Since national energy reform is on the rocks, ethanol subsidies for the Midwest and ballot propositions to roll back progressive energy legislation in California are the most important policy fights to watch right now.
Neither will revolutionize the way Americans get power, and in both cases, moving forward could actually mean moving away from a sensible energy future. In California, voters could turn back progress the state has made towards holding down carbon emissions. And Washington's support for ethanol reveals the static thinking that's smothering our ability to address climate change.
More important than legalizing pot
In 2006, California passed a law that would take effect in 2011 and put an ambitious plan in place to decrease the state's carbon emissions by 2020. Even after the law passed, however, the debate over its merits continued. This being California, that debate made its way onto this November's ballot.
The most commonly floated line of reasoning against the law focuses on negative impacts to job growth: Increasing the price on carbon increases the cost of doing business, limiting economic growth and the resources that businesses have to dedicate to expansion. Proposition 23, a ballot initiative that will come to a vote next Tuesday, would delay the carbon bill's enactment until the state's economy takes a turn for the better.
But Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard knocks down the economic argument against the 2006 law (AB32):
While enacting AB32 could cause job loss in some sectors, most independent experts actually forecast growth in jobs in the renewable energy, transportation, and efficiency sectors. In fact, green jobs are pretty much the only sector growing in the Golden State. The number of green jobs grew 36 percent in California between 1995 and 2008. The rate of growth for regular old jobs was only 13 percent.
Double trouble
Activists have focused on shutting down Prop 23 (check out, via The Washington Independent's Andrew Restuccia, this clever campaign to flip "yes" voters), but as Amy Westervelt points out at Earth Island Journal, that initiative is not the only one that could free companies from their environmental responsibilities.
It turns out another California proposition, Prop 26, could raise the threshold legislators would have to meet in order to make companies pay for their pollution, including from oil spills. As Westervelt writes:
While some companies have steered clear of the Tea Party-backed Prop 23, which seems to be losing popularity every week, California companies interested in slowing down AB32 and maybe ridding themselves of responsibility for pollution altogether have been quietly funneling money to Prop 26.
California has long been a leader on energy issues. If either of these propositions goes the wrong way, it will be yet another troubling sign of the failure of progressive energy policy.
The other ethanol
Although environmentalists have fought hard since 2008 to pass cap-and-trade, the policy was always fundamentally conservative one. The Obama administration has always tried to map out a middle path on energy policy, and so far it has been ineffective. Ethanol is yet another case in point.
As Lynda Waddington reports at the Iowa Independent, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced last week that the administration was moving forward with a program that aids farmers producing crops (in addition to corn) that could be turned into ethanol. Switchgrass, the foundation of Brazil's much-touted ethanol system is one example. Notably, the arguments Vilsack advanced for the program had more to do with the economy than with energy.
Pros and cons
This type of cellulosic ethanol, Brooks Lindsay explains at Change.org, would go mainly towards fueling cars. Lindsay weighs the pros and cons of producing this sort of ethanol in general, and comes down against it. His reasoning: "At best, cellulosic ethanol is just a stop-gap measure while electric cars slowly replace liquid-powered cars....But, a stop-gap fuel does not deserve massive investments and government attention."
Indeed, progressives across the board have long argued that politicians' support for ethanol derives from political calculation, not from practical policy. (Ethanol states are swing states.) Ethanol is energy-intensive to produce, and it has a slew of negative environmental consequences that outweigh the cuts in carbon emissions.
Rethinking the politics
Before they rush to back the Obama administration's policies, however, policymakers should consider this news from Heather Rogers, author of Green Gone Wrong. Rogers reports for The Washington Monthly:
As I discovered on a recent reporting trip through Iowa, many farmers there would welcome a way to break free of the ethanol-industrial complex. The people I met said they'd rather cultivate crops using ecologically sound methods, if they could do so and still earn a decent living. It's not as if midwestern farmers don't know-better than the rest of us-that growing crops for biofuels damages their soil and keeps them at the mercy of predatory multinational corporations.
The article is worth reading in full, but fast-forward to the end to find Rogers' sensible policy proposal. Instead of enlisting farmers in a complicated energy-production procedure that ultimately keeps Americans in their cars, why not aide the work they're already doing to reduce carbon emissions on their farms? After all, farms are responsible for a huge portion of the country's carbon burden -- they just have lobbyists savvy enough to keep their business from being regulated. As Rogers puts it:
Paying farmers to sequester carbon is sound public policy, but it's also, and just as importantly, good politics. By helping to preserve farmers economically while also allowing them to be the stewards of land most want to be, it peels farmers away from the agribusiness coalition that is pushing the Obama administration to bet the country on a failed biofuels energy strategy.
Now there's a bit of thinking that could move energy policy forward.
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If you haven't seen the WTO ruling on Airbus subsidies, it's a doozy. From Loren Thompson at the Lexington Institute (FYI, the Lexington Institute is a farly conservative think tank in many regards, but has always had more honest analysis and information on economic issues than most conservative think tanks):
The World Trade Organization's confidential final report on European commercial-aircraft subsidies sides with the United States in finding that much of the aid Airbus has received is banned under current trade rules. The report thus confirms a preliminary finding in September that low-cost or no-cost loans used to help launch every class of Airbus planes were illegal under the WTO agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures. The U.S. Trade Representative has argued that without such "launch aid," none of the Airbus aircraft flying today ever would have been built.
The sweeping victory for the U.S. in the WTO's final report was anticipated in a Lexington Institute report issued last week, which found that Airbus has used a predatory business strategy to deprive competitors of market share for decades. The reality, however, is that WTO has found European governments in violation of free trade commitments, and they therefore must cease the 40-year practice of giving Airbus loans at concessionary rates not available to commercial companies like Boeing.
The report demonstrates that Airbus has spent decades playing unfairly, and putting America- and American workers- at a disadvantage. I have no problem with America having a more active industrial policy the same way that Europe does, but doing it the way they have done it is just overt cheating, and there absolutely needs to be an even playing field.
As the DOD moves forward on deciding who to award the tanker contract to, it should take into consideration how Airbus- or any Airbus affiliates, like EADS- have gone out of their way to break international law and gain an unfair advantage- especially given that they no longer even have an American partner company, meaning even more of the jobs on this contract will be created overseas.
Full disclosure: I am working with Boeing and the Machinists Union with respect to this issue.
Care International's work in Zambia has two main goals: increase the production of staple crops and improve farmers' access to agricultural inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers.
But instead of giving away bags of seed and fertilizers to farmers, Care is "creating input access through a business approach," not a subsidy approach, according to Steve Power, Assistant Country Director for Zambia.
One way they're doing this is by creating a network of agro-dealers who can sell inputs to their neighbors as well as educate them about how to use hybrid seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs. At the same time, "we are mindful" of the benefits of local varieties of seeds, says Harry Ngoma, Agriculture Advisor for the Consortium for Food Security, Agriculture and Nutrition, AIDS, Resiliency and Markets (C-FAARM). Care and C-FAARM are working with farmers to combine high- and low-technology practices.
Care thinks that this "business approach" will help farmers get the right inputs at the right time, unlike subsidy approaches that give farmers fertilizer for free, but often at the wrong time of year, making the nutrients unavailable to crops. And Care's focus on training agro-dealers and giving them start-up grants allows the organization to remain invisible to farmers. Power says that Care wants to be a "catalyst to the market" and help transfer resources, without distorting the basic pricing structure.
Another component of Care's work is improving the production of sorghum and cassava. "Zambia is as addicted to maize as we are to Starbucks coffee," says Power. But by encouraging the growth of other crops, including sorghum, which is indigenous to Africa, Care can help farms diversify local diets as well as build resilience to price fluctuations and drought.
Care is promoting conservation farming in Zambia as well. The organization has been working in six districts since 2007, reaching 24,000 households. In addition to promoting minimum tillage practices and the use of manure and compost, Care is helping to train government extension officers about conservation farming so that eventually they'll be responsible-instead of Care-for training farmers.
According to Power, the key to Care's work is promoting business-like approaches to agriculture alongside more traditional ones, so farmers don't become dependent on the organization for gifts of fertilizer or seed. These sorts of programs, according to Care, will be more effective at feeding people and increasing incomes than traditional food-aid projects that rely on long-term donor support. This is a big challenge in a country-and a region-facing the impacts of both climate change and the global economic crisis.
Stay tuned for more blogs about how farmers are linking to the private sector.
The prospects for achieving comprehensive climate and energy legislation this year, let alone a bill with enough teeth to cut climate-warming pollution in a serious way and tip the playing field toward clean energy, have dimmed considerably over the past few weeks. But other legislative opportunities are cropping up that hold keys to getting our country's response to the climate crisis on track.
The declining momentum for comprehensive climate and energy legislation is not surprising, considering the diminished resolve among Senate Democrats do anything big. Increasing numbers of Democratic senators have indicated that they would be comfortable running for the hills and passing an "energy-only" bill -- in other words a modest bill that lacks a cap on carbon pollution and contains industry-friendly policies. This approach resembles that taken in energy bills passed during the Bush administration. If senators decide they want to move in this direction, they've got a place to start. A polluter-friendly energy-only bill passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last June.
President Obama offered only tepid pushback against such inclinations last week. And while Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the key Republican working with Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to craft a comprehensive bill, albeit a compromise one (e.g. one with more nuclear and offshore drilling), has said he is not ready to settle for a "half-assed" energy-only fallback, this is not very reassuring. Sen. Graham has indicated that one of his intentions in working with Democrats is to craft a bill that's even friendlier to corporate polluters than other, already polluter-friendly proposals.
While frustrating, the dismal prospects for achieving strong legislation this year need not forestall progress in the fight against global warming. There are other pressure points around which progressives can mobilize, not only to propel our country down a path to clean energy, but also to help crash the party polluting corporations have thrown with funds from our federal treasury. These include ending billions in subsidies to fossil fuel industries and stopping an expanded taxpayer bailout of the nuclear industry.
On the nine hour bus ride from Johannesburg, South Africa to Maputo, Mozambique yesterday, I had a chance to read the latest TIME Magazine and was surprised-and pleased-to see an article on an issue that Worldwatch has been covering for a long time-the benefits of grass-fed livestock systems for the climate.
The article highlights how not all meat is created equal. All of the ingredients used to raise livestock conventionally-including artificial fertilizers and monocultures of maize and soybeans-are highly dependent on fossil fuels. In addition, modern meat production requires massive land use changes that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, including the destruction of grasslands and rainforests in South America and the degradation of ranging lands in Africa (See the Worldwatch report: Mitigating Climate Change Through Food and Land Use).
Rotational grazing systems, on the other hand, can actually sequester carbon in soils. And because the animals are eating grass, not grain, artificial fertilizer isn't required to produce feed. These systems also don't have to rely on the long-distance transportation of fertilizer, grain, or other inputs. And while the manure produced at confined animal feed operations, or CAFOs, is often considered toxic waste because it is produced in such massive quantities, the manure produced on smaller-scale farms is considered a valuable resource, helping to fertilize crops.
While raising-and eating- grass-fed beef might not completely reverse climate change, it's a valuable tool for producers and consumers alike in helping lower the amount of GHGs emitted because of our food choices.
by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner rolled out his new Wall Street bailout plan on Monday and the progressive verdict is already in: This bailout doesn't look much better than the last one. In fact, Geithner's latest plan isn't much different from several other flawed proposals policymakers have floated over the past year. At its core, Geithner's program is just another attempt buy up "toxic assets" from banks at inflated prices.
Washington, D.C. - "A sound compromise that no one is satisfied with, but nevertheless represents real reform." - From Rep. Collin Peterson's (D-MN) opening statement today on the 2007 Farm Bill.
The first House Agriculture Committee markup session on the 2007 Farm Bill began with Rep. Collin Peterson's opening statement, followed by everyone else's. Peterson said that Americans were fortunate to enjoy low, stable food prices, and food that meets the highest standards of quality and safety.
No markup, or voting on specific amendments, actually took place during today's session. The last changes to the legislation weren't made until late last night, and today was the first chance most members got to see the final versions, though Rep. Peterson said that the changes were minor in comparison to the version released a little over a week ago.
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