FB: EPA has no legal authority for ag dust

Air quality standards for agriculture are more and more a point of contention: From the Farm Bureau:

The American Farm Bureau Federation today told a circuit court of appeals that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the legal authority to regulate agricultural dust under the Clean Air Act. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral argument from AFBF and other parties both challenging and defending the EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter in American Farm Bureau Federation et. al v. EPA.

Today’s proceedings are the final stage of a two-year legal battle over whether EPA’s NAAQS violated the Clean Air Act. AFBF argued that EPA’s own studies did not show that agricultural dust caused the adverse health effects that trigger Clean Air Act regulation.

Further, said AFBF General Counsel Julie Anna Potts, “The Clean Air Act does not require agricultural dust to be regulated by the same standard as urban particulate matter. Congress requires EPA to support its NAAQS with science and thus far they have not met that burden for agricultural dust,” said Potts.

The American Farm Bureau, the National Pork Producers Council and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association had 15 minutes today at the proceedings to provide additional argument and answer the panel’s questions.

AFBF initiated the case in 2006 because regulation of agricultural dust would place a burden on producers and the importance of ensuring that stringent Clean Air Act requirements are lawfully enacted.

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