By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C. — For those at the top in agriculture who do back federal cap-and-trade legislation, support isn’t so much enthusiastic endorsement as it is wanting to protect farmers against a tide of inevitability.

“This is going to happen one way or the other,” said Dennis Nuxoll, senior director of government relations for the American Farmland Trust (AFT).

“The logic says one way or the other, we’re going to deal with (climate change) as a country.”

He’s not the only one who thinks so. Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union (NFU), also referred to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts vs. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in which the court held that the EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act.

“Given the orientation of this administration, that is a possibility – if you don’t get cap-and-trade, you end up with a tax,” said Chris Galen, senior vice president of communications for the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF).

The group, he said, hasn’t expressly endorsed House Bill 2454 – the Waxman-Markey bill, which passed by a 219-212 House vote June 26 – though it did issue a statement in favor of amendments introduced by House Ag Committee Chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), to benefit agriculture.

Galen said the NMPF is encouraged by this but is waiting to see if the Senate adopts similar language in its legislation. Even then, such wording would have to survive conference, where bills are wrangled into a final form for Congressional and presidential approval.

“We’re about inning two in a nine-inning game,” he analogized, pointing out the NMPF chiefly wants to hold down costs for dairy farmers. “We have no idea where this is going to come out, and we have no idea what’s going to pass.”

Ag amendments

“We think that the Clean Air Act was not really designed with greenhouse gases in mind,” Johnson explained of why the NFU wants to avoid EPA regulation.

The North Dakota farmer said producers don’t want the EPA on their farms “telling us what to do,” so it’s better to participate in Congressional legislation than to fight it – or, as Nuxoll paraphrased, it’s better “at the table” than “on the menu.”

Other groups with which the NFU has been working on this issue, in addition to the AFT and the NMPF, are the National Corn Growers Assoc. and the National Assoc. of Wheat Growers.

Johnson said the NFU, with a quarter-million members, waited to support HB 2454 until it adopted amendments from Peterson protecting and benefiting the ag sector. The AFT took a similar tack, said Nuxoll, explaining the organization only takes official positions on final products.

He added the AFT is now active in the Senate to make sure its legislation contains similar provisions. Johnson indicated the NFU has also turned its attention to the Senate now, since he admitted HB 2454 is “not a perfect bill” and said “we’re going to look for a number of changes on the Senate side.”

Even before the amendments, however, Johnson said the NFU supported the science behind the proposed legislation. He said ag groups seem to divide in their support for or opposition to cap-and-trade based on two things: revenue versus cost, and beliefs about humans’ role in global warming.

“That’s where we really part company, whether we accept the science or not,” he said. “We believe greenhouse gas emissions pose a serious threat to the world and to the United States.”

Johnson added the NFU wants farmers and ranchers to take the issue seriously and be part of the solution – earlier this month, he spoke to international farm groups at an Iceland conference about just that. “If you accept that premise, it seems to me you need to be for something to reduce (emissions).”

Peterson’s amendments, he said, clarified and authorized the use of GHG offsets (often called carbon credits) based on the best available science; put the USDA, not the EPA, in charge of a carbon credit exchange program for agriculture; set aside money for an “early actor” provision to reward those who have been using GHG-sequestering methods (i.e., no-till, managed grazing, permanent vegetation, methane digesters) since before this legislation; and requires better study of indirect international land use before enacting related penalties.

Indirect use questioned

Farmers may recall the “indirect land use” issue coming up in discussions earlier this year for new proposed federal renewable fuels standards (RFS2). The argument says, for example, that growing more corn here forces Brazil to clear more rain forest in order to grow soybeans and pasture beef cattle. There have been discussions about whether to tax growers here for helping cause such international actions – and conversely, whether U.S. growers should share blame.

Johnson said there is no empirical evidence to support the claim U.S. farmers are responsible, adding he understands rain forest eradication – which he said has slowed even with more U.S. corn and increased Brazilian soybean and cattle production – is mainly to harvest the wood.

“There’s no person in their right mind who would cut down a rain forest to create a pasture,” he insisted. “You would be an idiot to do that.”

Peterson’s amendments agree about evidence, calling for the EPA and USDA to arrange for the National Academies of Science to, within three years, review and report on issues of GHG emissions related to transport fuels, as well as indirect effects internationally. It calls for the USDA and EPA to propose regulations based on that data, seek public comment and enact them six years after passage of this legislation.

The early actor provision is also important, Johnson said, because to only reward farmers and ranchers making positive changes after passage of the bill might lead to early actors switching to high-emission practices so they can then “change” again to qualify for incentives and selling offset credits. “We can accept the ‘purist’ argument,” he said, referring to those who insist the point of the bill and incentives are to change inefficient farming practices to more “green” ones. “But if you accept the purist argument, then you have to adopt other measures (for early actors), at the end of the day.”

More regulation

It’s the prospect of the EPA regulating farm and ranch activities that drives groups such as the NFU, AFT and NMPF. The AFT’s purpose is to preserve land for farming, against other development, and Nuxoll said giving farmers more chances for revenue by keeping their land for ag purposes is in line with that philosophy.

Besides, he said, if Congress doesn’t enact legislation the EPA is likely to sets its own rules on cap-and-trade, which will still mean increased costs. To that end, he said Congress needs to hear suggestions to benefit interested parties, from those parties – such as ag organizations.

“If people tell you they won’t take your ideas, then you say, ‘Hell, no’” to the legislation, Nuxoll added. “I get really worried that producers aren’t thinking beyond the short-term.”