10/03/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/03/2025 13:17
Trump Administration Shields Polluters As Animal Factories Emissions Kill More People Than Coal Plants
Nydia Gutierrez, Earthjustice, [email protected]
Phoebe Trotter, Food & Water Watch, [email protected]
Ryan Maher, Center for Biological Diversity, [email protected]
Mike Heymsfield, Animal Legal Defense Fund, [email protected]
Today, conservation and community groups appealed a federal court decision upholding a Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that exempts factory farms from their duty to make information about dangerous air emissions available to the public. The decision, issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, leaves frontline communities in the dark about noxious chemicals in the air they breathe. The groups will argue on appeal that the Trump Administration's rule is unlawful.
Today's appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbiaseeks to ensure that industrial-scale livestock and poultry operations report significant releases of the extremely hazardous gases ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, as required by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).
Exposure to ammonia and hydrogen sulfide released from factory farms can cause 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 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 releases of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide from factory farms have never been consistently reported, as required under the law.
Food & Water Watch Legal Director Tarah Heinzen said: "Trump's EPA is suppressing critical pollution data required to keep frontline communities safe and hold polluters accountable. 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."
"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 focusing on 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."
Animal Legal Defense Fund Senior Staff Attorney Christine Ball-Blakely said: "Factory farm air pollution sickens and kills those forced to breathe it. 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."
Kelly Hunter Foster, Senior Attorney at Waterkeeper Alliancesaid: "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. 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."
Rebecca Cary, Managing Attorney for Humane World for Animals, formerly called Humane Society of the United States, said, "EPA is unlawfully hiding hazardous air emissions produced by factory farms. 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."
Abel Russ, Senior Attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project, said, "This is about basic fairness. 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?"
George Kimbrell, Legal Director of the Center for Food Safety, said: "Americans have a fundamental right to know about these hazards to their health which they are being unlawfully kept in the dark about. Far from 'Making America Healthy Again,' this is yet another betrayal of the public and especially farming communities."
Alexis Andiman, Senior Attorney at Earthjustice, said: "Everyone deserves to breathe clean air, and the federal government shouldn't be in the business of hiding information people need to keep their families safe. But EPA allows industrial animal factories to keep their pollution secret, even though it admits that this pollution poses serious health risks, most often borne by people of color, people with low incomes, and children."
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.
Background
At issue in this appeal is a 2019 regulatory exemptionadopted by Trump's EPA that exempts factory farms from reporting their ammonia and hydrogen sulfide emissions as EPCRA requires. The law's 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 extremely hazardous substances.
EPA's 2019 rule follows Congress's passage of a law called the Fair Agricultural Reporting Method (FARM) Act, which exempted factory farms from reporting their emissions under a separate federal law: CERCLA, commonly known as Superfund law. The agency unlawfully relied on the FARM Act as a justification for letting the industrial animal industry off the hook under EPCRA, leaving communities with no access to information about extremely hazardous emissions.
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