Collin Peterson: ‘Mixing Climate Change Together With Energy Independence’ Is Dumb
Collin Peterson: ‘Mixing Climate Change Together With Energy Independence’ Is Dumb
In an agricultural hearing Thursday, committee chair Collin Peterson (D-MN) offered a withering critique of the comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation under consideration by the House of Representatives. Peterson, a conservative Blue Dog Democrat, attacked the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) for including both clean energy and global warming pollution standards:
My big problem is that they are mixing climate change together with energy independence. I don’t think that is smart.
In fact, it is Peterson, like other skeptics of action on climate change, who is not being “smart.” Reforming our broken energy policy requires recognition that the entire lifecycle of energy use matters. As Vice President Al Gore has explained, our energy and climate crises are “linked by a common thread – our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels.”
Closely aligned with the interests of his corporate agriculture contributors, Peterson is attempting to subvert Waxman-Markey, to replace our policy of fossil fuel subsidies without regulation with one of agriculture subsidies without regulation.
Like other attempts to outlaw science, Peterson wants to forbid the federal government from even recognizing agricultural pollution. By replacing petroleum, biofuels have the potential to dramatically reduce global warming pollution. But scientists have found biofuels can also worsen global warming by encouraging farmers to cut down the diversity-rich tropical forests that soak up carbon dioxide. Similarly, farmers may be able to trap more carbon in soil and plants through changes in agricultural practices, allowing them to sell billions of dollars of “offsets” in a carbon cap-and-trade market. But poorly regulated offsets are little more than worthless subsidies.
Following the law, the Environmental Protection Agency is taking steps to consider the global warming consequences of biofuel production as it develops new renewable fuels standards. Similarly, Waxman-Markey would put the EPA Administrator and an independent scientific board in charge of devising the rules for agricultural offsets to maintain their integrity. Peterson’s response? Forbid the government from using science to guide its green-farm policy:
A lot of us on the Committee do not want the EPA near our farms. And, I don’t think you are going to get any type of a bill through Congress, whatever the administration wants, that is going to have that system, for whatever it is worth.
At Grist, Tom Philpott debunks Peterson’s apologia for Big Ag:
The current version of Waxman-Markey contains almost no language on agriculture. (As I’ve written before, agriculture is exempt from any cap on greenhouse-gas emissions.) But farming projects would still be eligible for offsets through an offsets-review board that the legislation would set up within the EPA. Big Ag isn’t content with that arrangement. In the coming days, the game will be to insert specific language around ag offsets into the legislation –and promote a certification process developed by Big Ag itself.
In short, Peterson is playing a high-stakes game of chicken with our planet and farmers’s own livelihoods in order to force Congressional leadership to allow agricultural giants like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland to rewrite this critical climate and clean energy legislation to their benefit. For weeks, Peterson has threatened to block Waxman-Markey if his demands on behalf of industrial agriculture are not met. And right now it looks like he’s going to win.
6 Responses to “Collin Peterson: ‘Mixing Climate Change Together With Energy Independence’ Is Dumb”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Wonk RoomContact Us
Donate
Minimizing the global catastrophe of global warming is more important than any other issue, because failure in it will ultimately mean failure of the global economy, and massive deaths. Collin Peterson is evil, shilling for corporate agriculture (Monsanto, Cargill, and Confined Animal Feeding Operations such as IBP and Smithfield) against the future of the Earth’s biosphere.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:32 amCombining efforts to thwart global climate change and reduce energy dependence is “dumb” only if you’re (1) a climate change denier, (2) in the pocket of short-sighted, parochial interests, or (3) fail to see that the course we’re on is unsustainable.
For most everyone else, combining the two means taking advantage of a rare opportunity to meet the perceived longer-term threat of climate change (politically difficult address) with the nearer-term threat of increased energy costs and dwindling supply (thus, politically more achievable).
Instead of firmly planting his feet in the mud, ignoring long-term threats to protect his constituents’ short-term interests, people like Peterson ought to be looking for opportunities to improve the long-term outlook of those he represents with acceptable short-term sacrifice. Otherwise, we simply continue on this unsustainable course.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:23 pmWhen I encounter, these days, the level of ignorance common to the process of climate change denial via the complete disavowal of science in favor of the privileges gained from huge corporate political contributions, I’ve come to the conclusion that if there’s a decent chance that such denial might eventually result in the total extinction of the human species, perhaps it’s the best course to take. Imagine it: a world with no more Collin Petersons, no more Mike Pences, no more Monsantos, no more Exxons! Who knows, maybe the process of Homo sapiens extinction itself might give evolution the right nudge to come up with an intelligent life form!
June 15th, 2009 at 2:34 amGreat post–I’m going to link to this at Bleeding Heartland later today.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:36 amTemperatures keep going down, snow is on the friut trees for the first time in 20 years….record low temps for June in Chicago…and we know “the science”. Really?
Every newspaper subscriber worried about global warming has some soul searching to do. Your newspaper required:
A tree to be cut down
Oil pumped up to print the ink
Gasoline used to bring to your door
Carbon release upon decomposition, even if it is recycled a time or two (just delays the inevitable)
Newspaper subscribers who are green advocates, enjoy the irony with your coffee.
Let us see what the science really has to say to us…AFTER we understand these low temps. Keep the Politics out of Science. Let us get more consensus on this important science.
Observer
June 19th, 2009 at 7:56 pmWaxman Markey is not a good bill because it doesn’t do enough on emissions. I know the CAP is pushing this bill but it’s inadequate. You can blame this on Colin Peterson all you want but come on, Big Ag? What about Big COAL and all the allowances in this bill for coal and Futuregen and CCS? We need to close coal plants, not plan for more coal plants and permits.
Oh yeah, the farmers can all go to hell because you lump them in with Big Ag. Peterson is going to bat for his constituents – that’s his job. It’s our job to make the ACES bill a lot stronger and get coal out of it.
There are plenty of independent farmers left in MN and other states and they aren’t all “Big Ag”.
Environmentalists don’t like this bill for a reason.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:22 pmMany are opposing it because it doesn’t do nearly enough on emissions. That’s not Peterson’s fault.