN. She has worked as a reporter for The Day in New London, Connecticut, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and CQ Roll Call. Her articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Geographic’s The Plate. She is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Colorado Boulder.
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News.
Source: arstechnica.com