As meat processors around the United States wait to hear back from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the proposed effluent limitation guidelines (ELGs), interested parties and trade associations continue to work with the industry on the implications of this proposal.

This past July, Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Glenn “GT” Thompson, provided an opening statement during a hearing on the EPA’s action on American agriculture. Thompson voiced his opinion on how the ELGs could counter what the US Department of Agriculture is doing with its Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion (MPPEP) program.

“While Biden’s USDA spends millions to — supposedly — expand meat and poultry processing capacity, his EPA is simultaneously proposing a rule that would shutter processing plants and impose significant compliance costs across industries vital to food affordability,” Thompson said.

A few days later, when he was asked about Thompson’s remarks, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was on a press call regarding a new $110-million investment in meat processing capacity.

“I think we at USDA worked collaboratively with the EPA to ensure that it had very, very little impact on processing capacity,” Vilsack said. “There may have been a handful of processing facilities that may have been impacted by this rule in terms of potentially being shut down, as the chairman said. But the vast, vast majority of processing facilities, were not necessarily going to be in a situation where they were going to have to shutter the doors. I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration by the chairman.”

Vilsack noted in his remarks that there are 134 opportunities for new and expanded processing capacity across 48 states.

The July funding was allocated to establish the Local Meat Capacity (Local MCap) Grant Program run by the USDA.

The EPA’s Federal Register notice earlier in 2024 said its three regulatory options could impact between 844 and 1,618 facilities around the United States.

Under the facility closure analysis, the EPA estimated that 16 facilities would potentially close under its first preferred option. Under Option 2, EPA estimated 22 facilities would potentially close, and under Option 3, 53 facilities would potentially close.

AAMP’s response

Chris Young, executive director of American Association of Meat Processors (AAMP), continues to push for the small meat businesses he represents. Young argues that it’s difficult for Vilsack to tout expanded meat processing capacity growing in small- and medium-sized plants coming online while some plants have the potential of being shut down.

“When you take 53 plants out of the 134 you just gave millions of dollars to expand capacity, now we’ve gone backwards and we’re losing capacity again,” Young said.

Young believes that an issue with the EPA’s rule is a lack of research on the agency changing the effluent limitation guidelines, but he is also concerned about the USDA’s role.

“I’m trying to understand where Secretary Vilsack’s coming from, but the fact is that until we see the final rule, he can’t predict how many plants will shut down,” Young said. “I can’t predict how many plants will shut down.”

He added that AAMP hasn’t had much interaction with the EPA for almost 20 years, which was the last time they updated the effluent limitation guidelines.

“What has been looked at overall, not just by us but by members of Congress, is this seems to be part of a pattern under this administration of ‘sue and settle’ with the EPA, and that’s how this regulation came about was through EPA being sued by several different activist groups,” Young said.

Young stated that AAMP’s position is to see EPA postpone the final rule and come back and work with the industry and really connect data.

“We’ve said from the very beginning that AAMP believes that we want to be environmentally responsible,” he said. “We want to make sure that if we are part of the problem, we’re part of the solution.”

However, Young points out that the EPA’s proposed rule was taken from a survey sent out to people in 2022, where the EPA collected and analyzed wastewater samples from six facilities, all of which Young said were larger plants.

EPA stated in the Federal Register that it conducted site visits at nine different facilities, specifically three meat facilities, five poultry facilities, and one independent rendering facility.

“I just think that they’re pushing something to meet a deadline that they settled with this group in court on and it’s too fast,” Young said. “I think that the industry is too diverse, especially when you get to our small side for them to try do a one size fits all.”

Young believes that if EPA would go back and do their studies with industry, the proposed rule should not even affect one plant.

“We should be able to do something where it should be unacceptable for any plants to close, especially when we’re investing millions of dollars to expand capacity,” Young said.

The future of the EPA rule

Without a clear definition of the EPA final rule, Young and others are unsure what the capital investment or expenditure would be to comply with these wastewater treatment regulations.

“There’s a lot of grasping of numbers from the air that leaves it very open to interpretation, and we don’t know what it’s going to cost,” he said of the proposals. “From my vantage point, it’s too late to wait for the final rule to come out and then to react to the final rule when we’ve seen the work or the lack of work that has gone on by EPA to meet this court-ordered deadline. It says to me there’s just question marks, and we need to be talking about it.”

The EPA proposal, like many from the federal government, could also be under further scrutiny following the overturing of the Chevron Doctrine. That precedent previously allowed federal agencies to interpret laws when established federal statutes were unclear. If statutes were ambiguous, federal agencies were able to decide Congressional intent due to the precedent set by Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council in 1984. Now, judges are tasked with deciding the legal status of regulations.

Following the EPA’s proposed regulations, Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) and Ron Estes (R-Kan.) introduced the Banning EPA’s Encroachment of Facilities (BEEF) Act earlier in 2024, looking to prohibit the EPA from finalizing, implementing or enforcing a new EPA proposed rule titled “Clean Water Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and Poultry Products Point source category.”

“Once again, Biden’s EPA is using its rulemaking pen to attack small businesses in Kansas and across the country through their recent regulations proposal on local meat processors,” Estes said at the beginning of 2024. “Kansans have shared with me that this egregious burden by federal bureaucrats would shutter small operations in our communities due to the steep costs of implementing unnecessary, major phosphate and nitrogen testing that large-scale meat-processing operations can absorb and already conduct.

“Together with Congressman Burlison, our commonsense bill would prevent the EPA from attacking local mom-and-pop meat producers with their regulatory overreach.”

Supporters of the latest bill in the House of Representatives include AAMP, Missouri Farm Bureau, Missouri Association of Meat Processors and the Kansas Meat Processors Association.

Since the beginning of the spring, the EPA has not announced any updates on its proposed rule. Public comments were accepted by the agency until March 25, 2024.