"US regulators are illegally withholding records related to the disbanding of a panel set up by the Biden administration to address water pollution from factory farms, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
The lawsuit, filed by the advocacy group Food & Water Watch, alleges the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to fulfill Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking communication between the agency and industry groups about the EPA’s Animal Agriculture and Water Quality Subcommittee disbanding.
The subcommittee was created in 2023 in response to a petition asking the agency to bolster its Clean Water Act oversight of concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFOs, which generate massive amounts of manure that can pollute rivers and lakes with nitrates, phosphorus, bacteria, antibiotics and other contaminants.
The EPA denied the petition but created the subcommittee to gather more information about CAFO pollution. The subcommittee met three times in 2024. Once the Trump administration took office, the EPA — without explanation — stopped all communication with members, cancelled all upcoming meetings, and, months later, changed the subcommittee’s status to “inactive,” according to the lawsuit."
