Senate Committee Passes Climate Change Legislation
December 1, 2009
Senate Committee Passes Climate Change Legislation
On November 4, 2009, Senators Stabenow (MI), Harkin (IA), Baucus (MT), Casey (PA), Klobuchar (MN), Brown (OH), Begich (AK), and Shaheen (NH) introduced S. 2729 – the Clean Energy Partnerships Act. This bill establishes important provisions for agriculture in the offset portion of the Climate Change bill, which was approved by the Senate Environment Committee last month without the ag offset amendment.
NMPF feels very strongly that additional legislation must protect the dairy industry from those who would rather pursue a strictly regulatory approach to managing methane emissions from livestock operations. To mandate greenhouse gas reductions could cause catastrophic financial losses within the dairy sector. S.2729 provides many of those provisions, and provides opportunities for agriculture to benefit from the legislation.
Although the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed S. 1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, NMPF was disappointed to see the lack of provisions for agriculture. That is why it is critical that the agriculture offsets piece was introduced.
NMPF sent a letter in support of the work on the Clean Energy Partnerships Act and will continue to engage and work on this process.
At this time the Senate is not expected to again consider climate change legislation until the spring of 2010. However, with the international negotiations taking place this December in Copenhagen, there will likely be additional discussions starting early next year.
