CLIMATE CHANGE

ASA believes that any climate change legislation must:

1. Ensure that agriculture is not adversely impacted by climate change legislation or regulation and can maintain international competitiveness.

2. Obtain commitments that any legislation will: (1) ensure that productive farmland is not idled or afforested in response to carbon sequestration incentives; (2) include a multi-year extension of the biodiesel tax incentive; (3) provide allowances to oilseed processors, and (4) fully fund modernizations of locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi River system.

3. Optimize opportunities for farmers to expand markets and receive offset credits.

4. In the absence of legislation, support legislative measures that would prevent EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

The issue of climate change and the desire to reduce or sequester greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been identified as a top priority by President Obama and the Democrat leadership in Congress. The House passed HR 2454 in June 2009 by a vote of 219-212, but momentum for Senate action has slowed significantly. In the absence of legislation, there is the potential that EPA could seek to regulate GHGs under the existing Clean Air Act.

Climate change legislation or regulations will impact farmers as energy consumers and, potentially, as providers of emission offsets in a cap-and-trade or voluntary offset market. ASA is concerned with the costs and adverse impacts on soybean producers and related industries that will result from the enactment of an emissions cap or GHG regulations on the U.S. energy and industrial sectors. We must ensure that agriculture remains economically viable and that U.S. soybean producers can compete with foreign production. 

If Congress moves to enact climate change legislation, it must be structured in a manner that will achieve the desired benefits while maintaining the viability of the U.S. economy and domestic food supply, including U.S. farmers and livestock producers, food and feed processors, and our communities. Policies that attempt to move our country away from fossil fuel energy sources may create new opportunities for agriculture, but also could create significant uncertainty and negative consequences for agriculture and the national economy. Any cap and trade legislation must provide stability, promote the global competitiveness of U.S. agriculture, and not diminish our ability to supply U.S. and foreign consumers with abundant food, feed, fiber, and renewable fuel.

A cap and trade framework for reducing GHG emissions can provide some potential market opportunity for soybean producers through enhanced value for bioenergy sources and GHG offsets derived from agricultural practices.