For more than two decades, livestock producers have operated under persistent uncertainty regarding potential federal permitting and reporting mandates stemming from an emissions study launched in 2005. That regulatory shadow lifted Friday when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it will not develop emissions estimates under the 2005 Animal Feeding Operations Consent Agreement and Final Order (2005 Air Compliance Agreement) and will move to conclude all obligations set under the pact.
Under the original 2005 agreement, the EPA partnered with livestock and poultry farms to initiate the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study, aiming to gather baseline data to model farm emissions. Over the years, however, scientists under both Republican and Democratic administrations criticized the methodology, while producers raised alarms that the resulting formulas could impose ill-fitting federal air regulations on working family farms.
Outdated Data, Modernized Barns
After reviewing monitoring data collected between 2005 and 2007, the agency concluded the sample was simply too limited and obsolete to support reliable, modern regulatory standards—particularly given substantial advancements in barn design, manure management, and production technology over the intervening years.
“Good science requires good data, and these data are too old and too limited to support methods that farms could rely on,” EPA Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) Abigale Tardif says. “We would rather tell farmers that plainly than issue numbers we cannot stand behind. The Trump EPA is committed to providing the public with accurate, scientifically credible information, and to listening to the concerns of America’s farmers.”
During the years following the initial study, thousands of participating operations changed ownership, closed, or modernized. Farmers raising hogs, broiler chickens, egg-laying hens and dairy cows waited throughout that period without definitive guidance on future compliance liabilities, EPA reports in a release.
“Farmers have been living for two decades with the threat that, at any moment, the EPA could come out with a new emissions framework that treats farms like major industrial facilities and requires farmers to scramble to seek onerous permits. With this action, the Trump EPA has advanced the rule of law by resolving the long-obsolete obligations under the 2005 Air Compliance Agreement. The Trump EPA continues to provide our nation’s farmers with regulatory certainty and honor its commitment not to achieve regulation by enforcement,” says EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA), Jeffrey Hall.
Pork Producers Praise Closure and Regulatory Certainty
The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) has long pushed for this decision, and America’s pork producers applaud the Trump administration and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin for bringing certainty to the country’s farmers by concluding the data are insufficient to support reliable methods. Producers are also thankful for the efforts of Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler in listening to the concerns of America’s small business family farmers on this matter.
“This move confirms what farmers have long known: Every farm is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all model to apply to them,” says NPPC President Rob Brenneman, a farmer from Washington County, Iowa. “Each farm should be judged on its own factors, including its location, its practices, its animals and its people. We’re grateful to EPA for listening to the farmers who feed this nation.”
Dairy Sector Backs Site-Specific Solutions
Dairy industry leaders also voiced strong support for the agency’s decision to let the data dictate policy rather than enforce an unworkable template.
Gregg Doud, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), said dairy producers appreciate the EPA following sound science and providing long-overdue clarity.
“There’s a saying in our industry: when you’ve seen one dairy farm, you’ve seen one dairy farm,” noted Clay Detlefsen, senior vice president and staff counsel at NMPF. “That’s why this approach was never going to work. Farms vary too much from one another and change too much over time. We’re grateful to EPA staff for their professionalism over the years, and we look forward to continued collaboration on practical, science-based approaches.”
