WESTON A. PRICE FOUNDATION
ACTION ALERT
February 10, 2005

Take Action! EPA offers air-pollution immunity to factory farms

The Environmental Protection Agency just announced a voluntary
agreement with factory farms, which gives them immunity from
penalties for violating federal clean air rules over the next
several years, as well as for certain past violations, in exchange
for participating in an air emissions' monitoring study.

This suspension of enforcement action is completely unnecessary, as
the EPA already has the authority to require Concentrated Animal
Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to monitor their emissions, provide the
agency with data, and comply with federal law.

Moreover, the one-time fees for participating in the study and
receiving immunity are just several thousand dollars per CAFO,
substantially less than what EPA can fine an CAFO for just one day's
worth of violations. Recent studies have shown that air emissions
from CAFOs can be quite harmful to human health, endangering farm
workers, children, and nearby residents.

Please urge the EPA to fix this rule, so that it protects public
health and requires corporate accountability.

Submit your EPA docket comments here (one click with sample letter):
http://en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?
module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=20669123&u=187901

Click here to read the consent agreement:
http://en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?
module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=20669123&u=187902.

Background Article:

A Big To-Doo-Doo
EPA offers air-pollution immunity to factory farms

http://en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?
module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=20669123&u=187903

by Amanda Griscom Little
Grist Magazine: Environmental News and Commentary
24 Jan 2005

On Friday, in the shadow of the splashy presidential inauguration
jamboree, the Bush EPA offered factory farms a tempting tradeoff:
more than two years of immunity from the Clean Air Act and certain
toxic-discharge standards in exchange for participating in a data-
collection program that would monitor air emissions from their
facilities.

EPA enforcement honcho Thomas Skinner hailed the agreement in a
statement as "a huge step forward" in the effort to reduce factory-
farm emissions, while environmentalists say the deal stinks as bad
as the mountains of steaming excrement responsible for the harmful
pollutants these farms emit.

Over the past decade, as the meat, dairy, and egg industries have
boomed and been consolidated, massive factories -- known as
concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs -- have replaced
many smaller-scale farms. The huge numbers of chickens, hogs, and
heifers in these densely packed facilities produce even huger piles
of waste, which in turn produce ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, volatile
organic compounds, and particulates. Exactly how much of these
pollutants, we don't yet know; CAFOs' emissions haven't been
systematically studied.

Bush officials say they need to gather emissions data before they
can "make informed regulatory and policy determinations" about how
to curb CAFO pollution, and they say their new plan is just the way
to do it. In exchange for amnesty for air violations during the next
two years, as well as any previous infractions, CAFOs participating
in the voluntary program will fund emissions monitoring.

"The Clean Air Act as designed didn't have huge feeding operations
in mind; [CAFOs are] different from most of the things it
regulates," EPA press secretary Cynthia Bergman told Muckraker. Data
gathered via the new system will yield "a representative sampling
from which we can estimate the emissions from all kinds of farms
around the country," she said. "This way we can get far more [CAFOs]
into compliance than by the traditional case-by-case approach." The
agency touts the collaborative nature of its plan, saying that a
strategy of slapping lawsuits one by one on CAFOs that violate Clean
Air Act standards would be too costly and time-consuming. Bergman
stresses that the deal requires all participating facilities to come
into compliance with the law once the monitoring project is complete.

Enviros counter that while new data would be warmly welcomed,
there's no need to paralyze the law-enforcement process in order to
collect it. "It's true that much of the consolidation has happened
in the last decade, so everybody agrees that additional data
collection is appropriate," said Michele Merkel, a former staff
attorney in the EPA's enforcement division who filed the agency's
first suit against a CAFO for Clean Air Act violations in October
1999, under the Clinton administration. "But the Clean Air Act on
its own requires polluting facilities to provide this kind of data.
EPA does not need to suspend its enforcement authority while the
monitoring takes place."

Merkel, now an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project,
says that a halt to enforcement could mean increased health risks
for CAFO employees and nearby residents from toxic emissions such as
ammonia and hydrogen sulfide released by decomposing feces. A 2002
study by Iowa State University and the University of Iowa Study
Group revealed widespread cases of bronchitis in workers exposed to
these pollutants.

According to Ed Hopkins, environmental quality director for the
Sierra Club, the biggest CAFOs have emission levels comparable to
those of industrial manufacturing facilities. One egg farm in Iowa
was recently found to have ammonia emissions on par with a
fertilizer manufacturing plant ranked as the ninth biggest producer
of this hazardous gas in the country, he said.

Environmentalists also note that the fees required to participate in
the program are a pittance compared to penalties that can be levied
under the Clean Air Act. In addition to the $2,500 membership fee,
CAFO-owning companies will be asked to cough up a one-time penalty
of between $200 and $100,000 (according to the number and size of
their facilities) to be pardoned for "presumed" past air-quality
violations. "This is chump change compared to the fines violators
have faced in the past," said Merkel. Under the Clean Air Act, farms
violating the law can be fined up to $27,500 per day per facility.

The only sliver of hope, enviros say, is that the plan is subject to
a 30-day public-comment period -- a protocol that was left out of
the initial draft of the agreement. "We got a tip from someone
inside the agency that they were going to cut the public-comment
period altogether, knowing that [the amnesty plan] would provoke an
outcry," said Merkel. "A number of us, including Capitol Hill
staffers, weighed in and made sure it was reinstated."

It's no coincidence that the deal made its public debut the day
after the president was sworn in for his second term, Merkel
claims. "Politically it was much easier for them to get it out now
than at the end of the first term. They were getting a lot of public
pressure when word of this deal got out months ago, so they knew it
would turn heads."

The day after the inauguration was also a good time to return favors
from factory-farm giants such as Tyson Foods, which lobbied heavily
in favor of the voluntary program. It just so happens that Tyson was
among the biggest contributors to the inaugural festivities, having
forked over a cool $100,000 for the affair. Among the goodies Tyson
execs received for their donation were VIP tickets to the inaugural
parade and a candlelight dinner for 10 with Dubyah and the Veep.
But, enviros argue, even those party favors don't hold a candle to
the get-out-of-jail-free card they got handed on the full first day
of Bush's second term.

Muck it up: We welcome rumors, whistleblowing, classified documents,
or other useful tips on environmental policies, Beltway shenanigans,
and the people behind them. Please send 'em to muckraker@....
- - - - - - - - - -
Amanda Griscom Little writes Grist's Muckraker column on
environmental politics and policy and interviews green luminaries
for the magazine. Her articles on energy and the environment have
also appeared in publications ranging from Rolling Stone to The New
York Times Magazine.
****************************************************

Bill Sanda
Executive Director
Weston A. Price Foundation
westonaprice_bill@...