At Grist, Tom Philpott wonders Will Big Ag plow under Waxman-Markey? That bill is the American Clean Energy and Security Act, now a 900-page piece of legislation that, if passed, would represent the biggest change in U.S. energy policy in 32 years. While the proposal has environmental and leftist critics, their views of what is flawed in the bill pale beside the objections of corporations. The bill’s backers call it by its acronym, ACES. House Minority Leader John Boehner calls it "CRAP."
Some of the largest corporations in the agribusiness sector—including the GMO-and-herbicide giant Monsanto – are pushing to control how agriculture would fit into the bill’s cap-and-trade scheme.
The main agent for their will is House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who has launched a veritable jihad to make sure the historic climate legislation hews to the interests of "production" (i.e., industrial) agriculture. Via Farm Policy blog, here’s an MP3 clip of Peterson’s latest harumphing on Waxman-Markey, in an interview with a radio program called Agritalk, which is sponsored by Monsanto, Syngenta, and Archer Daniels Midland. Rep. Collin Peterson | Peterson has vowed to line up 35 to 40 Democratic representatives from ag-heavy states to vote against the bill on the House floor if his agenda isn’t accepted—giving him something close to de facto veto power. In the AgriTalk segment, Peterson says, "I don’t think it [Waxman-Markey] has the votes" to prevail on the House floor.
Translation: If I don’t get what I want, I’m squashing it. The current version of Waxman-Markey contains almost no language on agriculture. (As I’ve written before, agriculture is exempt from any cap on greenhouse-gas emissions.) But farming projects would still be eligible for offsets through an offsets-review board that the legislation would set up within the EPA. Big Ag isn’t content with that arrangement. In the coming days, the game will be to insert specific language around ag offsets into the legislation—and promote a certification process developed by Big Ag itself. |
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The rescue beings below and continues in the jump.
Bruce Nilles and Mary Anne Hitt, director and deputy director, respectively, of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign, came to the conclusion that the mountaintop removal coal mining decision from the Obama administration is Mixed Bag on: "Today the Obama Administration announced steps to end the fast-tracking of certain mountaintop removal coal mine permits and to add tougher enforcement in Appalachia, important steps that – with additional actions – could greatly reduce the devastation to communities, waterways and mountains. However, these new policies alone will not necessarily improve conditions in Appalachia unless additional steps are taken and enforcement is stepped up significantly, and hundreds of mountains remain in peril. That is why the Sierra Club is launching a new website today, called ‘What's At Stake,’ where you can track all the mountaintop removal permits now before the Obama administration and learn more about the mountains and communities whose fate hangs in the balance."
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The Overnight News Digest is posted and includes the story, US green agenda delivered blow as ban on drilling off Florida overturned.
webuyitgreen express Outrage at Cash for Clunkers: "Here is the provision in the bill that gets my goat: Owners of sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks or minivans that get 18 mpg or less could receive a voucher for $3,500 if their new truck or SUV is at least 2 mpg higher than their old vehicle. ... A group of senators led by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein were pushing an alternative version that would require consumers to trade up for more fuel-efficient cars and trucks to qualify. They complained that even a 2009 Hummer H3T, which gets 14 mpg in city driving and 18 mpg on the highway, could qualify for the incentives under the House bill. In other words, if this thing passes, my tax dollars can be used to pay someone to buy a gas-guzzling Hummer just because they previously chose to own an even more gas-guzzling vehicle."
mieprowan discussed Stage One Water Restrictions; Or; Is It Time To Start A Community Garden?: "The city council announced it today, here in Carlsbad, Southeast New Mexico. We are not allowed to water with hoses between 10 am and 6 pm, and not at all with hoses except on our allocated days...three of them per week. Meanwhile, we are allowed to water out of buckets other times, if needed. These restrictions aren't a lot to ask of anyone. But on the other hand, it's only June."
terryhallinan lamented that Obama seeks funding cuts for wave, tidal energy research: "The Obama administration has proposed a 25 percent cut in the research and development budget for one of the most promising renewable energy sources in the Northwest - wave and tidal power."
Cook for Good urged some action in Food Inc. riles Big Chicken. Cluck them; throw a foodraiser!: "Monsanto is upset about documentary Food Inc., as Jill Richardson nicely describes and rebuts. But they are not the only ones. The National Chicken Council decries Food Inc. as a one-sided, negative, and misleading film. I'll leave it to others to repudiate the claims that industrial agriculture is terrific because it's regulated by U.S. federal agencies. ...I'll show you how to organize a foodraiser for your local anti-hunger group wrapped around a special showing of Food Inc."
NNadir was doing a little light reading again and decided to write about it in A Brief Review Of Interesting Things About Plutonium As An Element: "Besides its enormous value as an energy source, plutonium is one of the most interesting elements in the periodic table. The paper from the primary scientific literature that I will discuss today, comes from two American scientists, Hecker and Stan, out of respectively, Stanford and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and is entitled ‘Properties of plutonium and its alloys for use as fast reactor fuels.’"
Long-time anti-nuclear activist harveywasserman decried The GOP's 100-Reactor/Trillion-Dollar Energy Plan: "As the prospective price of new reactors continues to soar, and as the first "new generation" construction projects sink in French and Finnish soil, Republicans are introducing a bill to Congress demanding 100 new nuclear reactors in the US within twenty years. It explicitly welcomes ‘alternatives’ such as oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and ‘clean coal.’ Though it endorses some renewables such as solar and wind power, it calls for no cap on carbon emissions."