Pork Producers Get Voice On EPA Panel
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Michael Formica, environmental counsel for the National Pork Producers Council, this week was named to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee.The committee is a senior-level policy panel established in 1990 to advise EPA on issues related to implementing the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the advisory committee includes representatives from state and local government, environmental and public interest groups, academic institutions, unions, trade associations, utilities and businesses. It has several subcommittees to allow for more detailed discussions and to provide advice on many technical issues. The committee, which meets four times a year, will hold its first meeting for this term May 28-29 in Washington, D.C.
Formica is one of four agricultural representatives – and the only livestock representative – on the committee. His input will be especially valuable to the pork industry as it works with EPA on a new rule for concentrated animal feeding operations, including reviewing and interpreting data from on-farm emissions monitoring, and on a plan for implementing the federal Renewable Fuels Standard.
“Michael’s appointment to the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee means EPA will receive sound council on environmental matters, and pork producers will have a voice with an agency that can affect their very livelihoods,“ said Randy Spronk, a pork producer from Edgerton, Minn., and chairman of NPPC’s environmental committee.
Before joining NPPC, Formica was director of Environment Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, he represented agricultural clients on air, waste and water issues as well as on eminent domain and 5th Amendment takings proceedings as an associate attorney with Baise & Miller, P.C. in Washington, D.C.
Formica received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Rhode Island and his law degree from Vermont Law School.