EPA ends 20-year effort to monitor factory farm air pollution

The Environmental Protection Agency announced late last week that it will end a more‑than‑20‑year effort to develop methods for monitoring air pollution from factory farms. The agency said the decision effectively halts its attempts to regulate these facilities under the Clean Air Act.

The announcement, made just days before the midterm elections, was described by the EPA as a long‑awaited reprieve for farmers, a constituency the agency noted as historically important to former President Trump and the Republican Party.

Factory farms house tens of thousands of animals in confined spaces, and the agency’s statement noted that waste can be released through ventilation fans or from large lagoons of liquid effluent. Such livestock operations emit fine particulate matter, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds, a mix the agency said contributes to air pollution. Research cited in the release linked emissions from these operations to nearly 12,700 deaths annually in the United States.