HSUS Asks EPA To Regulate Livestock Feeders

Activists petition EPA to regulate CAFO air emissions
(9/22/2009)
Sally Schuff

A coalition of activist organizations filed a formal petition with the Environmental Protection Agency on Sept. 21 seeking to add confined animal feeding operations to the list of operations regulated under the Clean Air Act’s endangerment standard. The coalition, which includes the Humane Society of the United States, the Waterkeepers Alliance, and Friends of the Earth, seeks to add CAFOs to the list of stationary sources which produce air pollution "which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare." The EPA Administrator is required to keep such a list under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act.

The petition points out that Section 111 "defines a 'stationary source' as 'any building, structure, facility, or installation which emits or may emit an air pollutant.'" It notes EPA uses the word "facility" in its regulatory definition of CAFOs.

The petition charges that CAFOs emit air pollutants, specifically,

Greenhouse gases that cause or contribute to climate change;

Hydrogen sulfide that cause or contribute to hydrogen sulfide exposure, localized odors, acid rain, and haze;

Ammonia that causes or contributes odors, ecosystem acidification and eutrophication, and haze;
Particulate matter and small particulates that cause or contribute to particle pollution, acid rain, and haze;

And certain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that cause or contribute to localized odors, ground-level ozone, and haze.

The petition is online at: www.foe.org/sites/default/files/HSUS_et_al_v_EPA_CAFO_CAA_Petition.pdf.

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The HSUS continues their assault on family farmers by suing the Environmental Protection Agency in order to force them to place burdensome and unaffordable regulations on them. This country needs to wake up and realize that if groups like the HSUS are allowed to put family farmers out of business in this country, then we will begin to rely on food that is produced in foreign countries. If that would happen, it would be the absolute end of our nation’s sovereignty.