Pelosi buys off agri-business to advance climate bill
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
June 26, 2009
What began as a liberal crusade to slow manmade global warming is increasingly becoming a porkfest for well-connected corporations.
In order to get a vote today on greenhouse gas restrictions, House Democrats have bought off farm-state lawmakers with gifts to the farm lobby and the ethanol and agri-chemical industries--gifts that further undermine the legislation's purported environmental benefits.
Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland, two of the environmentalists' corporate enemies, now stand to profit handsomely from the Waxman-Markey bill's cap-and-trade scheme aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the hope of slowing the shift in climate.
Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, held a hearing earlier this month on the "American Clean Energy and Security Act," sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Ed Markey, D-Mass. Committee members asked, on behalf of farmers, agri-business, and the agri-chemical industry, "what's in this for us?"
Peterson, according to the environmentalist website Grist, demanded concessions from Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., or else he would lead a bloc of three dozen farm-state lawmakers to kill the bill in the House. At the expense of whatever credibility remained in Waxman-Markey's claim to affect the climate, Pelosi and Waxman gave the agri-lobby two significant gifts.
First, they bought off the ethanol lobby, led by Archer Daniels Midland, the National Corn Growers Association, the Renewable Fuels Association, and the Corn Refiners Association.
The slew of mandates and subsidies benefiting the ethanol industry has shifted U.S. cropland from food production to fuel production--and so that food production has moved overseas. The Environmental Protection Agency says this leads to deforestation, as foreign farmers clear rainforest to plant the food crops our Iowa farmers used to grow. The EPA is considering counting this deforestation as an indirect cost of ethanol, thus reducing ethanol's access to green fuel favors from Washington.
Pro-ethanol lawmakers tried to block this EPA ruling in an appropriations bill, but failed. Now, however, they have succeeded in attaching a rider to Waxman-Markey aimed at derailing this proposed EPA rule.
As the second concession, Waxman and Pelosi bought off the broader farm lobby--one of the most powerful special interests in Washington--and the agri-chemical industry with the promise of "carbon offsets."
Agriculture is already exempt from emissions caps under Waxman-Markey, but farmers want better profit opportunities from this bill--after all, the cap-and-trade scheme promises to spell huge gains for our modern-day Enrons such as General Electric, Duke Energy, and Goldman Sachs. Agriculture can profit from the legislation if the government rewards them, for instance, for practices that trap carbon dioxide in the soil.
Waxman and Pelosi have agreed to make it easier for farmers to earn "offsets," which could then be sold to emitters of greenhouse gases, such as factories. Now, instead of the EPA determining what activities warrant offsets, and how much, the bill gives that authority to the Agriculture Department, where farmers and agri-business have much more clout.
This is a win not only for farmers, but also for Monsanto, the bio-tech giant specializing in genetically modified seeds and herbicides.
Here's how it works: Farmers need to kill weeds around their crops. They can till the ground to kill the weeds--a practice that releases carbon dioxide buried in the soil. Alternatively, they can spray the fields with chemicals that kill the weeds--thus leaving the CO2 underground.
The latter practice requires farmers to buy an herbicide such as agricultural Roundup, made by Monsanto, and also to buy Monsanto's genetically modified "Roundup Ready" seeds, which grow into plants that can withstand repeated Roundup spraying.
With the help of Monsanto, Novecta, a consulting and lobbying arm of the Iowa and Illinois Corn Growers Associations, has called on Congress this spring to grant farmers valuable offsets for shifting to "no-till" farming--a shift that will spur sales of Roundup and Roundup Ready seeds. Thanks to the Peterson-Pelosi deal, this scheme could become law.
Lobbying filings show that Monsanto has lobbied on climate change legislation this year, through Ogilvy Government Relations. Monsanto's lobbyists there include Dean Aguillen, a former staffer for Pelosi.
Just as we see the progressives' health-care reform get hijacked by insurers and drug makers, the Left's climate legislation is becoming a cash cow for energy giants and agri-business. The rest of us will pay more for energy and goods, while the planet might not be helped one bit--but Obama can still call it "reform."
Timothy P. Carney is The Washington Examiner's Lobbying Editor, His K Street column appears on Wednesdays.
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