NEW YORK - May 19 - According to documents obtained by the Sierra Club through the Freedom of Information Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was heavily influenced by the industrial livestock industry when creating a pollution control plan for Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), or factory farms. A string of emails shows that industry lobbyists went so far as to create many of the power point presentations that were then presented by the EPA to livestock facility owners and workers.

These new findings are deplorable, and validate the claim made by GRACE and other environmental groups that the Bush Administration was holding closed door meetings with the livestock and poultry industry that would potentially exempt them from lawsuits and Clean Air Act violations through an "industry-financed" air emissions monitoring program.

This proposal, as well as the latest findings revealing the EPA's shamefully close relationship with meat lobbyists, is environmentally irresponsible and politically reckless. Factory farms would be allowed to buy their immunity at a bargain price and continue polluting the air of surrounding rural communities with impunity for an indefinite period of time while their activities are monitored by "third parties" paid by the meat industry. While the EPA should be hard at work protecting the environment, it appears to be increasingly eager to protect the interests of corporate polluters with an appalling disregard for environmental and health consequences.

"Unfortunately, this news only corroborates suspicions that the meat industry is heavily influencing the EPA at the expense of the American public," says Dr. William J. Weida, Director of the GRACE Factory Farm Project. "Furthermore, the overall proposal gives factory farm operators a license to pollute and continue shifting pollution costs to the residents that live nearby without fear of being sued under the Clean Air Act. With this agreement the Environmental Protection Agency has completed its transition to the Environmental Pollution Agency."

GRACE (Global Resource Action Center for the Environment) is a not-for-profit organization that works to oppose factory farming and promote a sustainable food production system that is healthful and humane, economically viable, and environmentally sound. For more information, visit www.gracelinks.org.

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