The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a petition by environmental groups that sought to tighten regulations on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
A February 2024 lawsuit headed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Food and Water Watch targeted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for rejecting a 2017 petition to increase CAFO regulations. The groups asked the appeals court to review EPA’s rejection, which the court rejected further.
“In response to the petition, EPA acknowledged the serious problem of CAFO-based waste discharges into U.S. waterways and it decided that the most effective way to counter the problem is to further study its effluent limitation guidelines and to commission a stakeholders’ subcommittee,” the court wrote in its ruling.
