Spring Break
In Climate Legislation and Agriculture, We Reap What We Sow
Erin Sherman '11
Issue date: 9/30/09 Section: Opinion
From the swirling hurricane rising from a smokestack on the posters advertising Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to China's construction of new coal-fired power plants, the mainstream discourse of climate change has largely been confined to energy and industry. But as we head into this autumn's busy legislative calendar and the international Conference of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen this December, it is vital to realize that those sectors are only one part of the picture. For the rest of the world, and even for our own politicians, the keys to effective mitigation seem to lie not only in what we build and the power we use, but also in what we grow: in agriculture and forestry. This summer, I interned with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and there, I became stunningly aware of just how important agriculture is to the political problem of climate change.
A climate bill - H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA) - narrowly passed the House of Representatives this summer. Its centerpiece is an elaborate cap-and-trade system, in which a cap would be placed on total emissions and emissions permits would be traded on an open market. This system includes modest near-term mitigation goals, building into a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction of over 80% by 2050. Many of its provisions were weakened in compromise, but, as its lead sponsor, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), might tell us, legislating is a marathon, not a sprint. The House bill leaves ample room for tightening and improvement over time - politics allowing.
At one time, ACESA's passage was put in extreme jeopardy - not by Republicans, whose share of the House is too small for them to carry much weight, but by that newly visible enemy of American environmentalists: a particular bloc of Blue Dog Democrats. Congressman Collin Peterson (D-MN), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, claimed to speak for this group of over 20 representatives. Their complaints? Rising energy prices for their constituents in coal-reliant, auto-intensive districts were certainly high on the list, but their ultimate demands involved other ends. They wanted the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to run programs designated to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); they wanted a more favorable analysis for biofuel emissions; they wanted assurance that pesticide-intensive no-till agricultural methods would be rewarded under the bill. Simply put, they wanted a payout for agriculture, and they got it.
A climate bill - H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA) - narrowly passed the House of Representatives this summer. Its centerpiece is an elaborate cap-and-trade system, in which a cap would be placed on total emissions and emissions permits would be traded on an open market. This system includes modest near-term mitigation goals, building into a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction of over 80% by 2050. Many of its provisions were weakened in compromise, but, as its lead sponsor, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), might tell us, legislating is a marathon, not a sprint. The House bill leaves ample room for tightening and improvement over time - politics allowing.
At one time, ACESA's passage was put in extreme jeopardy - not by Republicans, whose share of the House is too small for them to carry much weight, but by that newly visible enemy of American environmentalists: a particular bloc of Blue Dog Democrats. Congressman Collin Peterson (D-MN), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, claimed to speak for this group of over 20 representatives. Their complaints? Rising energy prices for their constituents in coal-reliant, auto-intensive districts were certainly high on the list, but their ultimate demands involved other ends. They wanted the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to run programs designated to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); they wanted a more favorable analysis for biofuel emissions; they wanted assurance that pesticide-intensive no-till agricultural methods would be rewarded under the bill. Simply put, they wanted a payout for agriculture, and they got it.
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