The Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch are among 218 environmental groups that sent a letter Tuesday to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan asking him to unleash EPA’s powers on so-called “factory farms.”
The groups are demanding more federal oversight of “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations” or CAFOs. They argue the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act rationalize the additional scrutiny.
The letter alleges that “CAFOs represent an environmental justice crisis that has gone unaddressed by – and has even been exacerbated by – EPA for decades.”
The groups cited the Biden administration’s efforts when it comes to racial equity and environmental justice but pointed out that EPA is “failing to uphold them by abdicating its responsibility to protect rural communities living near CAFOs.”
The letter said Regan’s home state of North Carolina is “the most poignant example of the environmental racism associated with this industry and the devastation to communities of color caused by a lack of federal oversight.”
“Congress has granted the EPA authority to protect the public from harmful pollution, and the agency has several regulatory petitions before it that lay out pathways to exercise this authority. We urge EPA to end the regulatory exceptionalism and hold accountable the industrial livestock agribusinesses profiting from the exploitation of environmental justice communities,” the letter said.
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