The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) secured a significant victory in its long-running efforts to stop activists from forcing farmers to report routine emissions to state and local emergency response authorities. Ruling for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the NPPC coalition of farm and livestock intervenors, the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the challenge of activists to an earlier EPA rulemaking that exempted livestock farms from having to treat routine air emissions as emergency releases and report them to local first responders.
Why it Matters
NPPC and other livestock groups have been fighting activists over this issue since January 2009 when the Bush administration required livestock farms to file reports to emergency authorities over the routine emissions from livestock farms. The debate over these emissions dates back far earlier – to the late 1990s – when activist groups such as the Waterkeeper Alliance made them a centerpiece of its campaign against the U.S. pork industry.
Since the federal government lacked any science that would justify enforcement against livestock farms, the Clinton administration proposed an agreement to better understand air emissions. That resulted in the Air Consent Agreements that the industry signed with EPA and the start of the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study to help policymakers better understand what types of emissions came from livestock farms. Those efforts continue to this day, with comments on EPA’s latest air emission models due to the agency later this month.
In 2017, the Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ultimately found that reporting of routine farm emissions was required to be made to the U.S. Coast Guard under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA, or the Superfund law). Congress quickly passed the FARM Act with a strong bipartisan majority, which exempted livestock farms from CERCLA reporting. In implementing the statute, EPA exempted reporting to state and local first responders under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), reasoning that reporting is only required under EPCRA when it is also required under CERCLA.
Activists, led by then-Humane Society of the United States and Food and Water Watch, filed suit, claiming EPA failed to follow EPCRA’s requirements and comply with the National Environmental Policy Act – and that Environmental Justice concerns demanded that farmers be obligated to report the information.
The District Court disagreed – agreeing with NPPC and EPA that since Congress passed the Farm Act, no reporting was necessary, making this a huge win for U.S. pork producers.
