OPINION: EPA “Minions” Must Confront the Agency’s War on Washington Farmers

By Ben Tindall, Save Family Farming Executive Director

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the leadership of Administrator Lee Zeldin and Region 10 Administrator Emma Pokon, has a critical opportunity to confront and correct a deeply troubling pattern—one that has gone unchecked for over a decade in Washington state.

It’s time for the agency’s top leadership to investigate whether the EPA has enabled a coordinated campaign of harassment against family farms. At the center of this campaign is an attorney Region 10 officials have been coordinating with behind the scenes: Charlie Tebbutt, who has made a career of targeting dairy farmers with relentless litigation and inflammatory rhetoric. In recent court filings in CARE v. Bosma Dairy, Tebbutt revealed what appears to be growing unease—perhaps even desperation—as new leadership in Washington, D.C., and growing public scrutiny threaten to disrupt the legal machinery he’s relied on for years.

His comment that “EPA and DOJ are under attack by the chief executive and his, at best, questionably constitutional minions” is not only reckless but deeply revealing. One has to wonder: who are these “minions” he’s referring to? Is he speaking about EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin himself? Is he referring to Region 10’s Emma Pokon?

If so, we must ask: since when is it unconstitutional for duly appointed agency heads to ask hard questions and review the track record of their departments? Isn’t that precisely what leadership is supposed to do—especially when it comes to an agency whose actions have contributed to the closure of family farms and the economic erosion of rural communities?

Tebbutt’s contempt for scrutiny appears to extend to any farmer who dares to defend themselves in court. In the Bosma case, Tebbutt derides the dairy for allegedly taking “no action” to remedy supposed violations. But this is a distortion of the facts about dairy’s extensive efforts. Yet in Tebbutt’s legal universe, apparently compliance is insufficient. In his view, a farm working to fulfill its legal obligations still deserves rebuke.

What kind of legal standard is that? What kind of law practice condemns legal compliance as negligence? What version of justice vilifies people for doing what the court required of them? Answer: one that’s more interested in keeping farmers under perpetual legal threat than actually solving environmental issues.

These tactics are not about environmental protection—they are about control, intimidation, and dismantling the agricultural economy, one farm at a time. This isn’t just a theory. Over the past decade, the EPA’s Region 10 office has demonstrated a disturbing willingness to allow itself to be used by outside activist groups with extreme anti-farming agendas.

If Administrator Zeldin and Administrator Pokon are indeed the “constitutional minions” Tebbutt fears, then we call on them to wear the title proudly—and act. Conduct a thorough review of the agency’s actions in this case. Investigate the cozy relationships between federal regulators and activist litigators. Examine how consent decrees have been used, not to ensure compliance, but to keep farmers under indefinite legal and financial threat.

And most importantly, listen to the people who have been left behind: the multi-generational farmers barely hanging on, the rural communities hollowed out by legal warfare, and the working families whose livelihoods depend on a strong and fair agricultural economy.

Washington’s family farms don’t need more bureaucratic indifference. They need defenders. They need people in power willing to question the status quo, expose misuse of authority, and stand up for those who don’t have a PR machine or a legal war chest.

The time for political caution is over. The time for bold, principled leadership is now.