Spring Break
In Climate Legislation and Agriculture, We Reap What We Sow
Erin Sherman '11
Issue date: 9/30/09 Section: Opinion
The term "hot air," which referred in years past to the plentiful yet insubstantial GHG permits granted to post-Soviet Russia under the Kyoto Protocol, once again hovers around the lips of environmentalists. Offsets, as written into ACESA by Peterson's Title V, will weaken this country's mitigation efforts - no ifs, ands, or buts. Their inclusion means that American taxpayers will not be getting all they're paying for with climate legislation.
There are other, less bottom-line issues that concern some observers of offsets. On the one hand, the idea of paying another to reduce GHG emissions makes some environmentalists uneasy: is it ethical to export the responsibility for a moral action to another person, or another business, or another country? Certainly, in the case of international offsets - a subject I have not touched upon in this article - the "cost-control" benefit of the program is soured as money and jobs are sent overseas, and the people whose labor actually offsets emissions may not actually benefit from the trading process.
Domestically, the ethical issue is much more simple. Under ACESA, electric utilities and other high emitters would be required to act, but agriculturalists would not have to. Agriculturalists and forest managers could make money - and never lose money - doing what businesses in other sectors would be required to do, at considerable expense. This discrepancy stems from politics, not policy. Emissions from cows are just as real as emissions from smokestacks.
The agriculture-focused provisions described above were politically necessary to pass the bill in the House. There is no getting around that fact; denying it or lashing out against it is no use. And since this is a marathon, not a sprint, this ought not upset us climate-oriented folk too deeply. Sometime this September, a similar bill to ACESA, sponsored by Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA), will appear in the Senate. It will not be stronger than ACESA; by the end of markups, it will not even be as strong. The agriculture bloc is stronger in the non-population-weighted Senate, with its high proportion of Midwest members, than that in the House. A simple majority will not be enough, either. To collect a filibuster-proof 60 votes will take all the political capital, energy, and finesse that Boxer and Kerry possess.
Whatever your own opinion on climate legislation - I'm sure you've gathered mine - I implore you to write to your senators and tell them. If I learned anything in Washington this summer, it is this: votes matter. Sometimes, votes are all that matter. Climate legislation will take the form of an enormous omnibus bill that will change the economic landscape of our country for decades - for better or worse, richer or poorer, greener or grayer. Don't let it happen without you.
There are other, less bottom-line issues that concern some observers of offsets. On the one hand, the idea of paying another to reduce GHG emissions makes some environmentalists uneasy: is it ethical to export the responsibility for a moral action to another person, or another business, or another country? Certainly, in the case of international offsets - a subject I have not touched upon in this article - the "cost-control" benefit of the program is soured as money and jobs are sent overseas, and the people whose labor actually offsets emissions may not actually benefit from the trading process.
Domestically, the ethical issue is much more simple. Under ACESA, electric utilities and other high emitters would be required to act, but agriculturalists would not have to. Agriculturalists and forest managers could make money - and never lose money - doing what businesses in other sectors would be required to do, at considerable expense. This discrepancy stems from politics, not policy. Emissions from cows are just as real as emissions from smokestacks.
The agriculture-focused provisions described above were politically necessary to pass the bill in the House. There is no getting around that fact; denying it or lashing out against it is no use. And since this is a marathon, not a sprint, this ought not upset us climate-oriented folk too deeply. Sometime this September, a similar bill to ACESA, sponsored by Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA), will appear in the Senate. It will not be stronger than ACESA; by the end of markups, it will not even be as strong. The agriculture bloc is stronger in the non-population-weighted Senate, with its high proportion of Midwest members, than that in the House. A simple majority will not be enough, either. To collect a filibuster-proof 60 votes will take all the political capital, energy, and finesse that Boxer and Kerry possess.
Whatever your own opinion on climate legislation - I'm sure you've gathered mine - I implore you to write to your senators and tell them. If I learned anything in Washington this summer, it is this: votes matter. Sometimes, votes are all that matter. Climate legislation will take the form of an enormous omnibus bill that will change the economic landscape of our country for decades - for better or worse, richer or poorer, greener or grayer. Don't let it happen without you.
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