Proposed Farm Database Rule Withdrawn by EPA

The EPA has withdrawn its proposed Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation Reporting Rule – a move applauded by the National Pork Producers Council. The rule would have required large livestock and poultry farmers to report information about their operations including contact information, location of a CAFO’s production area, permit status, the number and type of animals confined and the number of acres available for land application of manure. The agency said the information would allow it to more effectively carry out its CAFO permitting programs on a national level and ensure that CAFO’s are implementing practices to protect water quality and human health. NPPC President R.C. Hunt says the proposed rule would have been a duplicative and burdensome paperwork exercise for producers and clearly was an effort to undermine court decisions that said producers who don’t discharge into waterways don’t need a CWA permit.

NPPC notes the proposed rule was prompted by a May 2010 settlement agreement EPA entered with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Waterkeeper Alliance and the Sierra Club as part of a lawsuit the group brought and ultimately won over EPA’s 2008 CAFO rule.