Don't panic ... offsets for organic?

The bad and maybe not-so-bad of the Waxman-Peterson deal 6

organic agTake this, Collin! Language of the Waxman-Peterson compromise has been released (full text here; and here’s a summary)—and in some ways it’s worse than I originally thought, and in some ways potentially better.

The bad part involves the provision around indirect land-use change and ethanol. It would, for the next five years, prevent that the EPA from considering international indirect land-use change when assessing the GHG footprint of ethanol. Yesterday, I declared it a travesty, but added that it didn’t change much on the ground, since the 2007 Energy Act already grandfathered in 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol—a huge increase over current production levels.

I sort of assumed sanity would be restored after five years—that is, that the EPA would then be free to assess whether the U.S. biofuel program is inspiring farmers in other parts of the world to plow up ecologically crucial areas like rainforests.

But that’s not how it works. The legislation requires there to be yet another study—by an “independent panel”—assessing indirect land-use effects. According to the summary, “After the study is completed, the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy and the EPA Administrator must make a joint determination to accept or reject the study.”

In other words, the EPA administrator still won’t be able act independently based on science—he or she will have to form a consensus with the ag and energy secretaries, both of whom have other interests besides protecting the environment. As Peterson himself boasted yesterday, “What that means is that USDA has veto power over this.”

Great! Traditionally, you don’t gain the post of USDA chief without bowing deep before the biofuel gods. Recall that our current and previous USDA chiefs (Vilasack and Johanns) both served stints as chair of the Governor’s Ethanol Coalition. Will things be different in five years? We can hope!

And while it seems impossible for corn farmers to pump out enough product to generate more than 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol ever, much less within five years, cellulosic ethanol could be up and running by that time. (After all, isn’t it eternally five years away?) Contrary to popular belief, cellulosic feedstocks do present indirect land-use issues—and it would be nice if they could be judged based on science, and not against the interests of ethanol producers.

The carbon-offset language gives me some very cautious hope that the compronmise won’t mean a complete sop to agrichemical interests. The amendment charges the USDA chief with coming up with a “list of domestic agricultural and forestry practice types that are eligible to generate offset credits under this title because the practices avoid or reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester greenhouse gases.”

There’s almost no doubt, as I warned a couple of weeks ago, that chemical no-till—a practice that sequesters little if any carbon but uses loads of herbicides—will be enshrined as a credit-worthy practice. The amendment language places “altered tillage practices” on an “initial list.” Such offset definitions could shift yet billions more to chemical-intensive, monocrop agriculture. That’s dismal—a kind of crime, given the gravity of climate change.

But there’s also nothing stopping organic-ag practices from making the list, either—and with organic champion Kathleen Merrigan as Vilsack’s deputy, it just might happen. After all, the USDA’s own research reveals that “organic builds soil better than [chemical] no-till.” Moreover, the “initial list” includes “winter crover cropping”—a classic organic practice,

If this bill becomes law, the organic-ag community should work this angle hard. Don’t panic—carbon offsets for going organic! Or for that matter, folks who already practice organic ag. After all, the amendment is quite friendly to “early actors.” As the summary puts it: “Practices, such as no-till farming and avoided deforestation, will be available to earn offset credits under the new program, as long as they were started after 2001 and result in additional greenhouse gas reduction.” Lots of organic farms have emerged since 2001. Let’s get ‘em carbon-offset cash!

 

Grist food editor Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Follow my Twitter feed; contact me at tphilpott[at]grist[dot]org.

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  1. Ken Johnson's avatar

    Ken Johnson Posted 11:52 am
    25 Jun 2009

    That's great -- offset credits from no-till farming, avoided deforestation, etc. so that industry can burn more coal. Doesn't that seem a little insane?

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  2. Tom Philpott's avatar

    Tom Philpott Posted 12:03 pm
    25 Jun 2009

    My analysis is strictly of the ag part. i'm extremely uncomfortable witht the coal concessions, but I'm told that no bill is possible without them, just as no bill is possible without goodies for Big Ag. It's profoundly depressing--but I haven't heard a better strategy for getting a climate framework in place.

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  3. ecoplasm Posted 2:48 pm
    25 Jun 2009

    "Don’t panic—carbon offsets for going organic!"OK, not a bad slogan. Offsets may not be the enemy of the people after all.Wouldn't composting be a good thing to incentivize as well if we're pushing hard to promote organic ag as a possible beneficial outcome of this bill?  Diverting food residuals and other organic wastes from landfills could lead to huge reductions in methane emisisons as well as provide nutrients and carbon sources for low input/high carbon agriculture.  Unfortunately, the current WM bill takes away offset opportunties for composting by forcing the EPA to regulate landfill methane emissions through "performance standards", and the Peterson/Waxman amendments today don't address this.California is making the same mistake by 'regulating' landfill methane emissions through performance standards. Frankly, the landfill giants are just loving it, since it is likely to provide a crooked but plausible-sounding justification for sending more organics to the landfill, not less (to produce more methane to help pay for the increased gas collection costs and keep 'rate payer' prices down through already subsidized renwable energy generation...).  You will continue to hear the false argument that landfill gas collection is highly efficient and landfills will be formally rebranded as 'methane bioreactors'. Not good for composters or new anaerobic digestion technologies that can be much more efficient at methane reduction as well as capturing useful energy, both biological (compost) and chemical (methane).Does the EPA really want this? How about we ask the group that pioneered the original landfill methane offset protocols for the EPA Climate Leaders Program (several years ago), or ask those who work for the Landfill Methane Outreach Program who have been actively anticipating and promoting environmental markets for years, or ask the Reduce, Reuse and Recycle folks in the EPA Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, or even ask the really smart people in the EPA Office of Climate Change (they practically invented offset policy).  Is it a good idea for a few special interest groups to second-guess the EPA on whether offsets might actually be sound policy for this sector?I think a lot more people, once they see through the trees, will understand that offset policy is what you make of it (and not necessarily the devil's weed); wouldn't it be funny if Monsanto, as a capped entity, ended up funding the widespread development of organic agriculture in the US through the purchase of offsets from organic farmers, as overseen and encouraged by an Obama administration run USDA?Sounds pretty not-so-bad to me.

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  4. Tasermons Partner Posted 4:58 pm
    25 Jun 2009

    I'm not all that worried on the ethanol front.My personal "magic 8-ball" prediction is that ethanol won't pan out as the "miracle fuel" Big Ag thinks it'll be.And by the time they can get their heads outta the corn-planted soils to realize it, cars will be much more fuel efficient and hopefully most will have at least some kinda hybrid system that will make very large-scale increases in ethanol production unlikely.

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  5. Gar Lipow's avatar

    Gar Lipow Posted 7:48 pm
    25 Jun 2009

    You know money for organic agriculture is a good thing, but if that money comes from offsets sold by organic farms started in 2001 that is not actually helping the climate. That comes pretty close to meeting the classic definition of non-additionality.

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  6. Meredith Niles's avatar

    Meredith Niles Posted 4:56 am
    26 Jun 2009

    Ecoplasm- you right.  Composting is a good thing to be pushing not only for reducing nitrogen fertilizer use but for reducing waste streams to landfills which emit methane.  Actually just 2 days ago the city of San Francisco introduced a mandatory composting policy (http://www.reuters.com/article/gwmCarbonEmissions/idUS401768193520090623) and many groups in Washington, including mine-- The Center for Food Safety-- have been advocating for composting initiatives for this reason.

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