Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio
A legal victory for the U.S. livestock industry after more than a dozen environmental activist groups had challenged the EPA to put tighter restrictions on large livestock and poultry farms when it comes to the storage and disposal of animal waste.
“This case was one of those interesting situations where the industry groups agreed with the EPA that we don’t need to open up this rule again. EPA got a win and we’re glad,” says Josh Trenary, Executive Director of Indiana Pork.
Back in 2017, those activist groups petitioned the EPA to revise the Clean Water Act regulations on how Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations—or CAFO’s for short—store and get rid of their manure. Those activists claim that the manure from many livestock and poultry farms are finding their ways into our waterways.
“EPA had initially denied those petitions, but they didn’t take no action, so they did agree to put together an advisory committee to look at the issue and to consider what revisions might make sense for Effluent Limitation Guidelines for CAFO’s,” says Trenary. “So, they weren’t doing the full-on review that the activist groups wanted but they were doing something. That committee process is ongoing and we’re certainly in favor of that type of review too, but the activist groups weren’t.”
Last year the groups decided to sue the EPA claiming that the agency wasn’t doing enough in its capacity. However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last week ruled against the activists—and said the EPA did the right thing by setting up an advisory committee first to take its time and study the issue before making any decisions on changing the Clean Water Act regulations.
The court issued the following statement in its decision against the environmental activist groups:
“EPA has broad discretion to choose how best to marshal its limited resources and personnel to carry out its delegated responsibilities and significant latitude as to the manner, timing, content, and coordination of its regulations with those of other agencies. Here, EPA has deemed it prudent to first seek information about how best to tackle the problem before directing resources toward a new rulemaking. Those justifications are reasonable and hardly at odds with the Clean Water Act’s requirements.”
Even though Indiana has its own regulations regarding CAFO’s and the storage and removal of animal waste, Trenary says these activist groups are simply trying to harm the pork industry—and other livestock and poultry sectors—by creating burdensome regulations.
“The CAFO rule requires permitting if you discharge. Well, in Indiana, our barns are designed not to discharge. We don’t discharge anything from the production site. We contain that manure until we can move it off-site and land apply that at an agronomic rate. Well, the activist groups don’t even like you applying at an agronomic rate either,” he says.
That’s why Trenary says that Indiana Pork and the National Pork Producers Council are working to keep environmental activist groups from succeeding in forcing producers out of business by lobbying for overbearing regulations.
“We work directly with producers on a lot of policy and environmental issues,” says Trenary. “We have a good rapport with the other Indiana agriculture commodity groups—plus, we have good national partners as well.”
“Roughly two-thirds of Indiana’s pork producers invest voluntarily in the policy arm of this organization, so we take that really seriously and try to provide a level of service that helps our members navigate these things,” he says.