FACT SHEET:
CLEAN AIR ACT SETTLEMENT WITH CARGILL, INC.

Over the past several years, the Justice Department and EPA have taken an industry-wide approach to environmental law enforcement, by targeting industries with significant compliance problems, including those that have been major sources of air pollution. A chief component of these enforcement actions is compelling companies in violation of the law to install state-of-the-art pollution controls and to build new facilities with controls in place. Recent successes include major settlement agreements with the wood products industry, refineries, and coal utilities sectors. With today�s landmark Clean Air Act settlement with grain industry giant Cargill, Inc., 81 percent of uncontrolled ethanol production capacity-those facilities without controls already in place-will now be under federal consent decrees.

�Cargill, one of the nation�s largest producers of corn sweeteners, is also a producer of domestic vegetable oils and fuel-grade ethanol. As a result of today�s settlement agreement, Cargill will implement system-wide environmental improvements at its 27 plants nationwide. New ethanol plants are now being constructed with the required air pollution controls as a result of this initiative.

�Today�s settlement is the result of a joint federal and multi-state enforcement effort with the following states and counties signing onto the consent decree: Alabama; Georgia; Indiana; Illinois; Iowa; Missouri; Nebraska; North Carolina; North Dakota; and Ohio, as well as Polk, Iowa; Linn, Iowa; Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee; and Montgomery County, Ohio.

�Today�s consent decree builds on past success with other members of the grain industry, including: the 2002 settlements with 12 Minnesota ethanol dry mills; the 2003 settlement with Archer Daniels Midland; a recent federal settlement with Ace Ethanol in Wisconsin; a settlement with U.S. Energy in Kansas; a settlement with Golden Triangle in Missouri; and this week�s settlement with AGP Corn Processing, Inc. in Nebraska.

�Cargill will pay $1.6 million, which will be divided between the federal government and states. Cargill will spend an estimated $130 million over a 10-year period to implement the entire injunctive relief package, which includes an estimated $60 million on capital improvements, like air pollution control equipment.

�Under the settlement, Cargill will implement broad sweeping environmental improvements at plants nationwide that will result in a reduction of at least 24,950 tons of actual air pollution a year.

-Volatile Organic Compound (VOC�s) emissions will be reduced by 10,450 tons per year-the equivalent to taking 1.16 million cars off the road;

-Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions will be reduced by 1350 tons per year-the equivalent to taking 1.125 million cars off the road;

-Carbon Monoxide (CO) emissions will be reduced by 10,900 tons per year-the equivalent to taking 157,797 cars off the road; and

-Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) emissions will be reduced by 2250 tons per year (Cars are not a significant source of SO2).

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