环保署为20年旧协议收尾：约2600家动物饲养场退出排放估算悬置，涉近1.4万家农场
美国环境保护署（EPA）10月30日在华盛顿宣布，该署不会就2005年《动物饲养场同意协议与最终命令》（通称2005年空气合规协议）制定排放估算方法，其执法办公室将着手终止该协议下的义务。环保署表示，这些行动为一份让成千上万美国农民二十多年来得不到明确答案的协议画上句号。
2005年，美国国家科学院一份报告呼吁改进估算动物饲养场（AFO）空气排放的方法，环保署随即向圈养饲养牲畜与家禽的农场提供自愿签约机会，参与「国家空气排放监测研究」（NAEMS），目标是开发供农场估算自身排放的方法。此后二十多年间，许多参与农场已经易手、关闭，或把畜舍与粪污系统现代化；饲养猪、肉鸡、蛋鸡与奶牛的农民一直不知道方法定版后会随之而来怎样的许可或报告义务。
环保署评估2005至2007年采集的 NAEMS 数据后认定，这些数据过于陈旧、过于有限，无法支撑可靠的方法：数据反映的畜舍设计、畜群规模与粪污做法已不再代表如今许多农场的经营方式。因此，环保署不会在2005年空气合规协议下把这套方法定版。环保署表示，此举不改变《清洁空气法》的执行与为全体美国人提供清洁空气的承诺。
「好的科学需要好的数据，而这些数据太旧、太有限，撑不起能让农场依赖的方法。」环保署空气与辐射办公室代理助理署长阿比盖尔·塔迪夫（Abigale Tardif）说，「我们宁可坦率地告诉农民这一点，也不发布自己都站不住脚的数字。」
环保署执法与合规保障办公室助理署长杰弗里·霍尔（Jeffrey Hall）表示，农民二十年来一直生活在这样的威胁之下：环保署随时可能出台一套把农场当作大型工业设施的新排放框架，迫使农民匆忙申请繁重的许可；今天的行动以了结2005年协议下早已过时的义务推进了法治。农业部副部长斯蒂芬·亚历山大·瓦登（Stephen Alexander Vaden）也发声，称农民头上的不确定性在今天结束。
环保署说，该署将按协议尽可能通知受2005年协议约束的约2,600家动物饲养场这次行动，随后终止协议。背景资料显示，加入该协议的约2,600家饲养场代表近1.4万家农场；环保署2024年11月曾发布更新版方法草案征求意见，意见期2025年8月关闭后，该署认定数据代表性与年限方面的关键局限无法用现有数据解决。环保署表示，将继续与农业部、赠地大学与生产者合作，以务实、科学的方式了解并减少农场空气排放。
来源：GSM·美国
EPA Brings Closure to 20-Year-Old Air Compliance Agreement Affecting Thousands of American Farms
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in Washington on October 30 that it will not develop emissions estimates as part of the 2005 Animal Feeding Operations Consent Agreement and Final Order, known as the 2005 Air Compliance Agreement, and that its enforcement office will work to end obligations under that agreement. Together, the actions bring closure to an agreement that has left thousands of American farmers without clear answers for more than two decades, the agency said.
In 2005, following a National Academy of Sciences report calling for better ways to estimate air emissions from animal feeding operations (AFOs), EPA offered livestock and poultry farms that raise animals in confinement the chance to sign a voluntary agreement and take part in the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study (NAEMS), whose goal was to develop methodologies farms could use to estimate their emissions. In the two decades since, many participating farms have changed hands, closed, or modernized their barns and manure systems, while farmers raising hogs, broiler chickens, egg-laying hens, and dairy cows waited without knowing what permitting or reporting obligations might follow.
After evaluating the NAEMS data collected from 2005 to 2007, EPA concluded the data are too old and too limited to support reliable methods, reflecting barn designs, herd sizes, and manure practices that no longer represent how many farms operate today. As a result, EPA will not finalize the methodologies under the agreement. Today's actions do not change EPA's implementation of the Clean Air Act or its commitment to clean air for all Americans, the agency said.
"Good science requires good data, and these data are too old and too limited to support methods that farms could rely on," said EPA Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation Abigale Tardif. "We would rather tell farmers that plainly than issue numbers we cannot stand behind."
EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Jeffrey Hall said farmers had lived for two decades under the threat that EPA could issue a new emissions framework treating farms like major industrial facilities, and that the action advances the rule of law by resolving the long-obsolete obligations. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Alexander Vaden said the uncertainty for farmers ends today.
EPA will work to notify the approximately 2,600 AFOs subject to the agreement and then terminate it. About 2,600 AFOs, representing nearly 14,000 farms, joined the 2005 agreement. EPA released updated draft methodologies for public comment in November 2024; after the comment period closed in August 2025, the agency identified key limitations in the representativeness and age of the data that could not be resolved. EPA said it will continue to work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, land-grant universities, and producers on practical, science-based ways to understand and reduce air emissions from farms.
Source: GSM · USA
来源：GSM·美国（原文链接）
图片来源：图：美国环保署总部威廉·杰斐逊·克林顿联邦大楼（素材库 federal-core 固定图）。Moreau1 摄，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / The William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (GSM asset library, federal-core pack). Photo by Moreau1, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
