Tackling the Problem of CAFOs and Climate Change: A New Path to Improved Animal Welfare?

• Author: Bruce Myers & Linda Breggin
• Pages: 117-146

117

Chapter 5:

Tackling the Problem of

CAFOs and Climate Change:

A New Path to Improved

Animal Welfare?

Bruce Myers and Linda Breggin*

I. Livestock Production as a Driver of Climate Change ...........................120

A. Emissions .....................................................................................120

B. Mitigation .................................................................................... 123

II. e Link Between Mitigating GHG Emissions From Industrial Farm

Animal Production and Improved Animal Welfare .............................. 125

III. Legal and Policy Approaches to Reduced GHG Emissions ..................127

A. GHG Reporting ...........................................................................128

B. Regulation ....................................................................................130

1. Federal...................................................................................130

a. Clean Air Act ..................................................................130

b. Legislative Reforms .........................................................138

2. State and Regional .................................................................140

C. Incentives and Subsidies ...............................................................141

1. Federal...................................................................................141

2. States .....................................................................................143

IV. Moving Forward .................................................................................144

Conclusion ...................................................................................................146

The trajectory of global climate change is not a happy one. e World

Meteorological Organization of the United Nations reported that

2014 was the warmest year on record, consistent with the overall

* We would like to thank Julia Hatcher for her thoughtful review of portions of this chapter,

as well as Amy Streitwieser for her invaluable research, drafting, and editorial assistance.

e authors are solely responsible for the content, including any errors or omissions.

118 What Can Animal Law Learn From Environmental Law?

trend toward hotter years.1 e Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC) in its most recent round of work explained that, absent additional

eorts to mitigate anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, “warm-

ing by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe,

widespread, and irreversible impacts globally.”2

Most of the key drivers of a nthropogenic climate change are now rec eiv-

ing attention from U.S. policymakers. e Obama Administration’s Climate

Action Plan relies on a combination of regula tions and incentives to reduce

carbon pollution from power plants, accelerate the shif t to clean energy,

reduce emissions from transportation, and im prove energy eciency in

industry, businesses, and homes.3 e centerpiece of this plan is the U.S.

Environmental Protection A gency’s (EPA’s) set of proposed regulations to

reduce carbon emissions from new a nd existing power plants.4 New pro-

posed rules on methane from extractive industry activities have also been

announced.5 State and regional eorts, too, a re ongoing—from Ca lifornia’s

Global Warming Solutions Act6 to the Regional Greenhouse Ga s Initiative

(RGGI) in the Northeast.7 And the climate crisis will soon be playing lead

on the international stage: at the end of 2015, parties to the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including the

United States, will meet in Paris to negotiate a n international agreement on

climate change.8

Largely absent from the legal and policy dialogue on GHG mitigation

has been the need to deal with emissions resulting from agricultural opera-

tions—and, in part icular, emissions attributable directly and indirectly to

1. Clare Nullis, Warming Trend Continues in 2014, W M O., Feb. 2, 2015, ht-

tps://www.wmo.int/media/?q=content/warming-trend-continues-2014.

2. e IPCC reached this conclusion with high condence. IPCC, C C 2014 S

R: S  P 17 (2014).

3. E. O   P, T P’ C A P (June 2013), available at

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/les/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdf.

4. Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From New Stationary Sources: Electric

Utility Generating Units, 79 Fed. Reg. 1429 (proposed Jan. 8, 2014); Carbon Pollution Emission

Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units, 79 Fed. Reg. 34829

(proposed June 18, 2014); Carbon Pollution Standards for Modied and Reconstructed Stationary

Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units, 79 Fed. Reg. 34960 (proposed June 18, 2014).

5. Oce of the Press Sec’y, FACT SHEET: Administration Takes Steps Forward on Climate Action Plan

by Announcing Actions to Cut Methane Emissions, T W H, Jan. 14, 2015, http://www.

whitehouse.gov/the-press-oce/2015/01/14/fact-sheet-administration-takes-steps-forward-climate-

action-plan-anno-1.

6. California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, A.B. 32, 2005/2006 Leg., Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2006)

(codied at C. H  S C §§38500-38599).

7. See, e.g., Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Program Overview, http://www.rggi.org/design/overview

(last visited May 3, 2015).

8. See Int’l Inst. for Sustainable Dev., UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) 21, http://climate-l.iisd.

org/events/unfccc-cop-21/ (last visited May 3, 2015) (discussing Paris COP).