WASHINGTON— Conservation and community groups today appealed a federal court decision upholding a Trump Environmental Protection Agency rule that exempts factory farms from having to publicly report dangerous air emissions. The decision, issued by the District Court for the District of Columbia, leaves frontline communities in the dark about noxious chemicals in the air they breathe.
The groups argue that the Trump administration’s rule is unlawful.
Today’s appeal, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, seeks to ensure that industrial-scale livestock and poultry operations report their toxic releases of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, as required by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.
“The owners of industrial factory farms don’t want to alert nearby communities about releases of dangerous gases like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide because they don’t want to be held responsible for the brain and lung damage and deaths their emissions can cause,” said Ryan Maher, a Center for Biological Diversity attorney who works on reducing air pollution. “Trump’s EPA would rather pretend no harm is being done than stand up and defy the wishes of the president’s wealthy industry benefactors.”
Exposure to ammonia and hydrogen sulfide released from the highly concentrated animal waste produced by factory farms can cause many human health problems, including respiratory diseases, nasal and eye irritation, headaches, nausea and even death. According to a recent study, air pollution from the livestock industry, including ammonia and hydrogen sulfide chemical releases, is responsible for over 12,700 U.S. deaths per year — more deaths than are attributed to air pollution from coal-fired power plants. But these chemical releases have never been consistently reported, contrary to law.
“Trump’s EPA is suppressing critical pollution data required to keep frontline communities safe and hold polluters accountable,” said Tarah Heinzen, Food & Water Watch legal director. “Factory farms emit dangerous amounts of hazardous chemicals — willful ignorance of the data will not change the truth. The Trump administration’s see-no-evil approach to pollution will not stand in court.”
At issue in this appeal is a 2018 regulatory exemption adopted by Trump’s EPA that protects factory farms from having to disclose their ammonia and hydrogen sulfide emissions as the law requires. The pollution reporting requirements are designed to guarantee that communities and emergency responders have access to information necessary to protect themselves from harmful exposure to these hazardous substances.
“Factory farm air pollution sickens and kills those forced to breathe it,” said Christine Ball-Blakely, Animal Legal Defense Fund senior staff attorney. “Instead of empowering communities to protect themselves from this pollution, as the law requires, the EPA under the Trump administration is trying to bury the data that reveals how dangerous factory farming is to the communities it occupies. Information is power, and the law is clear: Communities are entitled to both.”
The EPA’s 2018 rule follows Congress’s passage of a law called the Fair Agricultural Reporting Method Act that exempted factory farms from reporting their emissions under a separate federal law. The agency then unlawfully extended the Act to also let the industry off the hook under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, leaving communities with no access to information about highly dangerous chemical emissions.
“People have a right to know when large-scale animal feeding operations are releasing hazardous air pollution near where they live, work, or their kids go to school,” said
Kelly Hunter Foster, senior attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance. “EPA has a responsibility under EPCRA to ensure that information is disclosed to the public. Its mandate is to protect human health and the environment, not to create loopholes that allow polluters to hide the truth and put communities and ecosystems at risk.”
The appellants are Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Don’t Waste Arizona, Environmental Integrity Project, Food & Water Watch, Humane World for Animals (formerly the Humane Society of the United States), Sierra Club, Sound Rivers, and Waterkeeper Alliance, and are represented by Earthjustice. Food & Water Watch and Animal Legal Defense Fund are also represented by in-house counsel.
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“EPA is unlawfully hiding hazardous air emissions produced by factory farms,” said Rebecca Cary, managing attorney for Humane World for Animals. “Not only does this industry disregard the most basic needs of animals in confinement, but it also disregards the health of people living in farming communities across the country, and the EPA should not allow factory farms to hide their harmful effects.”
“This is about basic fairness,” said Abel Russ, senior attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project. “Any other industry emitting hazardous pollution would have to disclose that information to the public. Industrial meat production facilities pose a serious threat to public health. Why does EPA continue to let this industry off the hook?”
“Americans have a fundamental right to know about these hazards to their health which they are being unlawfully kept in the dark about,” said George Kimbrell, legal director of the Center for Food Safety. “Far from ‘Making America Healthy Again,’ this is yet another betrayal of the public and especially farming communities.”
