Concessions Reached on Climate Change

In a deal reached last night, the USDA will now take the lead in overseeing agricultural offsets currently in the House's climate change legislation. For New York Times story, click here. The legislation originally placed the EPA in charge of the offset program, but House Ag. Committee Chairman Collin Peterson argued that the USDA was better suited to handle the program. This issue proved to be a major sticking point in negotiations between Peterson and the House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman. An agreement reached last night

puts [the] USDA in charge of programs that would pay farmers and other landowners to conduct the environmentally friendly projects. Waxman said he would seek guidance from the Obama administration to figure out "an appropriate role" for EPA to play in the program.”

This is a major victory for farm groups that had been pushing for more involvement by the USDA and not the EPA. According to Liz Friedlander of the National Farmers Union,

“We think [the] USDA is better positioned ... a lot of farmers are really comfortable with [the] USDA, they work with the local Farm Service Agency offices quite a bit... [the] USDA has offices in nearly every county, while EPA does not even have an office in every state -- it is much more accessible to producers.”

The USDA

“has more than 25,000 employees with years of experience working out in the field with millions of landowners to implement different conservation and commodity programs.
Meanwhile, EPA's staffing is much smaller. EPA's work force numbers about 17,000 total employees, almost a third of whom are in the agency headquarters in Washington, D.C.”

For more on this story, click here to view Farm Policy’s discussion.

Posted: 06/24/09