Livestock industry finds friends in EPA
Documents detail lobbyists' impact on air-quality plan

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0405160316may16,1,5656746
.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

By Andrew Martin
Washington Bureau
Published May 16, 2004

WASHINGTON -- When Environmental Protection Agency officials addressed the
National Pork Producers Council last year about a proposed farm-pollution
monitoring program, they brought along a slide show to explain and promote
the new rules.

Although the audience had no way of knowing it, the slide show was prepared
not just by EPA staff but largely by the meat industry, which backed the new
rules over the objections of environmentalists.

Internal EPA documents show that the proposed program to monitor air
pollution at livestock farms--a contentious topic in rural America--was
largely conceived and heavily influenced by lobbyists for the livestock
industry. The program is to be officially unveiled in coming months.

The documents also show a relationship between some EPA officials and
industry lobbyists that was so close that one EPA official working on farm
issues quit in frustration, and state and local government representatives
walked out of negotiations.

"To save you some time, I've taken the liberty of drafting a few PowerPoint
slides that you might use in that presentation," livestock industry lobbyist
John Thorne wrote in a Feb. 15, 2003, e-mail to then-EPA attorney Timothy
Jones.

In an e-mail on Feb. 18, 2003, Thorne sent a second set of slides to be used
by EPA Associate Administrator Karen Flournoy that concludes, "The public
will benefit from all of this."

Other documents show that Jones incorporated some of Thorne's slides into
his presentation, while Flournoy used essentially the whole
thing....................

-------------
Submitted by:

David Wallinga, MD, MPA
Food and Health Program
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
2105 First Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55404
[log in to unmask]
612-870-3418
www.iatp.org/foodandhealth

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