EPA ends two-decade effort to monitor emissions from factory farms
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has formally ceased its long-standing initiative to develop air pollution monitoring standards for industrial livestock operations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the termination of a 20-year effort to establish air quality monitoring protocols for factory farms. This move effectively ends the agency's attempts to incorporate large-scale livestock operations under the regulatory framework of the Clean Air Act.
The decision was announced days before the U.S. midterm elections. Agency officials characterized the move as a measure to reduce regulatory pressure on farmers, a constituency historically aligned with the Republican Party.
Industrial livestock facilities are known sources of pollutants, including ammonia, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and fine particulate matter, which are released through ventilation fans and waste lagoons. Public health data suggests that emissions from these sites contribute to approximately 12,700 premature deaths annually in the United States.
By abandoning the development of monitoring methods, the EPA has moved away from regulating the air quality impacts of the concentrated animal feeding operations sector.