U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) this week requested that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigate communications between anti-agriculture activist organizations and federal civil service employees in the Region 10 EPA office in Seattle that have resulted in the closure of Washington State dairies.
“The purpose of the federal government is to provide Americans with essential services, including navigating the complex regulatory burden placed on farmers,” the congressman wrote EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in a June 2 letter. “This coordination is appalling and should be investigated; if career staff did in fact coordinate with activists to target farmers, then those staff are not worthy of a taxpayer-funded salary.”
Earlier this year, the Cow Palace dairy in Yakima County, Wash., closed after years of litigation from the EPA. This followed the closure of Liberty Dairy, also in Yakima County, in the fall of 2024, according to Rep. Newhouse’s letter.
The EPA Region 10 office — which serves Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and over 270 tribal organizations — for roughly the last 15 years has had “free rein to pursue their own activist agenda,” the lawmaker wrote, noting that this included career staff in several divisions such as the Air and Radiation Division and the Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division.
“The result of the coordination was the closure of the Cow Palace dairy which had been in operation since 1972,” he wrote. “More than 120 employees lost their jobs, and Cow Palace was forced to liquidate their herd of 7,500 dairy cows.”
Rep. Newhouse included in his seven-page letter documentation provided under the Freedom of Information Act that he says demonstrates “clear coordination between EPA career staff and the anti-animal agriculture environmental activists.”
Dan Wood, executive director of the Washington State Dairy Federation, and Ben Tindall, executive director of Save Family Farming, endorsed Rep. Newhouse’s efforts.