EPA May Grant Air Pollution Amnesty To Factory Farms

Date: May 11, 2004

Source: News Room

The federal EPA may grant amnesty from air pollution laws to certain factory farms that volunteer for a U.S. program to gauge feedlot emissions. Such farms have long been the source of complaints about odor and dust. The federal government is preparing a plan that would exempt large hog, poultry, and dairy farms from air pollution lawsuits. Feedlot operators volunteering for the monitoring program could receive amnesty from suits for at least four years, and possibly much longer. In 2002, the federal government issued regulations that would require 15,000-plus feedlots to control manure runoff; those rules were estimated to cost the industry $335 million a year.

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