Climate, environmental groups want EPA to target CAFOs

A lettersent July 19 to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan urges him to immediately act on the EPA’s existing authority to provide federal oversight of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.

EPA has several pending rulemaking petitions before it, including petitions to list industrial dairy and hog operations under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act; rescind the Air Consent Agreement and enforce Clean Air Laws against CAFOs; and revise Clean Water Act regulations as they apply to CAFOs. The agency has not acted on any of the petitions, but a release from Friends of the Earth says, “EPA is expected to propose a rule in December that would repeal a Trump-era rule exempting CAFOs from the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.”