US regulator abandons effort to measure factory farm air pollution

The US Environmental Protection Agency has ended its effort to develop methods for measuring air pollution from large livestock farms, leaving a long-running route towards Clean Air Act enforcement unresolved. The decision matters because these facilities emit pollutants linked to serious health effects, while critics say the agency is giving up on holding them accountable.

The EPA said data from a study conducted under a 2005 agreement with the livestock industry are now too old and limited to support reliable methods. The agreement gave thousands of farms protection from legal action while the study sought ways to estimate emissions, but the agency never produced those methods; its inspector general criticised delays in 2017. The article says livestock operations emit fine particles and several gases, and cites research estimating they contribute to nearly 12,700 US deaths a year.