Earthjustice and partners urge the Treasury Department to prohibit electricity producers that use biogas from animal manure from receiving Clean Electricity Tax Credits.

Earthjustice and partners urge USDA to consider the full climate impact of crop-based biofuels when evaluating the potential benefits of using sustainable growing practices for biofuel production

Peter Lehner, Managing Attorney, Sustainable Food & Farming Program: “It would be difficult to achieve if not impossible. You can’t claim to be climate friendly or net zero because beef production ineluctably uses an enormous amount of land and emits an enormous amount of methane and nitrous oxide. You can reduce that, but you’re still…

Earthjustice writes in strong opposition to the proposed Farm Bill. This partisan bill undermines the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) essential investments in climate-smart agriculture programs, removing a critical tool for farmers to address climate change, improve profitability, and advance their resilience in the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

The legislation to expands participation in the food donation and food scraps recycling program

Peter Lehner, Managing Attorney for Earthjustice’s Sustainable Food & Farming Program, speaks about the U.S. farm bill and agricultural emissions

Service will begin process to ensure that industrial dredging does not conflict with wildlife protection, according to settlement agreement with traditional shellfish harvesters and conservationists

The agreement follows a lawsuit filed in 2023 by the North Oyster Bay Baymen’s Association and the Center for Food Safety, both represented by Earthjustice, challenging the Service’s decades-long failure to prevent harm from industrial shellfish dredging.

The neurotoxic pesticide harms children and the environment. There are no safe uses for chlorpyrifos.

Peter Lehner, Managing Attorney, Sustainable Food & Farming Program: “Consumers are beginning to be aware of the fact that meat, and particularly beef, has a very, very high climate impact. JBS is fully aware of this, and trying to get ahead of that by telling consumers, ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’ve got it under control.’ But…

Stronger standards would prevent hundreds of millions of pounds of pollution from reaching rivers and streams, helping to protect more than 22 million people

Inadequately controlled water pollution from slaughterhouses and rendering facilities can make water unsafe for drinking, unfit for outdoor recreation, and uninhabitable for aquatic life, posing serious risks to human health and the environment, especially in vulnerable and under-resourced communities. After more than two decades, EPA finally has begun the process of strengthening water pollution control standards for these facilities, and the Agency now proposes to adopt the weakest of three regulatory options. EPA’s preferred option is inconsistent with the CWA and other federal laws.

Together with the over 50 undersigned environmental, community advocacy, animal welfare, and farmer organizations, Earthjustice writes to urge the Natural Resources Conservation Service to exclude anaerobic digesters from its upcoming Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Mitigation Activities List for FY2025, thereby ensuring that digesters do not improperly receive funding under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Peter Lehner, Managing Attorney, Sustainable Food & Farming Program: “A big potential indirect impact is a bit of education of policymakers. Congress gives special exemptions to animal ag in part because they don’t know, or don’t want to believe, the real climate and pollution impact. So I hope this will get a few more policymakers…

On average, over 17,000 animals are killed each minute in slaughterhouses across the United States. Slaughterhouse byproducts such as fat, bone, and feathers are often sent to rendering facilities for conversion into tallow, animal meal, and other products. Both slaughterhouses and rendering facilities require a near-constant flow of water, and they discharge hundreds of millions of pounds of water pollution each year.

Requiring animal feeding operations to report their toxic emissions of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide will help community members better protect their health

AFOs emit the extremely hazardous gasses ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, and these emissions pose serious threats to people living nearby, including people living in communities of color and low-income communities. EPCRA requires facilities to report emissions of extremely hazardous substances.

The joint letter calls for secured support of the vital USDA Climate Hubs