Polluting ‘til the Cows Come Home: How Agricultural Exceptionalism Allows Cafos Free Range For Climate Harm

Polluting ‘til the Cows Come Home:

How Agricultural Exceptionalism Allows

CAFOs Free Range for Climate Harm

RYAN LEVANDOWSKI*

ABSTRACT

Despite strong opposition under the Trump administration, recent U.S. cli-

mate policy proposals continue to focus on reducing the amount of greenhouse

gases emitted by some of the most polluting sectors—from transportation to

electricity generation—but one high-polluting industry has been overlooked for

decades: animal agriculture. Although animal agriculture, especially beef pro-

duction, accounts for a signif‌icant amount of highly potent greenhouse gases,

including methane (“CH

4

”) and nitrous oxide (“N

2

O”), regulators have not

sought to curb emissions from livestock and their waste. Instead, the sector

enjoys numerous and longstanding freedoms from environmental regulation—

part of a system that agricultural law scholars have deemed “agricultural

exceptionalism”—perpetuated by virtue of our reliance on, and traditional

notions of, agricultural production. However, agricultural trends over the past

few decades have led to a model of highly concentrated and industrialized ani-

mal agriculture that bears little resemblance to the family farm. With the rise of

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (“CAFOs”), facilities collocating

hundreds to thousands of animals and their waste on small areas of land, the

animal agriculture industry, more than ever, resembles the conventional model

of a greenhouse gas-emitting source.

This Note expands upon the pervasive regime of agricultural exceptionalism and

analyzes some of its ramif‌ications in the climate context. In particular, this Note

examines the scope of climate impacts from CAFOs, the failure of federal regula-

tion to address those impacts, and the potential of alternative methods—namely,

common law climate litigation—as a substitute for regulatory intervention.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

I. Animal Agriculture is a Signif‌icant Contributor to Climate Change. . . . . 153

* Georgetown Law, J.D. 2020; The George Washington University, B.A. 2016. © 2020, Ryan

Levandowski. The author thanks Professor Lisa Heinzerling and the editors of the Georgetown

Environmental Law Review.

151

A. Animal Agriculture is a Leading Emitter of Greenhouse Gases. . . . 154

B. Animal Agriculture Can Play a Role in Climate Change Mitigation . . 155

1. Opportunities for Reducing Emissions from Animal

Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

2. Obstacles to Reducing Emissions from Animal Agriculture . . . 157

II. Agricultural Exceptionalism has led to a Failure of Federal Oversight. . . 158

A. Federal Regulators Lack Suff‌icient Information to Regulate CAFO

Air Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

1. EPA Lacks Adequate Information on CAFO Greenhouse Gas

Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

2. Federal Deregulation Further Limits Access to CAFO Emission

Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

B. EPA Refuses to Use its CAA Authority to Regulate CAFOs. . . . . . 163

1. EPA has Authority to Regulate Greenhouse Gases under the

CAA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

2. EPA has Avoided Applying Stationary Source Regulations to

CAFOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

III. Climate Litigation is an Unproven Substitute for Federal Regulation. . . . 166

A. CAFOs Face the Same Barriers to Federal Public Nuisance Litigation

as Other Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

B. State Law Presents Unique Barriers to Nuisance Liability for

CAFOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

INTRODUCTION

The world is facing an existential climate emergency.

1

Recent climate reports

warn of food shortages, wildf‌ires, and inundated coastlines, among other dire

consequences that may be unavoidable—absent an unprecedented transformation

of the global economy.

2

Yet policy responses have been slow and may fail to pre-

vent some of these most serious effects of climate change.

3

Recently, climate pol-

icy in the United States has been particularly troublesome, as the Trump

Administration has reversed some of the most signif‌icant Obama-era climate reg-

ulations.

4

However, one major emitter of greenhouse gases has avoided the atten-

tion of policymakers for decades: the animal agriculture industry.

1. WILLIAM J. RIPPLE, CHRISTOPHER WOLF, THOMAS M. NEWSOME, PHOEBE BARNARD, & WILLIAM

R. MOOMAW, World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency, BIOSCIENCE, https://perma.cc/

JZ32-UK6Z

2. See CORAL DAVENPORT, Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040,

N.Y. TIMES (Oct. 7, 2018), https://perma.cc/X3XK-TGXS (reporting on a landmark special report by the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

3. See U.N. INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, SPECIAL REPORT: GLOBAL

WARMING OF 1.5 ˚C, SUMMARY FOR POLICYMAKERS 4–10 (2018).

4. See Daniel Farber, U.S. Climate Policy: Obama, Trump, and Beyond, 10(2) REVISTA DE ESTUDOS

CONSTITUCIONAIS, HERMENE

ˆUTICA E TEORIA DO DIREITO 95 (2018).

152 THE GEORGETOWN ENVTL. LAW REVIEW [Vol. 33:151