This Waiting Game Stinks: The Lack of Epa Progress in Regulating Air Emissions from Animal Agriculture

Abstract

There is an increasing consensus in both scientific circles and the general population that global warming is a real phenomenon and anthropomorphic. Despite this fact, predictably, the path to building a legal and political consensus that allows for meaningful progress in addressing this problem continues to have many obstacles that impede progress. This is especially true if one examines recent political machinations from Congress and conflicting signals expressed by successive presidential administrations. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate green house gases (GHGs), the EPA has not determined an appropriate scientific basis for curtailing some of the most potent GHGs threatening our society--GHGs produced in massive quantities by factory farms known as Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs) and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Examining some of the political and scientific issues facing the EPA lends a perspective to the dilemma but does not excuse its lack of progress over the last ten years.