Environmentalists joined animal rights and public health groups last week in calling for substantial reforms to the U.S. livestock industry.

At the first National Conference to End Factory Farming, held in Arlington, Va., they pushed for Congress to end subsidies to large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and to support local food in federal farm policy.

Their calls came as House and Senate agriculture leaders were completing proposals for cutting $23 billion from the U.S. Agriculture Department's budget, which are expected to be submitted today to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

The groups also sharply criticized U.S. EPA for what Wenonah Hauter, director of Food & Water Watch, called "almost nonexistent" regulation of the industry.

"The Obama administration has been just terrible on the issue," Hauter told the 300-plus gathering of mostly vegans and vegetarians. The group included well-known names in the anti-CAFO movement, such as animal rights crusader Elizabeth Kucinich, animal behavior expert Jonathan Balcombe and Goldman Environmental Prize winner Lynn Henning.

Their attacks on CAFO food production contrast dramatically with the views of livestock groups. The beef industry has maintained that EPA's regulations are burdensome. The pork industry has filed lawsuits challenging EPA's CAFO permitting rule but is "willing to sit down with any legitimate entity" to figure out solutions to environmental issues, as National Pork Producers Council officials put it recently at a press briefing.

In 2007, there were 28.8 million animal units on CAFOs, an increase of about 5 million from 2002, Food & Water Watch found last year. About 70 percent of the grain produced in the nation goes toward feeding livestock.

CAFOs are linked to fish kills and nutrient pollution in waterways due to manure application and discharges. They are also tied to increased methane emissions that contribute to climate change and ammonia emissions that cause health problems in nearby communities.

EPA is currently analyzing data from a multi-year study on CAFO emissions at swine, poultry and dairy operations and has yet to come to any conclusions about whether expanded regulation is necessary. Most of the industry continues to operate under an exemption from air emission standards in exchange for cooperating in that study.

Environmental and public health groups have also criticized the industry's use of antibiotics, which they say are used to mask unhealthy living conditions and stimulate rapid growth. That use has contributed to antibiotic pollution in waterways and bacterial resistance toward human medication, they say. The industry supports the use of antibiotics for animal health with veterinary oversight.

Joined by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) on Friday, the environmental and animal rights groups called for major changes in the next farm bill, which could be included in the deficit reduction package that the congressional supercommittee is expected to release at the end of November.

"The way we're doing things today is not sustainable," said Moran, a Democrat who has consistently gotten high marks from the League of Conservation Voters, in a keynote speech.

He came down harshly on the leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees, who he said were writing a secret farm bill that will bypass the legislative process. His words echoed those of Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who used a news conference last week to criticize the leaders and to give his own farm bill proposals (E&ENews PM, Oct. 26).

The groups are looking for an end to government subsidies to livestock producers, the majority of which they say end up going to the largest CAFOs generating the greatest profits. They also seek to have CAFOs barred from receiving funding from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, a cost-share program that helps farmers build manure storage facilities, fences and other environmental improvements.

"Those that are polluting the environment should not be paid by taxpayers to clean up their messes," said Gene Bauer, president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, which organized the event. "They should clean up their own messes."

The beef industry says that its operations of all sizes support continued funding for EQIP and that it has had measurable effects in helping producers remain in business and pass their operations on to the next generation.

"Without the environment, we don't have an industry," said Kristina Butts, executive director of legislative affairs at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "So all that we can do to cost-share with some government programs to ensure that we have the latest science and latest technology to protect our animals, our land, our natural resources is what our producers want to do."

Along with pushing for changes in the federal farm policy, Hauter of Food & Water Watch pushed for more oversight by EPA, pointing to what she called patchwork state-by-state regulations that contain loopholes for large farms.

Although environmental groups have credited EPA with focusing on CAFOs in the nation's major watersheds, they say industry's deep pockets have halted attempts at any serious regulations.

"I have to believe that if the American people were more aware of these facts they would demand reforms to the system," Moran said.

Moran said he supported a joint effort by both an animal rights group and an egg industry group to petition Congress to create a standard size for egg-laying hens that is twice the size of today's conventional cages (E&E Daily, July 8).

He also supported legislation expected to be introduced this week by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) that would give more federal support to organic farmers and the local food movement (E&E Daily, Oct. 28).

He cautioned, however, against being optimistic about major changes happening in the farm bill.

While the environmental groups and animal rights groups have congressional champions in Moran and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), "the likelihood of substantial reforms to animal agriculture in the Congress, especially this Congress, is very, very low," Moran said.