Climate Bill- Senate Developments
Jared Allen reported yesterday at The Hill Online that, “The chief architect of the climate change bill that barely squeaked by the House last month indicated Wednesday that he’s open to seeing the bill significantly altered by the Senate if that’s what it takes to ensure its passage.
“‘The irreducible core of the bill is that we get the reductions in carbon emissions,’ House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said Wednesday morning during a breakfast sponsored by the National Journal and a number of energy and healthcare industry groups.
“Beyond that, Waxman laid down no specific boundaries that, if crossed, would doom the bill.”
The article added that, “Getting a climate change bill to President Obama’s desk ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December is, according to Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), critical to giving Obama leverage with other major polluters.”
Mr. Allen pointed out that, “And while Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is working off of the Waxman-Markey framework, she said this week that ‘everything is on the table,’ according to reports.
“Either way, very few observers expect the Waxman-Markey bill to emerge from the Senate unscathed, as getting a coalition of 60 votes to stick together will surely result in new deals on a variety of policy provisions being struck.”
More specifically with respect to agriculture, DTN Political Correspondent Jerry Hagstrom reported yesterday (link requires subscription) that, “Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Wednesday he plans to incorporate into the Senate climate change bill all the farm-friendly provisions that House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., put into the House-passed bill and add even more benefits for agriculture.
“But Harkin also said he does not expect the Senate to take up the bill on the floor until late fall and if the pace of health care legislation is slow he does not expect the Senate to consider the climate change bill on the floor until next year.
“In a speech to the National Council of Farmer Co-operatives, Harkin said, ‘I think Chairman Peterson did one heck of a great job. I plan to incorporate all of what he did in the House and more.’ Peterson ‘could only do so much,’ Harkin said, adding that he believes he can add ‘more allocations and allowances’ because every senator has farm and rural constituents.”
Meanwhile, Reuters writer Tom Doggett reported yesterday that, “A U.S. Senate bill introduced on Tuesday would give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission full authority over markets that buy and sell pollution permits issued to companies as part of a climate change plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.”
Mr. Doggett indicated that, “The bill, introduced by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Olympia Snowe, would grant oversight authority for all carbon market trading to the CFTC, which now regulates commodity markets like the New York Mercantile Exchange.
“The House of Representatives last month passed a climate change bill that divides oversight of carbon trading between two federal agencies.
“The House bill would put cash-based permit trading under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, while the CFTC would have oversight of carbon futures and derivatives trading.”
In other Senate developments, an article posted yesterday at CQPolitcs.com reported that, “Senate negotiators plan to change a proposed import tariff in the House-passed climate change bill, a provision criticized last week by President Obama as a potential blow to free trade, Sen. John Kerry said Wednesday.
“The tariff in the House cap-and-trade bill, passed nearly two weeks ago, would start in 2020 and target energy-intensive goods from certain countries that do not make carbon reduction commitments of their own, if the administration found that other U.S. efforts to minimize the impact of the new program on domestic firms had not worked.”
The CQ article stated that, “At a Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday on the trade ramifications of climate change legislation, Kerry, D-Mass., a senior committee member panel, said that he is talking with Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and they ‘are going to try and change that provision.’”
And with respect to the political landscape in the Senate, Perry Bacon Jr. and Paul Kane reported in today’s Washington Post that, “Senate Democrats spent their first full day holding 60 votes just as they have spent the previous 2 1/2 years without such a supermajority: scrambling to find Republican support for their key initiatives in order to choke off potential filibusters.
“In short, Tuesday’s seating of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) did little to change the balance of power in the chamber.
“Democrats have a large enough majority to pass bills without any GOP support, but they are grappling with internal divisions on key issues such as health care, climate change and union organizing.”
Climate Bill- House
Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), a Member of the House Agriculture Committee, discussed issues associated with climate change yesterday on the AgriTalk Radio Program with Mike Adams.
In particular, Rep. Moran addressed the argument put forth by several lawmakers and agricultural stakeholders that if Congress does not act on the climate change issue, the executive branch, under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency, could unilaterally act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the auspices of the Agency’s endangerment finding.
To listen to a portion of yesterday’s discussion between Mike Adams and Rep. Moran, just click here (MP3-5:26).
Climate Bill- Executive Branch
Philip Brasher reported yesterday at The Des Moines Register Online that, “Despite farmers’ concerns that reducing fossil fuel use will raise production costs, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack insists growers will wind up making money from climate regulations.
“Vilsack told a Senate committee Tuesday that ‘at the end of the day farmers will benefit from this’ because of the payments farmers could receive for practices that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
In further detail regarding Tuesday’s committee hearing, Mr. Brasher stated that, “Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., pressed Vilsack for ‘any information to show that farmers will not be heavily impacted’ by a climate bill. Vilsack said his department was still working on an analysis of the economic impact.
“He told Bond that a climate bill would actually contribute, along with the spread of high-speed Internet and an increased consumption of locally grown foods, to economic development in rural America.
“‘We are just on the cusp of a revitalized rural America,’ Vilsack said.”
Dan Looker, writing yesterday at Agriculture Online, noted that, “Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) said he’s hearing almost unanimous opposition from his constituents to the House climate bill.
“‘The strong signal the bill seems to be sending to farmers in agricultural states is that they’re going to be facing higher costs,’ Bond said. He asked Vilsack if the USDA has an economic analysis of the cost of the bill to agriculture. Vilsack said the Department is completing an analysis of the House bill.”
For additional perspective from Sec. Vilsack, click on this USDA Daily Radio Newsline item from yesterday (audio, about one minute) which indicated that: “Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the offsets of the climate change legislation will outweigh the negatives and benefit farmers.”
For more general background on the executive branch’s political posture while working with Congress to secure passage of key administration goals, Jeffrey H. Birnbaum reported in today’s Washington Times that, “To move his agenda through Congress quickly, President Obama plans to embrace his campaign motto from last year — change — but not in the way he intended.
“As a candidate, Mr. Obama promised to bring change to Washington. As president, he is learning he must accept alterations to his proposals in order to succeed — to become, in effect, compromiser-in-chief.”
Mr. Birnbaum pointed out that, “The process is already under way.
“The climate change legislation that passed the House last month was a shadow of Mr. Obama’s original formulation. Billions of dollars that he had intended to go to middle-class tax cuts went instead to utilities and farmers as part of a compromise that secured the votes of pro-business Democrats.”
Today’s article added that, “Mr. Obama and his aides have made clear that they are open to almost any alternative as long as certain principles are respected. The president pushed for the House-passed climate bill despite its many differences with his own proposal.”
Climate Issues: G-8 Summit
Craig Whitlock and Michael A. Fletcher reported in today’s Washington Post that, “The world’s leading industrial nations tentatively agreed Wednesday to try to prevent global temperatures from rising above a fixed level, after a more far-reaching proposal to slash production of greenhouse gases fizzled, according to U.S. and European negotiators.”
Today’s Post article noted that, “Climate change will remain on the agenda as the Group of Eight meeting expands Thursday to include members of rapidly developing nations, which have deep concerns about global efforts to limit carbon emissions.
“Earlier, negotiators from 17 countries rejected a draft agreement to halve the global production of greenhouse gases by 2050. Under that plan, the United States, Japan and many European countries would have been required to cut gases even more, by 80 percent.
“Although European negotiators and many environmental advocates favored that proposal, it failed to win approval from India and China, whose leaders have argued that they could still end up with an unfair share of the burden at a time when their economies are expanding rapidly. China rivals the United States as the world’s No. 1 producer of greenhouse gases, and India’s production is soaring.”
Today’s New York Times noted that, “The world’s biggest developing nations, led by China and India, refused Wednesday to commit to specific goals for slashing heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting the drive to build a global consensus by the end of this year to reverse the threat of climate change,” while today’s Wall Street Journal added that, “The Group of Eight leading nations agreed Wednesday to cut their emissions of heat-trapping gases 80% by 2050, but failed to reach an accord on shorter-term targets — a setback that could have repercussions for a major meeting on climate change in Copenhagen later this year.”
Food Aid: G-8 Summit
Luca Di Leo and Henry Pulizzi reported on other activity that took place at the G-8 summit in today’s Wall Street Journal, and noted that, “World leaders meeting in Italy this week are expected to commit as much as $15 billion to agricultural projects over the next three years to try to reduce world hunger and ease food-price volatility.”
The Journal writers explained that, “The world consumed more grain than its farmers could produce for most of this decade, thanks to surging food demand from a growing middle class in emerging nations and production of biofuels for industrial nations. Even large harvests last fall and the global recession this year haven’t returned prices of many crops back to their normal levels.
“Last month, a United Nations agency predicted the number of people going hungry daily will reach 1.02 billion this year. U.S. Department of Agriculture economists have also made dire projections, citing affordability as the cause even when world-wide grain stocks are high.
“Unlike past G-8 aid initiatives, the proposal set for announcement in L’Aquila would focus specifically on agriculture, according to a senior U.S. official.”
SNAP (Food Stamps)
With respect to domestic food aid, Retuers writer Charles Abbott reported yesterday that, “Enrollment in the major U.S. antihunger program, food stamps, grew by 1.2 million people in two months and stands at a record 33.8 million people, the government said on Wednesday.”
In a related article, the AP reported yesterday that, “The House took up a bill on Wednesday that funds a 14 percent increase for food stamps as more people become eligible for the program because of rising unemployment.”
The AP article explained that, “Funding for the food stamp program makes up half of a $123.8 billion House measure for agriculture and nutrition programs for the 2010 budget year beginning Oct. 1. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, would receive a 10 percent increase, to $7.5 billion.”
“The agriculture spending measure is set to pass the House on Thursday over protests from Republicans, who are irate that Democratic leaders are severely cutting back on the long-standing right of rank-and-file members to offer amendments,” the article said.
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Meanwhile, a news release issued yesterday by the House Agriculture Committee Republicans stated that, “Ranking Member Frank Lucas issued the following statement today in response to learning that an amendment that he submitted to be offered for consideration in the agriculture appropriations bill (H.R. 2997) was denied.
“Ranking Member Lucas forwarded his amendment to the Rules Committee for acceptance, but it was denied consideration. The amendment would have required that none of the funds appropriated for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) be used to implement or conduct data sharing between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and USDA.
“The amendment was in response to USDA’s announcement last spring that it will require all farmers to sign a form, which grants the IRS the authority to provide income information to USDA for income verification purposes. Rep. Lucas wrote a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urging him to rethink the policy, which directly challenges provisions in the 2008 farm bill.”
Food Safety
Noam N. Levey reported yesterday at the Los Angeles Times Online that, “The Obama administration took a step toward modernizing the nation’s faltering system for protecting the food supply on Tuesday, announcing new regulations to curb the spread of salmonella in eggs and naming a new food watchdog at the Food and Drug Administration.
“The changes follow President Obama’s pledge to modernize a chronically underfunded and understaffed safety system that has repeatedly failed to control outbreaks of food-borne illness.”
More specifically, yesterday’s article stated that, “Nearly all egg producers with more than 3,000 laying hens — which account for the vast majority of eggs consumed by Americans — will be required to buy chicks from suppliers who monitor for salmonella bacteria.”
Executive branch food safety developments were the topic of a detailed discussion on yesterday’s Diane Rehm Show.
To listen to a brief audio clip from yesterday’s program which included analysis from Michael R. Taylor, the senior adviser to the FDA commissioner, just click here (MP3-2:43).
And The Washington Post editorial board opined today that, “The list of foods that have made Americans sick is long and bound to get longer. Even cookie dough wasn’t safe from contamination. But it was the massive peanut recall this year that spurred President Obama to establish the food safety working group to devise ways to make a relatively safe food supply safer. The proposals released Tuesday are sound within the confines of existing law. But Congress must move on legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration increased authority to step in before and after the food supply is put at risk.”
Dairy Reaction
A news release issued on July 7 by the Australian Minister of Agriculture stated that, “Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke today said he was bitterly disappointed by the United States’ decision this week to extend its dairy export subsidies by another year.
“Mr Burke is in Washington for three days to promote agricultural trade. He is due to meet US Trade Representative Ron Kirk today and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack tomorrow.
“He said the US Dairy Export Incentive Program would be one of the key issues on Australia’s agenda for discussions during those meetings.
“‘Australia will continue to make sure the United States understands our strong objections to this decision and to call on the US to show better leadership on this issue,’ Mr Burke said.”
Keith Good