A U.S. District Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a coalition of environmental and animal rights groups, including Food & Water Watch and the Humane Society of the United States, that could have made it easier for those groups to get information on livestock operations and their owners, according to an Agri-Pulse story that broke the news yesterday.
The lawsuit was brought in 2013 over the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision not to finalize the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) Reporting Rule. EPA’s proposed rule would have required information such as location of a CAFO’s production area, CWA permit status, the number and type of animals confined and the number of acres available for land application of manure. EPA withdrew the proposal in July of 2012.
The groups contended that the EPA’s decision not to finalize the rule ran contrary to its obligations under the Clean Water Act, but in his ruling, Judge Randolph Moss said that “no statute mandates that the EPA require that all CAFOs self-report.” Jude Moss’s ruling can be read by clicking here.
