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EPA Farm Pollution Rule Struck Down

On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit struck down an EPA rule exempting some farms from pollution reporting requirements. The court found that the EPA had improperly downplayed the importance of these reports by enacting sweeping exemptions. In its ruling, the court stated that “[w]e find that those reports aren’t nearly as useless as the EPA makes them out to be.” Environmental groups had sued over the EPA’s 2008 rule, which exempted all animal feeding operations (“AFOs”) from federal reporting requirements and all but the largest AFOs from state and local reporting requirements.  The EPA argued that the animal-waste reports are “unnecessary,” but the D.C. Circuit disagreed because, “in most cases, a federal response is impractical and unlikely.”

The News Release can be found here.