EPA ends two-decade effort to regulate factory farm air pollution

· Climate · United States

The US Environmental Protection Agency announced late last week that it will end a more than 20-year effort to develop methods to monitor air pollution from large livestock and poultry operations, effectively shuttering its stop-and-start attempts to regulate the potentially pollutant-spewing facilities under the Clean Air Act. The announcement closes a long-running regulatory process that had repeatedly stalled since it began more than two decades ago. The move affects concentrated animal feeding operations, which environmental groups have long argued emit significant air pollutants, and leaves the sector without the federal monitoring framework the agency had been developing.

Why it matters：It removes the main federal pathway for monitoring emissions from large animal farms, a sector whose air-quality footprint has been contested for decades.

Key points

  • The EPA had been developing monitoring methods for more than 20 years.
  • The effort was tied to regulation under the Clean Air Act.
  • Large livestock and poultry operations are the facilities affected.

Sources (original reporting)

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