The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) has teamed up with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, and the United Egg Producers (UEP) requesting the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to allow their intervention in a lawsuit filed by environmental and animal rights extremists against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the regulation of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).
In August, led by Food & Water Watch, a large group of environmental and animal rights extremist organizations filed suit after EPA denied their 2017 petition, which sought to substantially revise EPA’s longstanding CAFO rules. EPA’s CAFO Rules set strict zero-discharge limitations for manure from livestock farms and impose significant penalties for any violation. When first proposed by EPA, the rules included a requirement that all CAFOs apply for and receive a permit from EPA. NPPC successfully challenged those provisions with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit declaring the provision to be illegal in in 2010.
The 2017 petition, along with a similar 2021 petition led by Earthjustice and HSUS, demanded that EPA reverse these court orders and once again require livestock farms to seek CWA permits. After EPA denied both petitions, in large part because they requested EPA to undertake actions that are illegal, the extremists filed their lawsuit.
Why it Matters
For nearly 20 years, livestock producers have been regulated under EPA’s CAFO Rules, which enforce a strict “zero-discharge” standard for managing manure from livestock operations. Violations of the rule carry fines of up to $56,460 per day, per violation. Adding unnecessary (and illegal) paperwork and other requirements onto the existing rules would place heavy burdens on livestock producers and provide no water quality benefit.
NPPC’s Take
In their motion to intervene in the court case, NPPC, AFBF, U.S. Poultry and UEP pointed out that the environmental and animal rights extremist groups — in their 2017 petition and through the current legal challenge — “are seeking to compel EPA to promulgate several new regulatory requirements, all of which would considerably burden” the members of the agricultural organizations and which have previously been found to be illegal.
Read more:
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