Daily News Update, Dec. 7, 2007
Senate committee moves climate bill
On Dec. 5 the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee passed the
Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007 (S. 2191), a bill which
directs the
Environmental Protection Agency to establish a program to decrease emissions of greenhouse gases.
Of interest to
cattle producers is language allocating five percent of the Emission
Allowance Account for use in "achieving real, verifiable, additional
permanent and enforceable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from
the agriculture and forestry sectors."
A large majority of
the emission allowance goes to carbon sequestration, which will benefit
some cattle producers. But 0.5 percent of the five percent must go to
mitigating emissions of nitrous oxide and methane.
" I
am not sure there is a lot more we can do to improve methane emissions
from enteric fermentation. Cattle producers have made a great deal of
progress on this issue in recent years by increasing feed quality, but
we'll likely only be able to make additional progress with more
research," says NCBA's Director of Environmental Issues Tamara Thies.
"There are studies
that show that nitrous oxide emissions from agricultural lands in arid
parts of the United States are not as high as some researchers have
claimed," Thies continued. "We need more studies on this issue and
more research on tools to mitigate emissions."
NCBA will continue
to monitor progress of the bill as it moves to the Senate for
consideration sometime next year. The House has not yet acted on this issue.
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