The House Agriculture Committee is threatening to hold up the climate change bill unless the USDA, rather than the EPA, is granted oversight of the bill's proposed carbon credit program:
Democrats and Republicans on the committee took turns criticizing the legislation. Their chief complaint is that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, rather than the U.S. Department of Agriculture, would be in a charge of the credit program through which farmers could get paid for practices that store crop residue in the soil or otherwise reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
"As this bill stands today, I can't vote for it," Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Ia., told Vilsack. "I don't know of anyone else in the committee who can."
While Democrats threatening to block climate change legislation may seem frustrating to progressives, there is a refreshing aspect to what the Agriculture Committee is doing here. Rather than making some vague ideological argument or stating they will never support the bill no matter what, Committee Chair Collin Peterson has made it clear that the committee members were actually just looking for a payoff in their districts (more in the extended entry):
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At one point, the committee's chairman, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., held up a copy of an EPA analysis of the House bill showing there would likely be few credits awarded to farmers.
"This is why a lot of us on the committee do not want the EPA near our farmers," Peterson said.
In other words, this actually has nothing to do with the whether the EPA or the USDA regulates the credit program. Instead, it is entirely about guaranteeing that more of these credits are given to farmers, no matter who regulates the program. Given that credits are basically just money, Collin Peterson has made it clear that, in order to pass the climate change bill, the Agriculture Committee just wants the government to hand over several billion dollars to the farmer's in the districts of the members on the committee.
While this is a little unseemly, at least the Agriculture Committee has made its demands clear. They oppose climate change legislation not based on any ideological principle, but rather because they want more money for their constituents in exchange for passing climate change legislation. As I said, it is better than just making vague and incoherent claims about, say, socialism. This is the sort of demand we can work with.
If what members of the Agriculture Committee want in order to pass climate change legislation is more money for farmers, why don't we just start handing out cash to farmers? Cash would be better than these credits, since it both gives the farmers the money they want but doesn't exempt them from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Everyone wins.
Of course, in order to do this, the Agriculture Committee would first need to specific exactly how much cash they want directed to the farmer's in their districts. While it could be as high as $24 billion, that would still be a small price to pay for mitigating climate change.
So maybe where we go from here is for the Agriculture Committee to provide a list of the amount of cash they want to see funneled to each farmer in their district. Once the federal government provides the cash, in exchange they vote for climate change legislation. Viola--everyone is happy.
Now, many people might object to this. I mean, really, should members of the United States Congress be given massive bribes in order to pass legislation? Isn't that, well, unseemly? Sure, I guess. I'm pretty sure that handing people money in exchange for votes is the very definition of a shakedown. However, keep in mind that members of the Agriculture Committee are the ones making this demand, not me. |
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