Accelerating Catastrophe: Slaughter Line Speeds and The Environment

Abstract

In addition to serving as one of America’s most dangerous work environments, slaughterhouses are hugely detrimental to virtually every aspect of the natural environment outside their walls. Though environmental impacts attributable to industrial slaughter are problematic nationwide, these harms are disproportionately borne by communities of color and low-income communities. As such, rethinking the way Americans kill animals and process their flesh is imperative as we strive to move toward a more just and sustainable future. This Essay examines the environmental impacts of slaughter through the lens of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) recent moves to raise and remove slaughterhouse line speed limits. The authors contend that the USDA’s use of a categorical exclusion to change line speed limits without analyzing environmental impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) is contrary not only to law, but also the tide of public opinion. As COVID-related worker abuses have come to light and ushered in calls for increased slaughterhouse accountability, this Essay concludes by positing that the time for slaughterhouse reform has arrived and that the Green New Deal is an appropriate vehicle for such reform.

Keywords: slaughter, slaughterhouses, environmental law, animal law, worker safety, environmental justice, water pollution, NEPA