A rule by the Environmental Protection Agency exempts livestock producers from reporting emissions from their farms to state and local authorities.
The move, supported by the livestock industry, won the applause of the National Pork Producers Council.
NPPC President Jim Heimerl called the rule the final piece in the implementation of the FARM Act, which passed Congress earlier this year and eliminated the need for livestock farmers to estimate and report to the federal government emissions from the natural breakdown of manure.
He called the original rule “unnecessary and impractical” for farmers.
NPPC says the Fair Agricultural Reporting Method, or FARM, Act fixed a problem created last April when a U.S. Court of Appeals rejected a 2008 EPA rule that exempted farmers from reporting routine farm emissions.
NPPC also says the appeals court ruling would have forced livestock farmers to “guesstimate” and report the emissions from manure on their farms to the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Response Center.
