John,

Animal agriculture is responsible for 36 percent of all U.S. climate-warming methane emissions, more than any other sector. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has completely failed to regulate the industrial meat and dairy industry, letting factory farms spew methane emissions and other pollutants completely unchecked. 

And now factory farms want to greenwash and profiteer off this pollution with digesters and so-called “biogas,” but this factory farm gas is a false solution that would only encourage factory farm pollution and further entrench the fossil fuel industry for decades to come. 

Meat and dairy companies are raking in massive profits without regard for their factory farms’ increasing contribution to the climate catastrophe. 

Tell the EPA to protect people and our planet by treating factory farms like the industrial polluters they are!

Billions of animals are inhumanely crammed together on factory farms in the U.S. – producing enormous amounts of waste that pollute local communities, most often low-income communities and communities of color, making this a crucial environmental justice issue. 

Factory farming also helps drive the climate crisis, creates breeding grounds for the next pandemic, and perpetuates intolerable animal suffering. But despite the well-documented impacts of factory farms on people and the planet, the EPA has refused to issue regulations to rein in emissions from this highly polluting industry.

The EPA has an opportunity to correct course by regulating industrial hog and dairy operations as a category of industrial polluters under the Clean Air Act.

Take action now: Urge the EPA to regulate methane emissions from industrial hog and dairy operations!

However, the EPA must also reject industry greenwashing and issue regulations that do not double down on the factory farm model’s worst practices that are destroying the climate and polluting our air and water. 

To truly protect communities and the climate, EPA needs to reject factory farm gas and instead require factory farms to stop intentionally creating methane emissions in the first place. Factory farm gas — collecting and burning methane generated by massive cesspools of liquefied manure — expands and entrenches infrastructure for both factory farming and fracking.

It’s another dirty energy pushed by Big Oil & Gas and Big Ag corporations as “renewable” to greenwash their fossil fuel climate pollution and boost profits. EPA regulations must crack down on factory farm pollution and move us towards a more humane and sustainable food system.

The EPA has failed to treat industrial animal agriculture like the climate polluter it is, and mega meat and dairy corporations are fighting hard to keep the status quo with no accountability. It’s time to speak up and bring an end to this unchecked pollution. 

The EPA must address the urgency of the climate crisis by cracking down on factory farming and protecting people, animals, and the planet.

Thanks for taking action, 

Tyler Lobdell
Staff Attorney
Food & Water Watch