Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 3/28/19


USDA objected to and denied allegations made in a lawsuit seeking to stop an agency policy the plaintiffs say exempts medium-sized concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOS) from standard government oversight, according to court documents.

Filed late last year in federal district court in Washington D.C. by Food & Water Watch, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and several other groups, the lawsuit had been delayed by the federal government shutdown. USDA filed its response to the complaint on Monday.

The lawsuit targets a 2016 rule change adopted by USDA’s Farm Service Agency that grants exemptions from what plaintiffs describe as the usual process of notice, comment and oversight when the government is providing taxpayer-subsidized loans to “medium-sized” CAFOs under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). USDA defines these facilities as those authorized to hold nearly 125,000 chickens, 55,000 turkeys, 2,500 pigs, 1,000 beef cattle or 700 dairy cows.

The lawsuit alleges the rulemaking process and the rule ultimately implemented by the Trump administration violate NEPA and the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide adequate notice of the proposed rule change and refusing to explain why medium-sized CAFOs should be exempted.


“By failing to review the financing for these facilities under NEPA, the Trump Administration has helped cloak their planned operations in secrecy, preventing rural communities from obtaining information regarding the impact of these operations on local air and water quality,” the plaintiffs said in a news release announcing the lawsuit. “In so doing the Administration promotes factory farms over family farms.”

USDA’s response to the complaint is largely a line-by-line denial of the allegations in the plaintiffs’ lawsuit. In one rare bit of color, the agency states that environmental analyses continue to take place before loans are approved.

The agency wants the complaint tossed, arguing that the court lacks jurisdiction over some or all of the plaintiffs’ claims and that plaintiffs have failed to exhaust their administrative remedies for some or all of the claims.

Both sides, meanwhile, continue to argue whether another federal lawsuit involving Food & Water Watch related to CAFOs should be folded into this case.

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