Dairy Farms Identified as a Major Pollutant in California

Earlier this year, thousands of In Defense of Animals supporters wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asking why the meat and dairy industries get a free pass from reporting their greenhouse gas emissions.

It was a fair question, considering the government collects mandatory reports from 41 other sectors, and since animal agriculture is responsible for the largest percentage of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide – higher than the entire transportation sector combined according to the United Nations.

We’re still waiting for an answer from the EPA. However, encouraging news is that a separate California government entity, the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) is leading by example! CalEPA has recently proposed mandatory emissions reporting for large dairy farms in California. The proposed change is groundbreaking at a time when animal agriculture facilities are generally exempt from climate change regulations around the world. We hope that others will follow CalEPA’s example, and that the state of California will become a leader in making the animal agriculture industries accountable for their damaging pollution.

Read the proposal here.