Hold Polluters Accountable

Stop Taxpayer Funding of Industrial Animal Agriculture

Tax exemptions and abatements originally enacted to protect small and midsize farms have been exploited by large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that operate more like a factory than a farm. These operations have industrial-scale environmental impact, but they continue to be defined as “agricultural” and are thus exempt from many rules that govern other polluting industries.

CAFOs, including manure storage, have a tax advantage over pasture-based livestock operations.

Tax exemptions reduce revenue to the state and county, while CAFOs themselves put extra strain on local resources, with additional wear on country roads, water use, and potential need for pollution remediation. Iowa has reported a loss of $4.5 million in county revenue due to CAFO property tax exemptions. State policymakers should consider sunsetting tax exemptions that disproportionately benefit CAFOs and implement exemptions that incentivize pasture-based livestock operations.

In many states, legislators with ties to agribusiness have passed laws to favor CAFO development and have dismantled provisions that give communities a voice in CAFO siting or that protect public health. For state policymakers wanting to slow or reverse this trend, perhaps the most important action is to be aware of any new or recent legislation proposing to exempt agriculture from regulation or tax – these are generally bills to promote CAFO development and should be opposed.

Environmental Protections

Lawmakers can push for stricter environmental protections to regulate air and water pollution from large-scale livestock operations; require setback distances from homes, schools, businesses. and roads; ensure that manure is responsibly managed; and increase public participation in CAFO permitting and siting.

In almost all states, responsibility for enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act has been delegated to the state’s environmental protection agency. The states should be issuing National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for CAFOs over a certain size. Permits should protect surface and groundwater, include agency monitoring and inspections, have mechanisms for enforcement, and include robust public input. Unfortunately, the CAFO permitting process is often simply pro forma, and state agency budgets are often too low for effective inspection and enforcement. State policymakers can support adequate funding for the agencies that oversee CAFO permitting to cover inspection, compliance, and enforcement, as well as ensure they have the authority to issue penalties for bad actors and repeat violators. If policymakers think that the enforcement agency is not properly doing its job with regard to CAFOs, they can advance legislation to require the state agency to report on the number of permits, inspections, and violations. and enforcement actions that have been taken against CAFOs in the state.

Manure-to-energy projects are rarely economically feasible without public subsidies, particularly when construction and operation costs are taken into account. Additionally, they require an enormous volume of manure in order to operate. While manure-based biogas is touted as being environmentally sustainable, its development actually relies on CAFO expansion – which is definitely not sustainable. In fact, manure-to-energy projects are generally a way for CAFOs to externalize the costs of production onto the public. Further, since they are not renewable energy sources, they should not be included in state renewable energy portfolios or receive tax credits. State officials should work to strike any existing manure-to-energy components of a state renewable energy portfolio.

The Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) of the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) provides funds to farm operations to implement environmentally sustainable practices. CAFOs access millions of dollars of EQIP funds for pollution control measures such as upgraded manure storage, but mitigating manure pollution does not make these facilities environmentally sustainable. EQIP funding is distributed from the USDA through a state conservationist, advised by a technical committee of stakeholders. State policymakers could pass a resolution encouraging the state conservationist to direct all EQIP funding to pasture-based livestock operations to avoid subsiding CAFOs with public funding. State policymakers could also work to ensure impacted communities or pasture-based producers are seeking appointments to the state technical committee, which oversees the distribution of EQIP funds.

Animal Welfare

There are also animal welfare concerns with CAFOs. These include the use of gestation crates for breeding female pigs that are too small for the pigs to turn around; battery cages for chickens that do not allow the hens to spread their wings; and the practice of docking the tails of dairy cows, which is painful and causes distress, as they are then unable to swat biting flies. There are no animal welfare regulations at the federal level, and because of this, some states have taken action to ban cruel farming practices.

Overall, the landscape of CAFO regulation in the states is bleak in that community protections from CAFO pollution are inadequate at best. As a result, lawmakers in some states have proposed an outright moratorium on permitting new and expanding CAFOs altogether.

Protect Commercial Fisheries against Industrial Aquaculture Threats

Industrial aquaculture facilities (fish farms) can be considered the “factory farms” of the sea, posing similar environmental and economic threats to the local ecosystem and community.

Fish farms threaten recreationally and commercially important wild fish stocks. As in land-based industrial livestock operations, industrially farmed fish are densely stocked in pens, with the primary difference being that these are floating in water. Some fish are farmed in freshwater or in inland ponds; others are raised in an offshore or open ocean environment.

Farmed fish are bred to grow larger and more quickly than their wild counterparts, and if they escape from captivity, they can outcompete wild fish for habitat and food. Because disease can be common, these operations often rely on antibiotics or other pharmaceuticals to keep the fish alive until harvest. Pollution is a significant concern, particularly with open water operations, as uneaten feed, medication, and excrement enters the ecosystem in high volume, causing chemical and nutrient imbalance, algal blooms, and hypoxia, or so-called “dead zones.”

State jurisdiction overfishing laws extends three miles offshore. Alaska has banned commercial finfish farming within its three-mile state limit. Federal waters extend from three to 200 miles offshore, regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All 35 coastal and Great Lakes states and territories (except Alaska) participate in the National Coastal Zone Management Program (NCZMP), in which each state or territory administers its own coastal management plan under NOAA’s guidance and approval. Each state’s management plan provides consistency between federal and state agency decision-making for the coastal region, and local governments rely on the plans to make decisions impacting a coastal area. State policymakers can communicate with their NCZMP administering agencies that industrial aquaculture does not belong in federal waters.

PFAS

One class of chemicals known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) is worth particular note. PFAS chemicals are included in a wide range of products, from takeout containers to firefighting foam; as a result, testing regularly finds it in drinking water. Mounting research links PFAS exposure to multiple cancers, reproductive damage, endocrine disruption, and impaired fetal development. The substances are known as “forever chemicals,” as they take thousands of years to break down. Remediation is timely and costly. Farmers who find PFAS contamination in their soil often lack the resources and support for remediation, leaving them with no option but to leave the land fallow, costing them the profit of the crop they otherwise would have planted. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced new regulations for PFAS chemicals. In the meantime, states are addressing the issue in various ways.