For America’s livestock producers, a new legal challenge in the D.C. Circuit Court represents more than just paperwork; it’s a fight against ‘unreliable’ emission estimates that could leave family farms vulnerable to massive civil penalties and litigation.
The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – along with the bipartisan support from the attorneys general of 25 states – in asking a federal appeals court to uphold a lower court’s ruling that livestock and poultry producers do not need to report air emissions from manure on their farms to emergency management agencies.
Animal and environmental activist groups sued EPA in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over a section of the 1986 Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) that exempted livestock and poultry farmers from reporting routine air emissions from animal manure, NPPC explains in Capital Update.
“EPCRA requires certain entities to notify state and local authorities, including first responders, about accidental spills and releases of hazardous materials and chemicals,” NPPC explains.
- A 2017 court decision threw out the EPCRA exemption.
- In 2018, Congress approved the Fair Agricultural Reporting Method Act, which EPA relied on to reinstate the exclusion.
- The activist groups challenged EPA’s 2019 regulation implementing the legislation.
- In August 2025, the District Court rejected the arguments of the activist groups, which appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In arguing for keeping the exemption, NPPC and the other agricultural organizations cited EPA’s reasoning: When Congress passed the FARM Act, it exempted certain emission releases. That exemption covers this reporting. Further, requiring farmers to report these emissions would be “unnecessary, impractical and unlikely.”
For example, agitating a manure pit could result in the release of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide in amounts that exceed reportable levels, but the gases would dissipate quickly, so no response would be warranted, NPPC explains.
“If livestock farmers were subject to EPCRA reporting, they would be required to estimate the emissions of certain gases (EPA has yet to finalize reliable, scientifically sound estimating methodologies that accurately represent the air emissions from animal manure at modern livestock farms),” NPPC says. “Additionally, farmers could be subject to liabilities resulting from differing interpretations of the information called for in the emissions reports, exposing them to potential civil penalties or litigation.”
