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New
Documents Show How Bush Administration
Gave Meat Industry Control Over Factory Farm Pollution Policy
Iowans Voice Outrage Over Special Protections for Major Polluters
- Monday, May 17
By Tarah
Heinzen,
Sierra Club Conservation Organizer
Des Moines, Iowa
- Iowans suffering from the pollution from livestock factories
voiced their outrage today, as new documents revealed the extent
of meat industry control over the Bush administration's proposed
amnesty deal for animal factory polluters. The evidence, exposed
by the Chicago Tribune on Sunday, shows that the pollution deal
borrowed heavily from industry proposals and that polluters had
extraordinary access to the Bush administration officials
writing the agreement.
"Here in Iowa we can hardly breathe because the pollution
from these animal factories has gotten so bad-and the Bush
administration's idea of a solution is to let polluters write
their own rules," said James Berge, a fourth generation
family farmer from Worth County, Iowa. "These new documents
show how much the Bush administration caters to the meat
industry while ordinary folks like us pay the price for
pollution."
Smithfield Foods, owner of Murphy Family Farms, and other
industry groups approached Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
in 2001 asking the agency to shield them from Clean Air Act
violations, the documents reveal. Bush
administration officials then corresponded in secret with
industry lobbyists to craft a deal that would exempt factory
farms from air pollution requirements. Internal emails even show
that industry lobbyists prepared power-point presentations on
the proposed deal for Bush administration officials to deliver.
"I am not sure what makes me more sick, the toxic air
coming from these hog factories, or the fact that the Bush
administration is too cozy with the meat industry to care about
our health and safety," added Berge.
Air pollution from massive animal factories is a huge problem in
Iowa. Communities suffering from animal factory pollution have
been forced to resort to citizen lawsuits against polluters, and
the state Department of Natural Resources is in the process of
creating a public health standard for hydrogen sulfide emissions
from Iowa's largest livestock facilities. If those factory farms
enter the EPA's safe harbor agreement, they will likely be
shielded from state and citizen lawsuits as well as federal
enforcement, essentially nullifying many of the efforts underway
in Iowa.
Industry groups who were revealed as being given special access
to the administration include: Smithfield Foods, ConAgra foods,
Seaboard Farms, Tyson Foods, Kraft Foods, Cargill, IBP, and
Premium Standard Farms. Additionally, the National Chicken
Council, National Turkey Federation, United Egg Producers,
National Pork Producers Council, National Milk Producers
Federation, and the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association were also
members of the industry coalition involved in the backroom deal.
Supporting documents are available on the Sierra Club website
at:
http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/cafo_papers/
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