In October 2008, the LSC-funded California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District for approving the construction of a 6,120-animal dairy in Fresno County without considering the proposed dairy’s impact on the scientifically-unproven global warming threat.
CRLA said the proposed dairy violated the California Environmental Quality Act by not requiring equipment that converts methane gas – a product of cow flatulence – into energy. Matt Vespa of the Center for Biological Diversity, said, “By illegally downplaying the project’s impact on global warming, human health and the environment, the air district squandered a critically important opportunity to incorporate solutions…to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutions from dairies.”
The mission of LSC-funded programs like CRLA is to assist the poor in their routine civil legal needs such as landlord disputes. It is questionable, to say the least, that the poor people of Fresno county are genuinely worried that cow flatulence at a local dairy threatens their health by contributing to alleged global warming. (See, “Air District Sued Over Dairy Approval,” The Fresno Bee, October 17, 2008)