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Press Release September 11, 2023

Environmental Group Challenges EPA’s 2023-2025 Renewable Fuel Standard Rule; Failure to Fully Consider Climate and Land Impacts Violates Clean Air Act and Administrative Procedure Act

The EPA Rule ignores evidence that biofuel production has significant climate, environmental, consumer, and justice impacts in violation of federal law

Document September 11, 2023

Petition for Review RFS Sept 2023

Environmental Groups Challenge EPA’s 2023-2025 Renewable Fuel Standard Rule

In this aerial view, turbines stand in a row along the top of Backbone Mountain on August 22, 2022 in Oakland, Maryland. The 70-megawatt wind farm runs along eight miles of the mountain ridge and consists of 28 Clipper 2.5 MW Liberty Turbines, each one 415-feet tall. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
Article August 16, 2023

The Biggest Climate Spending Bill Ever Just Turned One. Here’s What It Has Achieved.

We’re celebrating a booming clean economy, lower energy costs, a path forward to reducing harmful pollution, and more than 170,600 new clean energy jobs so far.

An industrial hog facility in North Carolina. Hog feces and urine are flushed into open, unlined pits and then sprayed onto nearby fields. The practice leads to waste contaminating nearby waters, and drifting as "mist" onto neighboring properties.
(Photo courtesy of Friends of Family Farmers)
Press Release August 16, 2023

In Response to Petition, EPA Announces New Federal Advisory Committee on Industrial Animal Factory Pollution

EPA’s announcement responds in part to a rulemaking petition submitted in October 2022 by a nationwide coalition of over 50 citizens’ groups and community advocacy, environmental justice, and environmental advocacy organizations, in partnership with Earthjustice

Document August 15, 2023

EPA Response to Petition for CAFOs to Discharge Pollutants Under Clean Water Act

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) response to petition requesting Agency adopt a rebuttable presumption that Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) using wet manure management systems actually discharge pollutants under the Clean Water Act (CWA), and must apply for CWA permits. EPA denies this petition, and instead commits to pursuing strategy to evaluate means of improving the CAFO program.

(Brad Zweerink / Earthjustice)
Press Release July 13, 2023

Earthjustice Statement: Biden Administration Activates Inflation Reduction Act Funds to Address Agriculture Sector’s Vast Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The new investment demonstrates the Biden administration’s commitment to address the underreported greenhouse gas emissions from industrial agriculture and will provide invaluable insight into best practices that reduce emissions and sequester carbon in the soil, allowing the USDA to advance climate-smart farming and forestry

From the Experts June 27, 2023

Agriculture, Climate, and 2023 Farm Bill (A 3-Part Blog Series)

About the 3-blog series on helping American agriculture become more resilient and climate-friendly:

Press Release June 21, 2023

Earthjustice Statement: EPA Final Renewable Fuel Standard Rule

Given those consequences of mandating conventional biofuel volumes over that amount the market itself would demand, this rule is an unfortunate example of politics setting environmental policy, not science or law, and a poor use of 60 million acres of American farmland

From the Experts June 9, 2023

Agriculture, Climate, and 2023 Farm Bill (A 3-Part Blog Series)

About the 3-blog series on helping American agriculture become more resilient and climate-friendly:

Today, most cropland is a vast monoculture of industrial-scale, chemical-intensive commodity crops. (Scott Goodwill / Unsplash)
From the Experts May 31, 2023

Agriculture, Climate, and 2023 Farm Bill (A 3-Part Blog Series)

About the 3-blog series on helping American agriculture become more resilient and climate-friendly:

(Sorangel Liriano / Earthjustice)
Press Release May 24, 2023

Bill to Increase Protections for NY’s Community Gardens Passed by Senate and Assembly, Gov. Hochul Can Help Keep Gardens Growing by Signing into Law

This legislation brings community gardeners and members closer to major decision-making processes when faced with competing land interest

(Samantha Lee / Earthjustice)
Article May 19, 2023

How’s the Biden Administration Doing on the Climate Crisis?

Earthjustice’s attorneys and policy experts rated the administration’s progress.

Document May 4, 2023

Consent Decree: Cape Fear River Watch v. EPA

Plaintiffs Cape Fear River Watch, et al. filed complaint against Defendants the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Michael S. Regan, administrator of the EPA. Complaint alleges EPA failed to at least annually revise, if appropriate, the effluent limitations guidelines for the Meat and Poultry Products (MPP) industrial point source category, and failed to publish regulations establishing pretreatment standards for introduction of pollutants from MPP facilities into publicly owned treatment works.

(srdjan111 / iStockphoto)
From the Experts: Victory May 3, 2023

We Sued the EPA to Restrict Water Pollution from Slaughterhouses. And We Won.

As a result of our litigation, the EPA agreed to finalize new water pollution control regulations for slaughterhouses and animal rendering facilities by August 2025.

Document April 26, 2023

Oyster Bay Complaint

Plaintiffs North Oyster Bay Baymen’s Association (“Baymen’s Association” or “Association”) and Center for Food Safety (“CFS”) (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) bring this action to challenge the improper administration of the Congressman Lester Wolff Oyster Bay National Wildlife Refuge (“Refuge”) by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“Service”).

An industrial shellfish dredge boat with a trailing plume of churned-up sediment in Oyster Bay Harbor, which includes portions of the Congressman Lester Wolff Oyster Bay National Wildlife Refuge.  (Eric Gulbransen / North Oyster Bay Baymen’s Association)
Press Release April 26, 2023

Shellfish Harvesters and Conservationists Challenge U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Refusal to Oversee Industrial Shellfish Dredging in Long Island Refuge

Lawsuit takes aim at agency’s long-term failure to examine whether industrial shellfish dredging conflicts with Refuge’s wildlife-protection purposes

In the News: Civil Eats March 22, 2023

Paraquat, the Deadliest Chemical in US Agriculture, Goes on Trial

Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, Attorney, Toxic Exposure & Health Program, Earthjustice: “The initial paraquat risk assessment was scientifically and legally baseless. The key question now is whether EPA uses this new opportunity to follow the science and protect the public from this incredibly dangerous pesticide.”

Press Release March 17, 2023

Agriculture, Food, and Land-Focused Organizations Support SEC on Scope 3 Emissions Disclosure

Eighteen organizations submitted a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission to express their support for the SEC’s proposed rule on climate disclosure, including its provisions on Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions