Environmental Protection Agency scientists know that factory farms emit toxic gases that pose threats to human health, but that's not stopping the agency from allowing farms to shirk the reporting process for these emissions.

Under existing rules, farms report toxic gas emissions that exceed a certain amount. The agency asserts these records aren't used and therefore unnecessary. Yet, without a record of the pollution livestock operations create, people have no way to link suspicious patterns of illness to emitters of mass amounts of culpable pollutants, and no recourse for holding these farms accountable.

You don't have to visit one of these farms to know this stinks of corporate interest. Livestock lobbyists have been pushing this change for years, especially after facing lawsuits from environmental groups and rural communities.

Livestock operations produce an estimated two-thirds of the ammonia emissions reported in the U.S. Fingers point to emissions from manure pits, which include both ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, for the cause of illnesses (and even deaths) of farm workers and residents around large livestock operations.

EPA surreptitiously published a notice in the Federal Register on December 28, 2007, when Congress was on holiday, which describes its plan to exempt factory farms from emission reporting requirements.

But it's not a done deal. You can provide public comment through March 28.

Sources: The Washington Post and EPA

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