To consider a proposal to satisfy the Committee’s reconciliation instructions required by S. Con. Res. 14 (Day 2)

Posted by Brad Johnson Mon, 13 Sep 2021 12:00:00 GMT

Continuation of the House Agriculture Committee’s Build Back Better markup.

Included in this package are multiple bipartisan proposals will provide resources to mitigate climate change, improve quality of life in rural communities, and commit millions of dollars to agricultural education across the country.

Investments include:
  • $7.75 billion in investments in agricultural research and infrastructure; other countries like China are outspending the US on research investments and this money will help close the gap.
  • $18 billion in rural job-promoting investments to ensure those living in rural America, on tribal lands, and our insular areas have access to clean water and reliable and efficient renewable energy. This funding will also support investment in renewable biofuels infrastructure important to farmers and our fight against climate change, and flexible funding for rural community growth.
  • $40 billion in investments in forestry programs to help combat forest fires and contribute to healthy, resilient forests, including $14 billion for “hazardous fuels reduction,” and $4.5 billion for the Civilian Climate Corps for “managing National Forest System land” and “rural and urban conservation and tree planting projects”.
  • $300 million divided equally to the Forest Service for the following six climate-related projects:
    • to carry out greenhouse gas life cycle analyses of domestic wood products
    • to assess the quantity of carbon sequestration and storage accomplished by different forest practices when applied in diverse ecological and geographic settings
    • to accelerate and expand existing research efforts relating to strategies to increase carbon stocks on National Forest System land
    • to accelerate and expand existing research efforts relating to the impacts of climate change and weather variability on national forest ecosystems
    • to accelerate and expand existing research efforts relating to strategies to ensure that national forest ecosystems, including forests, plants, aquatic ecosystems, and wildlife, are able to adapt to climate change and weather variability
    • for activities and tactics to reduce the spread of invasive species on non-Federal forested land

Committee Print

All of the proposed amendments, all of which were submitted by Republicans, were voted down on party lines. The bill was approved also on party lines.

Proposal to satisfy the Committee’s reconciliation instructions required by S. Con. Res. 14

Posted by Brad Johnson Fri, 10 Sep 2021 17:00:00 GMT

The House Committee on Agriculture will hold a business meeting to consider the elements of the reconciliation package under their jurisdiction.

Included in this package are multiple bipartisan proposals will provide resources to mitigate climate change, improve quality of life in rural communities, and commit millions of dollars to agricultural education across the country.

Investments include:
  • $7.75 billion in investments in agricultural research and infrastructure; other countries like China are outspending the US on research investments and this money will help close the gap.
  • $18 billion in rural job-promoting investments to ensure those living in rural America, on tribal lands, and our insular areas have access to clean water and reliable and efficient renewable energy. This funding will also support investment in renewable biofuels infrastructure important to farmers and our fight against climate change, and flexible funding for rural community growth.
  • $40 billion in investments in forestry programs to help combat forest fires and contribute to healthy, resilient forests, including $14 billion for “hazardous fuels reduction,” and $4.5 billion for the Civilian Climate Corps for “managing National Forest System land” and “rural and urban conservation and tree planting projects”.
  • $300 million divided equally to the Forest Service for the following six climate-related projects:
    • to carry out greenhouse gas life cycle analyses of domestic wood products
    • to assess the quantity of carbon sequestration and storage accomplished by different forest practices when applied in diverse ecological and geographic settings
    • to accelerate and expand existing research efforts relating to strategies to increase carbon stocks on National Forest System land
    • to accelerate and expand existing research efforts relating to the impacts of climate change and weather variability on national forest ecosystems
    • to accelerate and expand existing research efforts relating to strategies to ensure that national forest ecosystems, including forests, plants, aquatic ecosystems, and wildlife, are able to adapt to climate change and weather variability
    • for activities and tactics to reduce the spread of invasive species on non-Federal forested land

Committee Print

Senate Committee Moves Carbon Market Bill Backed by Industrial Agriculture Titans Closer to Passage

Posted by Brad Johnson Fri, 23 Apr 2021 16:55:00 GMT

On Thursday, Earth Day 2021, the Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously approved by voice vote the Growing Climate Solutions Act of 2021 (S. 1251), which would expand voluntary agricultural carbon sequestration markets under private control.

“On Earth Day, our committee came together in a bipartisan way to pass the Growing Climate Solutions Act,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). “This brings us one step closer to providing more opportunities for farmers and foresters to lead in addressing the climate crisis and also benefit from new streams of income.”

The legislation was introduced by Stabenow and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) with the support of the biggest corporations in industrial agriculture, including Cargill, Bayer, McDonald’s, Archer Daniels Midland, General Mills, and Syngenta, as well as Big Ag lobbying groups like the American Farm Bureau and the US Chamber of Commerce. Corporate-funded-and-allied environmental organizations like the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Climate Leadership Council, and the Environmental Defense Fund are also supporting the bill.

Agribusiness has contributed $2,546,199 to Stabenow and $367,483 to Braun over their careers.

The bill now has 42 co-sponsors in the Senate, ranging from climate hawk Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to climate denier Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).

Companion legislation was introduced yesterday in the House of Representatives by Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.). Agribusiness has contributed $198,675 to Spanberger and $478,040 to Bacon over their careers.

Other original co-sponsors of the House bill are Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.), Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), Jim Baird (R-Ind.), John Katko (R-N.Y.), and Josh Harder (D-Calif.).

Advocates for small farmers, sustainable agriculture, and aggressive climate action criticized the legislation. In 2020, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s Tara Ritter explained how the bill works:

Although farmers should be incentivized to adopt practices that boost resilience and sequester carbon, carbon markets have a failed and wasteful track record compared to public investments in proven conservation programs. This bill would tee up a framework incentivizing false solutions to climate change that benefits private companies over farmers. . .

Voluntary carbon markets are privately-run schemes that pay farmers for carbon sequestered in their soils to generate carbon credits. Then, the company running the carbon market sells those credits to other companies or individuals interested in reducing their carbon footprint. Companies such as Indigo Ag and Nori are starting up voluntary carbon markets, claiming that they will increase farm profits while addressing climate change, all without imposing government regulations on farmers. Yet, Indigo Ag also plans to sell farmers proprietary seed coatings and collect farm data, raising questions of who will benefit most. Unsurprisingly, some of the biggest backers of these schemes are large agribusiness companies, including ADM, Bunge, Cargill and more, that will be able to generate, buy and sell carbon credits to boost their profits and greenwash their own operations.

The Growing Climate Solutions Act sets up a weak verification system for the markets. The system relies on third-party entities to both provide technical assistance and verify the carbon credits. Allowing an entity to both consult on best practices and certify adherence to those practices could lead to conflicts of interest. In addition, verifying entities may self-register in the program simply by notifying USDA that they will “maintain expertise in and adhere to the standards published.” This type of self-reporting will almost certainly be abused, and without strict enforcement it will weaken the results of already flawed carbon markets.

Jason Davidson, Senior Food and Agriculture Campaigner for Friends of the Earth, responded to the committee’s approval of the bill:

We already have policies that will help farmers enhance soil health, protect biodiversity, and combat the climate crisis without perpetuating environmental injustice. Carbon markets have failed to reduce emissions and failed to provide opportunities for America’s family farmers.

Ecologically regenerative farming should be incentivized in addition to, and not instead of, carbon reductions in the energy sector. We should increase incentives for organic transition and heavily invest in existing successful USDA conservation programs while retooling them to help producers sequester carbon. Congress should support existing USDA technical assistance programs rather than outsource them to polluting agribusiness giants like Bayer. Family farmers should be supported in these efforts with structural reforms that ensure fair markets and fair prices, rather than creating more false promises of new markets that will predominantly benefit Big Ag.

“There are better bills on the table to meet the goals of maximizing soil carbon sequestration and reducing emissions from agriculture,” Ritter wrote, “including Representative Chellie Pingree’s (D-Maine) Agriculture Resilience Act and Senator Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) Climate Stewardship Act.”

Biden Transition Packed With Climate Hawks

Posted by Brad Johnson Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:06:00 GMT

Even though the loser of the presidential election, Donald Trump, continues his quest for autogolpe, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is hard at work preparing his new administration. Among the hundreds of staff and volunteers comprising the agency review teams are dozens of climate hawks. These are people with significant experience in climate policy and politics. Some have careers rooted in environmental justice, while others are technologists.

Cabinet departments are listed in order of creation, an approximate reflection of their power and significance within the federal government. This post will be continually updated.

State (nominee: Tony Blinken)

Treasury (nominee: Janet Yellen)

  • Andy Green, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer from 2014 to 2015 and a longtime counsel for U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), worked on pricing climate risk while at the SEC. As a Center for American Progress fellow, he has been an outspoken advocate for ending the financing of carbon polluters.
  • Marisa Lago, former Assistant Secretary for International Markets and Development, has experience with international climate finance as well as urban climate adaptation planning. Lago is presently the director of city planning for New York City, having held similar roles in the 1990s for Boston and New York City. Before joining the Obama administration, Lago was Global Head of Compliance for Citigroup after a similar role at the S.E.C. running the Office of International Affairs.
  • Damon Silvers, long-time counsel and policy director for the AFL-CIO, has served on the board of Ceres for many years, advocating for labor’s interests in a green economy. He received his B.A., M.B.A., and J.D. from Harvard University and supported worker and divestment campaigns while a student there.
Defense (nominee: Gen. Lloyd Austin) Justice
  • Prominent environmental law scholar Richard Lazarus, a Harvard Law professor. His most recent book, The Law of Five, reviews the landmark Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court case which affirmed that greenhouse emissions are pollution. He served as the executive director of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Future of Offshore Drilling. In 1992, he was part of Clinton’s transition team for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In a recent interview, he stated, “There’s no greater problem that overwhelms us these days in environmental law than climate change.”
Interior (nominee: Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.))
  • Maggie Thomas is the political director at Evergreen Action, a climate advocacy group run by veterans of Jay Inslee’s presidential campaign. Thomas was climate policy advisor for the Elizabeth Warren campaign after Inslee’s campaign ended, where she was deputy climate director. She joined Inslee’s campaign from Tom Steyer’s NextGen America organization. She holds a B.S. in biology and environmental management from Trinity College and a masters in environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
  • Kate Kelly served in the Obama administration as senior adviser to and communications director for Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. She is the director of public lands at the Center for American Progress. Previously, she was communications director for Sen. Arlen Spector (R-Penn.) She has written on how the United States can equitably abandon fossil-fuel extraction and embrace renewable energy development on public lands.
  • Elizabeth Johnson Klein, an environmental attorney and former Deputy Assistant Secretary at Interior for Policy, Management & Budget during the Obama administration and served as assistant to the Secretary of the Interior in the Clinton administration. Klein is now the Deputy Director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law. For years she worked with Obama and Clinton Interior official David Hayes, the center’s director. She received her B.A. in economics from George Washington University and her JD from American University, where she was president of the Environmental Law Society. She has written on environmental justice and the dire need for climate leadership.
  • Robert (Bob) Anderson is a legal scholar whose career has been focused on protecting Native American water rights and environmental protection. In 2016, he reviewed the Dakota Access Pipeline conflict, noting that “the colonial process is on full display.” (He also wryly noted, “One might think that a multi-state project to carry a toxic substance would require an extensive federal appraisal, safety, and permitting process. Not so here.”)
Agriculture (nominee: Tom Vilsack)
  • Team lead Robert Bonnie, former U.S.D.A. Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment and Senior Advisor to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for environment and climate change, is the co-author of the Climate 21 Project’s U.S.D.A. chapter, which lays out a comprehensive climate agenda for the agency. Now a scholar at Duke University’s environmental policy institute, Bonnie was formerly the vice president for land conservation for the Environmental Defense Fund. He has a master’s in environmental management from Duke and a B.A. from Harvard.
  • Meryl Harrell, now the executive director at Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, worked for Bonnie at the U.S.D.A. and was his co-author on the Climate 21 Project chapter. She has a B.A. in geoscience and environmental studies from Princeton and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
  • Jonathan Coppess, former chief counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee and administrator of the U.S.D.A. Farm Service Agency, has worked on biofuels programs including the Renewable Fuels Standard and biomass crops as well as several land, water, and soil conservation programs for farmers.
  • Andrea Delgado is a co-founder of Green Latinos, a national Latino environmental justice organization. Currently the chief lobbyist for the United Farm Workers Foundation, she was previously legislative director of the Healthy Communities program at Earthjustice.
  • John Padalino is the former administrator for USDA’s Rural Utilities Service, having also served as Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary for Rural Development to Acting Principal Deputy General Counsel in the department. He works on rural water and electric cooperatives and is now general counsel to Bandera Electric Cooperative, a rural Texas electricity provider that has been working on smart grids and solar deployment for its members.
  • Jeffrey Prieto is a long-time Department of Justice environmental lawyer who helped set up its environmental justice division. He rose to general counsel at USDA during the Obama administration. He is presently general counsel for the Los Angeles Community College District.
Commerce
  • Karen Hyun, Ph.D. is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the Department of the Interior and was Interior Secretary John Bryson’s senior policy adviser on energy and environment issues. She is now Vice President for Coastal Conservation at the National Audubon Society. She has a Ph.D. in Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island M.S. and B.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University.
  • Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D., former NOAA administrator. Both an oceanographer and astronaut, she is the only human to have both walked in space and visited the Challenger Deep. She served as NOAA’s chief scientist during the Clinton administration. She received her bachelor’s in earth sciences from U.C. Santa Cruz and her Ph.D. in geology from Dalhousie University. She has written on the urgency of the climate crisis and fought attempts by climate denier Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) to hobble her agency.
  • Political scientist Todd Tucker, director of governance studies at the Roosevelt Institute, author of The Green New Deal: A Ten-Year Window to Reshape International Economic Law. Tucker has a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He was the long time research director at Public Citizen.
  • Kris Sarri, President and CEO, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. She was a climate and oceans Senate staffer with Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) from 2006 to 2010, and worked in the Obama administration as chief climate and oceans staff in the Commerce Department, and rose to senior positions at the Office of Management and Budget and Interior. An Ann Arbor native, she received her MS and MPH from the University of Michigan and BA from Washington University in St Louis.
  • Dr. Sandra Whitehouse, oceanographer and marine policy expert who has studied the impacts of climate change on our oceans. She is a senior policy advisor for the Nature Conservancy and the wife of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). Dr. Whitehouse holds a B.S. from Yale University and a Ph.D. in biological oceanography from the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. As her husband has done on the Senate floor, Dr. Whitehouse has raised the alarm about the crisis of climate pollution. “We are just beginning to understand the far-reaching impacts temperature change is having on ecosystems and wildlife. We are seeing the entire collapse of deep-sea ecosystems, and we don’t know what those ramifications are.”

Labor

  • Josh Orton, senior policy advisor to climate champion Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). As Orton said when Sanders unveiled his climate plan during his presidential campaign, “This threat is beyond ideology — it’s a question of life and death.”

Health and Human Services none

Housing and Urban Development none

Transportation

  • Patty Monahan, lead commissioner on transportation for the California Energy Commission. Monahan has worked on clean transportation policy and advocacy for the Energy Foundation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She received a B.S. in environmental studies from U.C. Berkeley and an M.S. from the Energy Analysis and Policy program of the University of Wisconsin. Monahan: “Climate Change was and remains the single biggest problem facing our world and energy is a major piece of the puzzle.”
  • Dr. Austin Brown, executive director of the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, the Environment, and the Economy. Brown was the Assistant Director for Clean Energy and Transportation in the Obama White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. He has also worked in the Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He holds a B.S. in physics from Harvey Mudd College and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University. He is working towards a zero-carbon transportation sector.

Climate and Food Justice Forum: Building Connections between New York and Puerto Rico

Posted by Brad Johnson Tue, 23 Sep 2014 23:00:00 GMT

The National Young Farmers Coalition, La Sombrilla, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and NRDC Present

Climate and Food Justice Forum: Building Connections between New York and Puerto Rico

New York and Puerto Rico are home to some of the most climate vulnerable communities in the United States. Advocates and residents in both regions increasingly see food justice as critical to bolstering their communities’ resiliency in the face of climate change. The forum will explore that connection, highlighting how farmers and activists in both regions are developing climate smart alternatives to conventional agriculture.

Speakers include:

Cindy Madeleiny Camacho Bernard Estudiantes Dispuestos a la Restauración Ambiental

Annie Courtens Roxbury Farm

Keisha Morale Rodríguez Estudiantes Dispuestos a la Restauración Ambiental

Ana Elisa Pérez Quintero Proyecto Enlace

Colibrí Sanfiorenzo-Barnhard La Sombrilla

Columbia Law School 435 W 116th St Jerome Greene Hall, Room 107 New York, NY 10027

Tickets

Climate Change and Agriculture: Food and Farming in a Changing Climate (House briefing)

Posted by Brad Johnson Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Agriculture will be one of the industries most affected by climate change. Changing rainfall patterns and intensities, air temperatures, and cropping seasons will require the development of new, adapted agricultural systems. On June 16th, experts on climate modeling, cropping systems, crop breeding, and agriculture and natural resource economics will present information about how agriculture can adapt to a changing climate.

RSVP

Speakers
  • Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist; NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
  • Dr. Cesar Izaurralde, Laboratory Fellow; Joint Global Change Research Institute
  • Dr. Paul Gepts, Professor of Agronomy and Geneticist; U.C. Davis
  • Dr. Gerald Nelson, Senior Research Fellow; International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Agronomy, Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.

For questions or to RSVP please contact Phillip Chalker at [email protected] or 202-326-6789.

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary regional, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation. She is a co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change and co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. She was a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report observed changes chapter, and served on the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenarios for Impact and Climate Assessment. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she joins impact models with climate models to predict future outcomes of both land-based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. She is a Professor at Barnard College and a Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia Earth Institute.

Dr. Cesar Izaurralde is a laboratory fellow at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a collaboration of the University of Maryland with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He is also an adjunct professor in the departments of Geography and the Natural Resource Sciences and Landscape Architecture. Dr. Izaurralde is a soil scientist with more than 30 years of research experience in agronomy, soil science, and ecosystem modeling. His current research focuses in the areas of modeling the impacts of climate change and variability on terrestrial ecosystems and water resources and carbon sequestration in and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soils. Before joining PNNL in 1997, Dr. Izaurralde served as Chair of Resource Conservation in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta, Canada. In his native Argentina, he studied at and later joined the Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias at Universidad Nacional de Cardoba. Dr. Izaurralde is Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy.

Dr. Paul Gepts is professor of agronomy in the Department of Agronomy and Range Science at the University of California, Davis. His research and teaching program focuses on the evolution of plants under domestication and relies on a combination of genetic and genomic analyses, coupled with field work in centers of crop domestication, principally Latin America and Africa. Recent research conducted in Mexico has emphasized gene flow between wild and domesticated Phaseolus beans. He has taught courses on crop germplasm in Argentina and Italy, is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Agronomy, has published some 70 research papers and 40 review papers or book chapters, and has edited one book. Dr. Gepts was a member of an Ecological Society of America (ESA) task force that wrote an ESA position paper, Genetically Engineered Organisms and the Environment: Current Status and Recommendations. He co-authored a background chapter assessing the effects of transgenic maize on maize diversity in Mexico for the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation.

Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Nelson is a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He is an agricultural economist with over 30 years of professional and research experience in the areas of agriculture, policy analysis, land use and climate change. As co-leader of IFPRI’s global change program, he is responsible for developing IFPRI’s research in climate change modeling and spatially explicit assessments of potential adaptation and mitigation programs and policies. His previous professional activities includes leading the drivers of ecosystem services efforts of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, undertaking research that combines biophysical and socioeconomic data in quantitative, spatially-explicit modeling of the determinants of land use change, and understanding the effects of agricultural, trade and macroeconomic policies on agriculture and land use. Before joining IFPRI, Dr. Nelson was a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1985-2008) and an Agricultural Development Council specialist at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 1982.

Climate Change and Agriculture: Food and Farming in a Changing Climate (Senate briefing)

Posted by Brad Johnson Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:30:00 GMT

Agriculture will be one of the industries most affected by climate change. Changing rainfall patterns and intensities, air temperatures, and cropping seasons will require the development of new, adapted agricultural systems. On June 16th, experts on climate modeling, cropping systems, crop breeding, and agriculture and natural resource economics will present information about how agriculture can adapt to a changing climate.

Speakers
  • Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist; NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
  • Dr. Cesar Izaurralde, Laboratory Fellow; Joint Global Change Research Institute
  • Dr. Paul Gepts, Professor of Agronomy and Geneticist; U.C. Davis
  • Dr. Gerald Nelson, Senior Research Fellow; International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Agronomy, Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.

For questions or to RSVP please contact Phillip Chalker at [email protected] or 202-326-6789.

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary regional, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation. She is a co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change and co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. She was a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report observed changes chapter, and served on the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenarios for Impact and Climate Assessment. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she joins impact models with climate models to predict future outcomes of both land-based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. She is a Professor at Barnard College and a Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia Earth Institute.

Dr. Cesar Izaurralde is a laboratory fellow at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a collaboration of the University of Maryland with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He is also an adjunct professor in the departments of Geography and the Natural Resource Sciences and Landscape Architecture. Dr. Izaurralde is a soil scientist with more than 30 years of research experience in agronomy, soil science, and ecosystem modeling. His current research focuses in the areas of modeling the impacts of climate change and variability on terrestrial ecosystems and water resources and carbon sequestration in and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soils. Before joining PNNL in 1997, Dr. Izaurralde served as Chair of Resource Conservation in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta, Canada. In his native Argentina, he studied at and later joined the Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias at Universidad Nacional de Cardoba. Dr. Izaurralde is Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy.

Dr. Paul Gepts is professor of agronomy in the Department of Agronomy and Range Science at the University of California, Davis. His research and teaching program focuses on the evolution of plants under domestication and relies on a combination of genetic and genomic analyses, coupled with field work in centers of crop domestication, principally Latin America and Africa. Recent research conducted in Mexico has emphasized gene flow between wild and domesticated Phaseolus beans. He has taught courses on crop germplasm in Argentina and Italy, is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Agronomy, has published some 70 research papers and 40 review papers or book chapters, and has edited one book. Dr. Gepts was a member of an Ecological Society of America (ESA) task force that wrote an ESA position paper, Genetically Engineered Organisms and the Environment: Current Status and Recommendations. He co-authored a background chapter assessing the effects of transgenic maize on maize diversity in Mexico for the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation.

Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Nelson is a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He is an agricultural economist with over 30 years of professional and research experience in the areas of agriculture, policy analysis, land use and climate change. As co-leader of IFPRI’s global change program, he is responsible for developing IFPRI’s research in climate change modeling and spatially explicit assessments of potential adaptation and mitigation programs and policies. His previous professional activities includes leading the drivers of ecosystem services efforts of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, undertaking research that combines biophysical and socioeconomic data in quantitative, spatially-explicit modeling of the determinants of land use change, and understanding the effects of agricultural, trade and macroeconomic policies on agriculture and land use. Before joining IFPRI, Dr. Nelson was a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1985-2008) and an Agricultural Development Council specialist at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 1982.

State Energy and Climate Actions: Agriculture, Forestry and Waste Management

Posted by Brad Johnson Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:00:00 GMT

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), Center for Climate Strategies (CCS) and the Office of Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) invite you to a briefing to learn about state climate actions related to agriculture, forestry and waste management, and how they can inform the current Congressional debate on energy and climate policy. States have developed a range of approaches for promoting bioenergy and biobased products as well as managing agriculture, forestry and other land use to enhance carbon sequestration and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Many of these approaches are “win-win” solutions that simultaneously address employment/economic stimulus, energy security, climate mitigation and other environmental objectives while garnering broad consensus among diverse stakeholders. At this briefing, agriculture and forestry experts from the South and Midwest will share experiences about policy development and implementation in their states, and offer perspectives on how the federal government and states can best partner to implement effective policies. Speakers for this event include:

  • Joe James, Chief Executive Officer, Corporation for Economic Opportunity; Member, South Carolina Climate, Energy and Commerce Advisory Committee
  • Richard Leopold, Director, Iowa Department of Natural Resources
  • Dennis Hazel, PhD, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, College of Natural Resources, North Carolina State University
  • Tom Peterson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for Climate Strategies (CCS)

Over the past six years, more than 30 states have addressed climate change through comprehensive development of mitigation measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while also creating jobs and addressing energy needs within their states. This includes a full suite of policies in the agriculture, forestry and waste sectors and specific actions that support land protection, conservation practices, renewable energy and products, and waste recovery. Some states have developed adaptation plans as well to respond to climate change impacts on natural resources and other systems.

The Center for Climate Strategies is a nonprofit that supplies technical and analytic services to states. This briefing is the second in a series co-sponsored by EESI and CCS. Information from the first briefing, which provided an overview of state energy and climate actions across all sectors, is available here. Future briefings will address topics including the economics of climate change, transportation, land use, and adaptation, and residential, commercial, and industrial energy use.

This briefing is free and open to the public. No RSVP required. For more information, contact Amy Sauer at (202) 662-1892 or [email protected].

Tom Kenworthy: Climate Change Will Bring More Billion-Dollar Droughts for U.S. Farmers

Posted by Wonk Room Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:39:00 GMT

From the Wonk Room’s Tom Kenworthy, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Pray for RainFarmers and those in the agriculture economy have a lot to lose if the trends in billion-dollar weather disasters continue – particularly when it comes to drought and water shortages, as recent news indicates. “Central and South Texas are in the midst of an epic drought that has sapped soils of their moisture, dried up stock ponds and turned cornfields from green to beige.” California’s “Central Valley farmers will receive an additional 100,000 acre-feet as part of a water loan to deal with the three-year drought plaguing the state.” As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee begins hearing testimony this week on climate change legislation, “Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters” – a catalog of 90 costly weather-related disasters dating back to 1980 assembled by the National Climatic Data Center – is a good place to start when considering the costs of inaction on global warming:

  • In 2007, a severe drought with extreme heat across the Great Plains and the East brought some $5 billion in damages and costs. Wildfires in the West that same year cost more than $1 billion.
  • In 2006, widespread drought affected the Great Plains, the south, and the far west, costing about $6 billion.
  • In 2002, a broad drought cost $10 billion, affecting large parts of 30 states from the West to the Great Plains and much of the East. Western wildfires associated with the drought cost $2 billion.
  • In 2000, a drought and heat wave centered on the south central and southeastern United States caused 140 deaths and cost $4 billion.
  • In 1999, An eastern drought and heat wave brought “extensive agricultural losses” of more than $1 billion and cost 502 lives. *In 1998, “Very severe losses to agriculture and related industries” accompanied a drought affecting the central and eastern U.S. with estimated costs of $40 billion and 5,000 to 10,000 deaths.

The House’s narrow approval of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 on June 26 came only after House leaders satisfied some of the concerns of farm state lawmakers. Senators, too, will be sensitive to those interests, so it is critical they understand some of the stakes for agriculture if Congress fails to pass comprehensive clean-energy jobs and climate legislation.

Drought and changes in water supply will be one of the main challenges. Over the last half century, the recently released government report “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” says, droughts associated with rising temperatures have become more frequent in much of the Southeast and Western regions of the country. That trend is expected to continue. “In the future, droughts are likely to become more frequent and severe,” particularly in the Southwest, according to the report.

Water shortages will likely affect a whole range of critical economic sectors, from limiting electricity production by nuclear and coal-fired power plants that have high water demands to increasing shipping costs on the Great Lakes and Mississippi River – as happened in 1988 when a drought stranded 4,000 barges on America’s most important commercial waterway. Drier conditions in the West will also increase the extent and cost of wildfires, which have already soared in the last decade.

These events and their impacts are not abstractions. They are costly, disruptive, and affect millions of Americans, including many who make their living raising food and livestock. Few lobbyists for these interests will mention these costly impacts to our already challenged rural economies.

Senators have a responsibility to protect farmers from more and worse droughts even if the farmers’ hired guns won’t.

Read more at the Center for American Progress, and view a map of past and projected droughts at Science Progress.

Collin Peterson: 'Mixing Climate Change Together with Energy Independence' Isn't Smart

Posted by Wonk Room Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:29:00 GMT

From the Wonk Room.

Collin PetersonIn an agricultural hearing Thursday, committee chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) offered a withering critique of the comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation under consideration by the House of Representatives. Peterson, a conservative Blue Dog Democrat, attacked the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) for including both clean energy and global warming pollution standards:

My big problem is that they are mixing climate change together with energy independence. I don’t think that is smart.

Peterson, like other skeptics of action on climate change, does not want Congress to consider the entire lifecycle of energy use. Others, including Vice President Al Gore, have argued our energy and climate crises are “linked by a common thread – our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels.”

Strongly supported by corporate agriculture contributors, Peterson is attempting to alter Waxman-Markey to limit regulations of agriculture subsidies.

By replacing petroleum, biofuels have the potential to dramatically reduce global warming pollution. But scientists have found biofuels can also worsen global warming by encouraging farmers to cut down the diversity-rich tropical forests that soak up carbon dioxide. Similarly, farmers may be able to trap more carbon in soil and plants through changes in agricultural practices, allowing them to sell billions of dollars of “offsets” in a carbon cap-and-trade market. But experts such as Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress have explained that poorly regulated offsets are little more than worthless subsidies.

The Environmental Protection Agency is considering the global warming consequences of biofuel production as it develops new renewable fuels standards. Similarly, Waxman-Markey would put the EPA Administrator and an independent scientific board in charge of devising the rules for agricultural offsets to maintain their integrity. Peterson’s response:
A lot of us on the Committee do not want the EPA near our farms. And, I don’t think you are going to get any type of a bill through Congress, whatever the administration wants, that is going to have that system, for whatever it is worth.
At Grist, Tom Philpott responds to Peterson:
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.

For weeks, Peterson has threatened to block Waxman-Markey if his demands are not met. It appears that he’s in the driver’s seat.

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