Will the proposed carbon cap in the climate change legislation be beneficial or harmful to rural American and the American farmer? As Jim Snyder correctly points out in his article for the Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill, the answer to that question could be critical to passage of global warming legislation this fall.Over the summer, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has scoured the country during his rural tour talking up the bill and the administration’s climate change plans as a potential boon to rural America. While the Secretary does acknowledge the bill will increase energy costs, he argues those costs will be more than offset by the revenues farmers can raise by switching to no-till farming, converting crop land, and by capturing and using methane to power farming operations through digesters. Other practices that will help sequester carbon, such as planting trees on crop land, will also bring financial benefits to those who engage in such practices.
According to the Secretary, “[a] wheat farmer in the Northern Plains might see his production costs grow by 80 cents per acre due to higher fuel prices, according to Vilsack, who cited a USDA study. But that same farmer could earn as much as $6.40 an acre through so-called carbon offsets, Vilsack said.” Vilsack also believes the legislation could curb the potential ‘“devastating effects of climate change on the people who work the land [.]”’
The National Farmers Union (NFU) is on board. The organization represents 250,000 small farms and ranches and is flying members to Washington to advocate on behalf of the bill.
One of the NFU’s fears is that if Congress doesn’t pass some sort of law, then the Environmental Protection Agency could issue its own regulations, and such regulations will likely not provide farmers with extra income while still raising their costs.
Snyder succinctly and accurately describes the proposed cap and trade system thusly,
“[u]nder the cap-and-trade system, companies can invest in programs to remove carbon dioxide from the air in addition to reducing their own emissions at the smokestack to meet their carbon targets.” Still, skeptics remain, which is why the American Petroleum Institute, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Association of Manufacturers, and Freedom Works got together to fund rallies and protests by the “Energy Citizens” against bill.
Despite the fact that these rallies were funded by outside organizations, some maintain there is real concern over this bill. Snyder cites Kevin Papp, a corn and soybean farmer in southern Minnesota and president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau, who says three topics that come up the most often at his organization’s meetings are dropping prices in livestock and dairy, as well as the climate change bill.
“Papp said that 65 percent of a farm’s input costs are tied up in purchasing fuel, electricity and fertilizer. With the downturn shrinking margins for farmers, now is the wrong time to pass a bill that could further raise the costs of doing business, Papp said. ‘We need to slow down a little.’”
When the House passed the bill the legislative body was made keenly aware of rural concerns by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson. The Chairman stalled the bill until the definition of rural energy was expanded, additional financial help was made available for small, rural utilities, and the Chairman succeeded in giving authority over agriculture offsets to the USDA instead of the Environmental Protection Agency.
On the Senate side, nine senators representing “rust-belt” states sent a letter to the administration explaining their current concerns, as did four senators representing agrarian states. The four agriculture senators would like to see a renewable energy bill pass now and climate change legislation put on the backburner.
Tomorrow, September 8, 2009, the Senate Agricultural Committee will hold its second hearing on global warming, with the main focus on regulating carbon markets.
To read Snyder’s article for The Hill click here.
Posted: 09/08/09
