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..A must read for for every US voter and concerned citizen.. challenges the reader to explore new possibilities and new mindsets that will ultimately be required if the world is truly ready to make a change.. amazon.com US only1. http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/53498
Climate Bill Could Reward Farmers
Date: 25-Jun-09
Country: US
Author: Charles Abbott
WASHINGTON - The climate bill nearing a vote in the U.S. House will reward farmers who plant trees or take other steps to control greenhouse gases and it will remove for five years an obstacle to corn-based ethanol, said the House Agriculture Committee chairman on Wednesday.
Chairman Collin Peterson said negotiators hoped by the end of the day to agree on a broader definition of "renewable biomass" for alternative fuels. U.S. biofuel output could be larger if more material is available.
"We think we have something that can work for agriculture," Peterson told reporters after summarizing a compromise with House Energy chairman Henry Waxman. Some four dozen rural lawmakers sided with Peterson in seeking revisions in the bill.
Under the compromise:
--The Agriculture Department would oversee projects by farmers and ranchers to lock carbon into the soil by reduced tillage or planting trees. USDA is more popular in farm country than the Environmental Protection Agency, which runs most pollution control programs. Work dating from 2001 would be eligible for credit for carbon reduction, said Peterson. Inclusion of "early adopters" will broaden the appeal of the bill, said an agricultural lobbyist.
--A proposed EPA regulation, which would make U.S. ethanol makers responsible for greenhouse gas emissions from conversion of forests and grasslands overseas to cropland, would be sidetracked for five years during a study of the so-called indirect land use change. It could take effect only if three federal agencies agree and Congress could intervene to block a rule.
Corn-based ethanol and some feedstocks for cellulosic ethanol would have trouble under EPA's current scoring of land-use change to meet targets for greenhouse gas savings.
--Agriculture would not be required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The sector is a small producer of the gases.
Waxman and Peterson met conservative House Democrats on Tuesday evening while working out the compromise. Earlier talks resulted in an agreement to give small rural electric operators a larger portion of credits toward meeting carbon reductions.
In addition, Peterson said Waxman would accept language allowing rural utilities to use federal funds to buy a stake in nuclear power plants.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission would oversee futures markets that trade carbon contract while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would oversee the cash market.
"My initial reaction to this deal is it doesn't fix the real problems with the bill," said Frank Lucas, Oklahoma Republican. Lucas and other Republican lawmakers say the climate bill will drive up energy costs in rural America.
Rural Americans drive longer distances than city dwellers and the farm sector is a large user of fuel and of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides derived from petroleum.
Farm groups said the Waxman-Peterson compromise was a step in the right direction but they have reservations about the overall bill. Some groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council, have announced opposition the bill. The National Farmers Union, which backs a carbon-trading program, has called for changes.
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Country: US
Author: Charles Abbott
WASHINGTON - The climate bill nearing a vote in the U.S. House will reward farmers who plant trees or take other steps to control greenhouse gases and it will remove for five years an obstacle to corn-based ethanol, said the House Agriculture Committee chairman on Wednesday.
Chairman Collin Peterson said negotiators hoped by the end of the day to agree on a broader definition of "renewable biomass" for alternative fuels. U.S. biofuel output could be larger if more material is available.
"We think we have something that can work for agriculture," Peterson told reporters after summarizing a compromise with House Energy chairman Henry Waxman. Some four dozen rural lawmakers sided with Peterson in seeking revisions in the bill.
Under the compromise:
--The Agriculture Department would oversee projects by farmers and ranchers to lock carbon into the soil by reduced tillage or planting trees. USDA is more popular in farm country than the Environmental Protection Agency, which runs most pollution control programs. Work dating from 2001 would be eligible for credit for carbon reduction, said Peterson. Inclusion of "early adopters" will broaden the appeal of the bill, said an agricultural lobbyist.
--A proposed EPA regulation, which would make U.S. ethanol makers responsible for greenhouse gas emissions from conversion of forests and grasslands overseas to cropland, would be sidetracked for five years during a study of the so-called indirect land use change. It could take effect only if three federal agencies agree and Congress could intervene to block a rule.
Corn-based ethanol and some feedstocks for cellulosic ethanol would have trouble under EPA's current scoring of land-use change to meet targets for greenhouse gas savings.
--Agriculture would not be required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The sector is a small producer of the gases.
Waxman and Peterson met conservative House Democrats on Tuesday evening while working out the compromise. Earlier talks resulted in an agreement to give small rural electric operators a larger portion of credits toward meeting carbon reductions.
In addition, Peterson said Waxman would accept language allowing rural utilities to use federal funds to buy a stake in nuclear power plants.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission would oversee futures markets that trade carbon contract while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would oversee the cash market.
"My initial reaction to this deal is it doesn't fix the real problems with the bill," said Frank Lucas, Oklahoma Republican. Lucas and other Republican lawmakers say the climate bill will drive up energy costs in rural America.
Rural Americans drive longer distances than city dwellers and the farm sector is a large user of fuel and of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides derived from petroleum.
Farm groups said the Waxman-Peterson compromise was a step in the right direction but they have reservations about the overall bill. Some groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council, have announced opposition the bill. The National Farmers Union, which backs a carbon-trading program, has called for changes.
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
2. [For all Andrew Leonard/Salon's foibles, good and informative in this one]
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/06/24/waxman_markey_compromises/index.html
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 13:20 PDT
Another day, another self-defeating energy bill compromise
The Waxman-Markey energy bill, a.k.a. "American Clean Energy and Security Act," now appears headed for a Friday vote in the House of Representatives -- but only after a few more compromises aimed at getting "Farm Belt" Democrats to fall in line.
The New Republic's Brad Plumer reports that one of the concessions had to do with how the downstream impact of biofuel agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions is calculated.
As U.C. Berkeley researchers Alex Farrell and Michael O'Hare told the California Air Resources Board in January 2008:
From the Contra Costa Times:
The New Republic's Brad Plumer reports that one of the concessions had to do with how the downstream impact of biofuel agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions is calculated.
Waxman also agreed to exempt ethanol from indirect-land-use analysis for five years. In other words, if corn or soy in the United States is grown for fuel and that, in turn, prompts farmers elsewhere to clear a patch of forest and grow their own corn, well, the EPA can't consider that in its assessment of the impacts of ethanol. Joe Romm deems this a minimal concession, since corn-based ethanol is already exempt from this sort of scrutiny, and newer biofuels like cellulosic ethanol -- where this rule could do a lot of damage -- are more than five years away anyway. That's the optimistic take, at least.How the World Works is in the camp that accepts that the legislative process, in general, rarely results in in what anyone, on any side, would regard as an ideal solution. Compromises are by definition unsatisfying. But it's still distressing, nonetheless, to see the greenhouse gas land-use impacts of ethanol shoved to the side for five years.
As U.C. Berkeley researchers Alex Farrell and Michael O'Hare told the California Air Resources Board in January 2008:
Simply said, ethanol production today using U.S. corn contributes to the conversion of grasslands and rainforest to agriculture, causing very large GHG emissions... Even if only a small fraction of the emissions calculated in this crude way [through land use change] are added to estimates of direct emissions for corn ethanol, total emissions for corn ethanol are higher than for fossil fuels.Congress may not be ready to listen to science, but Berkeley, which, ironically, has already been attempting to use biodiesel as much as possible in city-owned vehicles, is paying attention. Earlier this month, city officials axed the program.
From the Contra Costa Times:
Berkeley has ended its six-year attempt to save the world by burning biodiesel in its trucks and machinery amid concerns it actually increases greenhouse gases worldwide and exacerbates hunger....Saving the world is tricky business, that's for sure.
Robert Clear, a member of the city's Community Environmental Advisory Commission. ... said American farmers who are now converting their crops to grow soy beans to meet the biodiesel demand are decreasing the amount of land used to grow food for people and cattle.
That in turn has caused an increase in demand for land to grow food in South America and South East Asia where farmers are burning down virgin forests. The burning of the forests releases carbon into the atmosphere and there is a decrease in the amount of carbon the plants suck out of the atmosphere: two big negatives for global warming.
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Biofuels are a wide range of fuels which are in some way derived from biomass.
Your idea?