NPPC led livestock and farm groups in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to fight back against activist attacks on pork producers’ fundamental due process rights and the regulatory foundation of modern livestock production.
Earlier this year, numerous national and state activist groups, led by Food & Water Watch, including Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, filed a lawsuit against the EPA and the Biden Administration.
These groups seek major changes to the EPA’s CAFO rules, proposing that the law should assume pig and other livestock farmers are discharging pollutants into Waters of the United States in violation of the Clean Water Act. They want the court to remove the long-standing exemption for agricultural stormwater discharges from animal feeding operations and require all CAFOs to either obtain Clean Water Act permits or prove they are not discharging into WOTUS.
If successful, NPPC says that this lawsuit could drastically alter livestock environmental regulations nationwide, leading to millions of dollars in lawsuits, fines, and challenges, and potentially setting the industry back decades.
“NPPC, along with the American Farm Bureau Federation, the U.S. Poultry and Egg Federation, and the United Egg Producers, have intervened in the litigation in defense of the Biden Administration and the long-standing regulations that have shaped modern pig farming,” wrote NPCC in a recent update.
The farm groups filed their opening brief defending EPA, its longstanding CAFO rules, and the important victories that NPPC secured before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005 and before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010 to defend the integrity of modern pig farming.
“Pork producers have a long, successful working relationship with federal, state, and local regulators to ensure their farms are constructed and maintained as zero-discharge operations,” NPPC added. “Major changes to longstanding federal laws can only come from congressional action, and it is inappropriate for these activist groups to seek to rewrite federal law through the courts when Congress has consistently rejected their outlandish demands.”