A group of lawmakers last week introduced legislation to exclude reporting of routine emissions from livestock farms to state and local emergency response authorities.
The National Pork Producers Council supports the legislation. Pork producers and other livestock industries have engaged with federal and state regulators for decades over permitting and reporting of air emissions. This engagement has included both the air consent agreements that many producers signed, exempting them from having to file emergency reports to first responders.
In 2018, Congress permanently exempted livestock farmers from having to report emissions under the Superfund law to the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Response Center. At the same time, EPA exempted those same farms from making similar reports to state and local first responders. Following litigation, the Biden Administration agreed to re-open that rulemaking to reconsider the exemption from the emergency release reporting rule.
The new legislation would clarify that the 2018 Farms Act, and EPA’s prior regulations, were correct and that livestock farms should not be required to inundate local fire departments with emission reports.
