United States-Cattle carbon emissions

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NCBA Expresses Support for Bill to Amend Clean Air Act with Respect to Agriculture Emissions

NCBA sent a letter to Senators Thune and Schumer today expressing support for their bill to amend the Clean Air Act with respect to certain emissions from agricultural production. The bipartisan bill, S. 527, would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from requiring livestock operations to get Clean Air Act (CAA) Title V permits for greenhouse gas emissions caused by biological processes at those operations.

The CAA is fundamentally ill-suited for regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs), and it was never the intent of Congress for the Act to be used for this purpose. Instead, the Act was intended to regulate traditional air pollutants from major emitters on a state or regional level. While the CAA has seen success in cleaning up criteria and other pollutants, it is not adequately equipped to address global climate change.

Agriculture is a minor source of GHGs overall and should not be regulated under a climate change program. According to the EPA, in 2006, greenhouse gas emissions from the entire agriculture sector represented only 6.4% of total greenhouse gas emissions in teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalents (Tg CO2 Eq) in the U.S. Over half of that amount is due to emissions from soil management when growing crops.

Instead of being subject to climate change regulation, the agriculture sector should be considered an important solution to the climate change problem, as it provides critical sources of soil carbon sequestration and renewable energy offsets. In fact, according to EPA, land use, land use change, and forestry activities resulted in a net carbon sequestration offset of approximately 14.8% of total U.S. CO2 emissions, or 12.5% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2006.

Using the CAA in an attempt to control GHG emissions would impose untenable burdens, expenses, and restrictions on industry, families, and our nation as a whole. In addition, such a decision would provide the EPA with unprecedented control over every sector of the U.S. economy. Any decisions to regulate GHGs in the U.S. should be thoroughly and thoughtfully considered by Congress.