NPPC and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), in a brief filed this week, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis to reverse a U.S. District Court's decision to dismiss their lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its release to environmental activists personal data on thousands of livestock farmers.
The lower court ruled that NPPC and AFBF lacked "standing" to bring the case, which stems from EPA's February 2013 release of information from farms in 30 states to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Earth Justice and the Pew Charitable Trusts under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests the groups filed.
In some instances, the data contained farmers' home addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and personal medical information.
After objections from NPPC, AFBF and other farm groups, EPA requested that the environmental organizations return the data but reissued it after retracting some of the information.
The reissued data still contained some personal information on farmers.
In July 2013, the agency was set to release more data when the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota court issued a restraining order.
Click here to see more...