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 Eat well... Shop the Eat Well Guide www.eatwellguide.org/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp