[Senate Hearing 108-357]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-357
CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUES: AGRICULTURAL SEQUESTRATION OF CARBON DIOXIDE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR, CLIMATE CHANGE,
AND NUCLEAR SAFETY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 8, 2003
__________
ON
THE POTENTIAL OF AGRICULTURAL SEQUESTRATION TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE
THROUGH AFFECTING ATMOSPHERIC LEVELS OF CARBON DIOXIDE
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
______
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
first session
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont
CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri MAX BAUCUS, Montana
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio HARRY REID, Nevada
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho BOB GRAHAM, Florida
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
JOHN CORNYN, Texas BARBARA BOXER, California
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska RON WYDEN, Oregon
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
Andrew Wheeler, Staff Director
Ken Connolly, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, and Nuclear Safety
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio, Chairman
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
JOHN CORNYN, Texas HARRY REID, Nevada
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
JULY 8, 2003
OPENING STATEMENTS
Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware.. 10
Voinovich, Hon. George V., U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio... 1
WITNESSES
Bast, Joseph, President, The Heartland Institute................. 18
Prepared statment............................................ 43
Knight, Bruce, Chief Executive Officer, Natural Resources
Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture........... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 35
Lal, Rattan, Director, Carbon Management and Sequestration
Center, Ohio State University.................................. 16
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Reed, Debbie, Legislative Director, National Environmental Trust. 20
Prepared statement........................................... 44
Rosenzweig, Cynthia, Research Scientist, Goddard Institute for
Space Studies, Columbia University............................. 22
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Stallman, Robert, President, American Farm Bureau Federation..... 14
Prepared statment............................................ 37
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Letter, Carbon Sequestration, International Association of Fish
and Wildlife Agencies.......................................... 59
Statements:
International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies...... 55
National Farmers Union....................................... 54
(iii)
CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUES: AGRICULTURAL SEQUESTRATION OF CARBON DIOXIDE
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TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2003
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change and
Nuclear Safety,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:42 a.m. in
room 406, Senate Dirksen Building, the Hon. George V. Voinovich
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Senators Voinovich and Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Senator Voinovich. The meeting will please come to order.
I apologize to you for being late. I had a breakfast
downtown and ran into a lot of traffic.
We are here today to discuss agricultural sequestration of
carbon. Specifically, today's hearing will focus on the
potential for agricultural sequestration to reduce
concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases, and the
Administration's action to understand and enhance that
potential.
As everyone in this room is aware, the issue surrounding
greenhouse gas emissions and climate change have become fairly
controversial with people on both sides of the issues. To an
extent, they have become the quid pro quo to move forward on
legislation dealing with SOx, NOx, and mercury.
I have stated several times that we need to enact a
comprehensive energy policy that harmonizes the needs of our
economy and our environment. Nowhere is that need more
important than with the issue of greenhouse gas emissions and
climate change, where the options that have been proposed to
mitigate potential human impacts on the climate and related
environmental systems are likely to have substantial economic
and societal consequences, and where there is a raging debate
about whether there are any conclusive environmental benefits
from implementing them.
As we look to the issue of surrounding greenhouse gas
emissions and the stability of our utility manufacturing and
industrial sectors, it is very clear that the nexus between the
environment and the economy, rather than an academic or
political exercise, is a real issue for those who will be
affected by the decisions we make on this Committee and in the
Senate.
We in the Senate are here as public policymakers and must
have reliable and readily understood information in order to
make informed decisions about them. In 2002, the total
greenhouse gas emissions in carbon dioxide equivalent terms
were about 14 percent higher than emission levels in 1990.
CO2 accounted for 82 percent of total U.S.
greenhouse gas emissions; methane accounted for 9 percent;
nitrous oxide accounted for 6 percent; and other gases
accounted for the rest.
The Administration projects that total U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions will increase by 43 percent between 2000 and 2020.
Several uncertainties are associated with this projection
including forecast methodology, meteorological variations, and
rates of economic growth and technological development.
Further, the Administration's projections do not incorporate
future measures to address greenhouse gas emissions or
legislative and regulatory actions not yet in effect.
Despite the fact that many of the environmental community
argue that the science of the causes, effects, and extent of
climate change is settled there is, in fact, real controversy
over whether or not greenhouse gas emissions affect the
climate. The National Research Council has noted that
fundamental scientific questions remain regarding the specifics
of the connection between atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentration and projections of climate change.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, potential
risks of increased concentration of greenhouse gases are
generally characterized as long-term in nature and the current
scientific knowledge and ability are insufficient to conclude
whether these shifts are a result of human activities.
Just yesterday, former Secretary of Energy James
Schlesinger published an op-ed in the Washington Post noting
that we are making only slow progress in our understanding. I
would just like to quote from a couple of paragraphs from his
op-ed piece.
``We cannot tell how much of the recent warming trend can
be attributed to the greenhouse effect and how much to other
factors. In climate change we only have a limited grasp of the
overall forces at work. Uncertainties have continued to abound
and must be reduced. Any approach to policy formation under
conditions of such uncertainty should be taken only on an
exploratory and sequential basis. A premature commitment to a
fixed policy can only proceed with fear and trembling.''
He finishes the op-ed piece with this:
``There is an idea among the public that the science is
settled. Aside from the limited facts I cited earlier, that
remains far from the truth. Today we have far better
instruments, better measurements, and better time series than
we ever had. Still, we are in danger of prematurely embracing
certitudes and losing open-mindedness. . . . We need to be more
modest.''
I want to insert in the record this op-ed.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The article follows:]
[From the Washington Post, July 7, 2003]
Climate Change: The Science Isn't Settled
(By James Schlesinger)
Despite the certainty many seem to feel about the causes, effects
and extent of climate change, we are in fact making only slow progress
in our understanding of the underlying science. My old professor at
Harvard, the great economist Joseph Schumpeter, used to insist that a
principal tool of economic science was history--which served to temper
the enthusiasms of the here and now. This must be even more so in
climatological science. In recent years the inclination has been to
attribute the warming we have lately experienced to a single dominant
cause--the increase in greenhouse gases. Yet climate has always been
changing--and sometimes the swings have been rapid.
At the time the U.S. Department of Energy was created in 1977,
there was widespread concern about the cooling trend that had been
observed for the previous quarter-century. After 1940 the temperature,
at least in the Northern Hemisphere, had dropped about one-half degree
Fahrenheit--and more in the higher latitudes. In 1974 the National
Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation,
stated: ``During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen,
irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade.'' Two years
earlier, the board had observed: ``Judging from the record of the past
interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be
drawing to an end . . . leading into the next glacial age.'' And in
1975 the National Academy of Sciences stated: ``The climates of the
earth have always been changing, and they will doubtless continue to do
so in the future. How large these future changes will be, and where and
how rapidly they will occur, we do not know.'' These statements--just a
quarter-century old--should provide us with a dose of humility as we
look into the more distant future. A touch of that humility might help
temper the current raging controversies over global warming. What has
concerned me in recent years is that belief in the greenhouse effect,
persuasive as it is, has been transmuted into the dominant forcing
mechanism affecting climate change--more or less to the exclusion of
other forcing mechanisms. The CO2/climate-change
relationship has hardened into orthodoxy--always a worrisome sign--an
orthodoxy that searches out heretics and seeks to punish them.
We are in command of certain essential facts. First, since the
start of the 20th century, the mean temperature at the earth's surface
has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit. Second, the level of
CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing for more than 150
years. Third, CO2 is a greenhouse gas--and increases in it,
other things being equal, are likely to lead to further warming. Beyond
these few facts, science remains unable either to attribute past
climate changes to changes in CO2 or to forecast with any
degree of precision how climate will change in the future.
Of the rise in temperature during the 20th century, the bulk
occurred from 1900 to 1940. It was followed by the aforementioned
cooling trend from 1940 to around 1975. Yet the concentration of
greenhouse gases was measurably higher in that later period than in the
former. That drop in temperature came after what was described in the
National Geographic as ``six decades of abnormal warmth.''
In recent years much attention has been paid in the press to longer
growing seasons and shrinking glaciers. Yet in the earlier period up to
1975, the annual growing season in England had shrunk by some 9 or 10
days, summer frosts in the upper Midwest occasionally damaged crops,
the glaciers in Switzerland had begun to advance again, and sea ice had
returned to Iceland's coasts after more than 40 years of its near
absence.
When we look back over the past millennium, the questions that
arise are even more perplexing. The so-called Climatic Optimum of the
early Middle Ages, when the earth temperatures were 1 to 2 degrees
warmer than today and the Vikings established their flourishing
colonies in Greenland, was succeeded by the Little Ice Age, lasting
down to the early 19th century. Neither can be explained by
concentrations of greenhouse gases. Moreover, through much of the
earth's history, increases in CO2 have followed global
warming, rather than the other way around.
We cannot tell how much of the recent warming trend can be
attributed to the greenhouse effect and how much to other factors. In
climate change, we have only a limited grasp of the overall forces at
work. Uncertainties have continued to abound--and must be reduced. Any
approach to policy formation under conditions of such uncertainty
should be taken only on an exploratory and sequential basis. A
premature commitment to a fixed policy can only proceed with fear and
trembling.
In the Third Assessment by the International Panel on Climate
Change, recent climate change is attributed primarily to human causes,
with the usual caveats regarding uncertainties. The record of the past
150 years is scanned, and three forcing mechanisms are highlighted:
anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gases, volcanoes and the 11
year sunspot cycle. Other phenomena are represented poorly, if at all,
and generally are ignored in these models. Because only the past 150
years are captured, the vast swings of the previous thousand years are
not analyzed. The upshot is that any natural variations, other than
volcanic eruptions, are overshadowed by anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
Most significant: The possibility of long-term cycles in solar
activity is neglected because there is a scarcity of direct
measurement. Nonetheless, solar irradiance and its variation seem
highly likely to be a principal cause of long-term climatic change.
Their role in longer term weather cycles needs to be better understood.
There is an idea among the public that ``the science is settled.''
Aside from the limited facts I cited earlier, that remains far from the
truth. Today we have far better instruments, better measurements and
better time series than we have ever had. Still, we are in danger of
prematurely embracing certitudes and losing open-mindedness. We need to
be more modest.
The writer, who has served as secretary of energy, made these
comments at a symposium on the 25th anniversary of the Energy
Department's CO2/climate change program.
Senator Voinovich. I think in order to address the
potential risks associated with greenhouse gas and emissions,
the Administration has initiated several administrative and
regulatory actions intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
and enhance carbon sequestration, including agriculture carbon
sequestration initiatives at the Department of Agriculture.
Last month, Secretary Veneman announced several new
initiatives to encourage greenhouse gas reduction and support
voluntary actions by private land owners including farmers, and
forest and grazing land owners to increase carbon storage.
Specifically, the USDA will give consideration to management
practices that store carbon and reduce greenhouse gases and
setting priorities and implementing forest and agricultural
conservation programs such as the Environmental Quality
Incentives Program, the Wetland Reserve Program, and the Forest
Land Enhancement Program.
The USDA will also fund financial incentives, technical
assistance, demonstration, pilot programs, education and
capacity building, along with the measurements to assess the
success of these efforts.
I have long been a supporter of such programs, even when I
was unaware of their benefits in reducing greenhouse gas
concentration. When I was Governor of Ohio, we planted 15
million trees during the 8 years that I was Governor of the
State. At the same time, I knew that it was good for the
environment, and it would certainly help the air. But it was
only later, once I had moved onto this Committee, that I was
told by Dr. Lal, who will be testifying today, that that kind
of program and the legislation that I sponsored when I was in
the State legislature on reclaiming all of our strip mines, has
had a real measurable impact on reducing carbon in our
atmosphere.
I hope that today's hearing will provide us with an
understanding of the agricultural sector's potential to
sequester carbon and to increase productivity, and where the
Administration's programs are providing resources and research
in the most effective manner to ensure that our farmers can
reach that potential.
We are very fortunate today that our first witness is Bruce
Knight, the Chief Executive Officer of the Natural Resources
Conservation Service at the Department of Agriculture. Mr.
Knight, we are very happy to have you here with us this
morning. We are looking forward to hearing your testimony.
STATEMENT OF BRUCE KNIGHT, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NATURAL
RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
Mr. Knight. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
discuss the Department of Agriculture's carbon sequestration
activities.
The issue of climate change is a high priority for
Secretary Veneman and for each of our respective mission areas
across the Department. Last month, as you know, Secretary
Veneman announced a series of actions that the Department will
take to increase carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas
emission from forest and agriculture.
The actions represent a major step forward for the
Department. For the first time, USDA will include the reduction
of greenhouse gases as a consideration while setting priorities
and in allocating resources for the conservation programs that
we administer.
Coupled with the increases in overall conservation
spending, these actions are expected to increase the carbon
sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions reductions from the
conservation programs by over 12 million tons of carbon
equivalent in 2012. This represents approximately 12 percent of
President Bush's goal to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 18
percent in the next decade.
I would point out to members of the Subcommittee that we
are talking about carbon and carbon equivalents, which includes
methane and nitrous oxide. Also, it is important to note that
greenhouse gas intensity refers to the rate of emissions as
compared to overall domestic economic performance. USDA's
conservation programs were designed to offer assistance and
incentives to farmers and other land owners in addressing
multiple conservation and environmental challenges.
Historically, programs have focused on reducing soil
erosion, improving water quality, creating wildlife habitat,
reducing air pollution, and protecting sensitive areas. While
maintaining these priorities, the programs will now also
include explicit consideration of greenhouse gas reductions and
carbon sequestration. We can accomplish this without
compromising our other objectives because in many cases the
technologies and practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions
and increase carbon sequestration also address other
conservation priorities.
For example, the very item that you mentioned, Senator,
planting trees and other natural covers can increase above and
below ground carbon. Most importantly--and this is one that I
cannot stress enough--crop land does not need to be taken out
of production in order to be able to sequester carbon. For
example, conservation tillage increases the level of soil
organic matter and provides many related benefits, while
continuing strong and vibrant crop production.
There are many opportunities to apply these practices in
the U.S. As a farmer myself for much of my life in the State of
South Dakota, I would note that nationally crop land soils have
lost at least a third, and some up to 60 percent of their
carbon, since they were first converted to crop production,
beginning about 200 years ago.
In the case of my own farm operation, most of those soils
have not been under cultivation for over 100 years. Many areas
of my own operation have come into production within the past
20 years, while maintaining an under-intensive conservation
tillage. In fact, today's no-till practices, along with our
rest/rotation grazing system, had been aimed at improving soil
functions and health. I can state firsthand that I have seen
tremendous benefits to my own operation from season-to-season,
but also benefits by building soil organic matter for the long-
term as well.
While those of us in agriculture see the benefits up close,
at the Department we are working to utilize the portfolio of
existing conservation programs to build carbon above and below
the soil on a much more broad scale. Within the Agency I
oversee, NRCS provides financial and technical assistance that
can help with carbon sequestration under the Environmental
Quality Incentives Program. We have provided guidance to
States, to reward actions that sequester carbon and reduce
greenhouse gases within the equipped ranking system. These
efforts can include the soil conservation practices already
mentioned, and technologies to reduce methane emissions from
livestock waste.
We also recently hosted a summit on one of these promising
technologies--anaerobic digesters. Anaerobic digesters, in
fact, work to convert animal waste to energy by capturing and
converting the methane that is given off. At that summit, we
unveiled three new conservation practice standards specifically
for digesters.
These new standards will have two major benefits. They will
make it possible for producers to fit anaerobic digesters into
their equipped contracts as parts as a comprehensive nutrient
management plan and they will make it possible for producers to
use outside resources, technical service providers, to plan and
construct those digesters.
Many other conservation programs, including the
Conservation Reserve Program, Wetlands Reserve Program,
Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program, and the Forest Land
Enhancement Program, have excellent prospects for sequestration
of greenhouse gases.
For example, under the new farm bill, the Wetland Reserve
Program alone will restore and protect about 1.2 million acres
of wetlands, roughly a land area the size of Delaware alone. We
know that what happens on farms and ranches can have a
tremendous positive impact for everyone. It is important for us
to better measure those efforts and to get the message out.
To summarize, I would like to highlight the key steps that
USDA plans to undertake. First, improve the methods for
measuring and estimating above and below ground carbon storage
on forest and agricultural systems. Next, collect carbon flux
measurement data at specific locations that can, in turn, be
scaled to regional and national statistics. Third, develop
management practices and techniques for increasing carbon
sequestration and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Fourth,
support demonstration projects to facilitate the incorporation
of carbon sequestration into USDA programs. And finally,
finalize new accounting rules and guidelines for estimating and
reporting carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions
from forest and agricultural activities.
USDA continues to invest in research to improve our
understanding of how crops, livestock, trees, and even pests in
other facets of our ecosystems will respond either positively
or negatively to higher levels of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. We are seeking cost effective ways to make
agriculture and forests more adaptable to any changes in
climate and weather should they occur.
We are pursuing an improved understanding of the role of
natural and managed ecosystems in the global carbon cycle. We
are developing technologies and practices to reduce emissions
of greenhouse gases and increase carbon sequestration. We are
now harnessing the portfolio of conservation programs to build
carbon back into the soil and vegetation, integrating
greenhouse gas considerations in all our conservation efforts.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for the opportunity to
address this Subcommittee. I would be happy to attempt to
respond to any questions that you may have. I would ask that my
written statement be placed in the record in its entirety.
Senator Voinovich. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you
very much.
You mentioned in your testimony how this initiative on the
part of the Department of Agriculture fits in with the
President's 18 percent reduction in greenhouse gases. Would you
underscore it some more?
Mr. Knight. The initiative that we are putting under way is
really intended to put the enabling platform out there for the
farmers and ranchers who would voluntarily need to step forward
in being able to help achieve these objectives. We put that
enabling platform in place by ensuring that when we are doing
any sort of conservation work on the ground, that we also keep
an eye at what we can do for carbon sequestration.
I mentioned that as much as 12 percent of the overall
President's objectives could be met thorough these
methodologies. EQIP alone would bring us halfway to that goal,
simply by having ensured that as we are implementing these
programs we are doing things that either do greenhouse gas
avoidance, mitigation, or sequestration.
Senator Voinovich. You talked about being able to measure
and capture the statistics. How precise is that technology that
would allow you to do that? How precise can you get in terms of
measuring what impact it has in terms of sequestration?
Mr. Knight. We are continuing to work to improve the
precision, the reliability, and the ability to verify and
repeat each of those measures. The Department of Agriculture,
NRCS, is in a leading position and is working very closely with
the Department of Energy and EPA in ensuring that across the
Agency lines we have agreement on the verifiability and the
measurability of each of these practices.
There are continuing efforts to enhance that. It is a real
struggle to ensure that you have something that is reliable
enough for the market place to step in. We have actually been
working very closely with some of the folks in the private
community that are interested in doing carbon trading. It is
very important that we provide this basis of measurements that
they can then use in the private sector to make the private
carbon trading sequestration efforts work, and work reliably.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Knight, I have always been a strong
supporter of the public-private partnership. I believe this is
the way the Government should be run. I was interested to read
in your testimony how the Department is working on
sequestration with private entities such as the American Forest
and Paper Association. Can you give us a little more
information about these partnerships and how along are they?
Have these just come about in the last month or two?
Mr. Knight. Certainly the American Forest and Paper
Association, Weyerhauser, and several of those have been
working very closely with the Forest Service on how to build
those partnerships. In the case of the Natural Resources
Conservation Service, we have been working on the measurement
side with a couple of the companies that are trying to put the
trading mechanisms in place, either from the Chicago Exchange
or others, that are looking at being able to do that. There is
a real ground-swell of private sector interest in moving
forward on these voluntary partnership approaches.
Senator Voinovich. Does that anticipate that down the road
there would be some trading going on?
Mr. Knight. That is certainly the expectation of that
community that is working with us on the measurability and
verifiability of these practices.
Senator Voinovich. In terms of the Department of
Agriculture, I am delighted to know that this could be a two-
for. I was one of those that was a little skeptical about the
farm bill. We put a lot of money into this proportion of it. Do
you recall the number?
Mr. Knight. We have nearly an $18.5 billion increase for
conservation programs alone over the life of the farm bill.
Senator Voinovich. The fact is that you are going to
coordinate that expenditure of money with the sequestration is
very encouraging.
Mr. Knight. Thank you. It is also very important that while
the science is still evolving, we are able to make the best and
most practical decisions of how we achieve our other
conservation objectives--soil erosion, water quality--while
being able to find that win-win solution. That may be able to
help us on greenhouse gases while the science continues to
evolve and build. In that way we are not sacrificing in any way
our core objectives of water and soil quality, but we are able
to find these win-win solutions that have enhancements.
Senator Voinovich. Do you think that beyond the money that
the Department of Agriculture puts into this, that there is a
potential to even do more in the arena? By that, I mean, you
are going to be paying farmers to get involved in these
projects and to spend this money. Is there any other
possibility that beyond what you are doing that, for example,
if private sector people wanted to invest and encourage people
in the agriculture and the forest business to do more in that
area, that that is a potential?
Mr. Knight. It is certainly a potential, sir. It is to make
meaningful gains on carbon sequestration. Even with the
resources that the Department of Agriculture has, they are
modest compared with the potential that you can see as we have
illustrated already.
That is one of the reasons why in the Environmental Quality
Incentives Program, we clarified the rules this year that would
allow a producer who is utilizing the EQIP Program, to go ahead
and trade any carbon sequestration credits that may result of
that investment on the open market, should those markets come
about. Short of a market place development, that is going to be
very important and key for the long-term ability to achieve
these sorts of objectives.
Senator Voinovich. One of the things that I was interested
in is this. You stated that the Department is involved ``in the
Government's activities to address climate change, including
international bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Can you
tell the Committee what the Department has been involved with
in terms of the international arena?
I think sometimes we think about the issue of greenhouse
gases and carbon as being a U.S. situation. It is a worldwide
situation, and one of the concerns that many people have is
that we could deal with our problem and not see any kind of
corresponding activity going on in other parts of the world
since we are all part of this whole situation. Could you tell
me what is going on in that arena?
Mr. Knight. When Mr. Connaughton testified before you a
year ago, he made mention of several of the bilateral
negotiations that have been going on. There are nearly 14
agreements with countries around the world that the USDA and
the State Department have been involved in--India, China, and
Russia, for example. We would be pleased, in follow up work, to
give you a more detailed list of those endeavors that the
Department has been involved in.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
USDA works closely with the Department of State and other
technical agencies and departments to support US bilateral and
multilateral climate change efforts. The United States
international global climate change strategy emphasizes
cooperation with key partners and promotes work with other
nations to develop an efficient and coordinated response to
global climate change. Over the past 2 years, the Department of
State has pursued a series of 14 bilateral agreements with
other countries and groups of countries. The countries include:
Australia, Canada, China, seven Central American countries
CONCAUSA (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Nicaragua, and Panama), the European Union, India, Italy,
Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, South Africa,
Brazil, and the Russian Federation. There is a keen interest in
forest and agriculture issues related to climate change in many
of these countries. The range of interests includes assessments
of the potential impacts of climate change, inventories of
greenhouse gas emissions and sinks from forests and
agriculture, and the pursuit of mitigation opportunities.
Specifically the Department of State requested assistance
from USDA in coordinating potential forestry and agriculture
activities and projects in response to requests from these
countries. USDA has provided inventories of current activities,
explored proposals to initiate new cooperative work, and served
on State Department delegation that met with representatives of
other governments.
USDA also supports the Department of State in multilateral
efforts. USDA representatives have served on State Department
led delegations to international scientific and policy
meetings, including ongoing negotiations under the Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and scientific meetings
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Senator Voinovich. Senator Carper, do you have an opening
statement?
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Senator Carper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be
with you, and I am pleased that you are with us.
Mr. Knight, welcome. It is good to see you. I apologize for
being a little bit late.
I have a statement here. I think this hearing is a revival
to all of us. I have not been able to read your testimony, Mr.
Knight, but I will see a summary of it. I look forward to
reading that.
In the legislation that Senators Gregg, Chafee, and I have
introduced, we anticipate reductions in CO2 over the
next dozen years. In doing that, we permit utility plants to
invest in technology to reduce CO2 emissions. If
they choose to change their mix of fuels, they could do that.
We also enable the emitter to underwrite the costs of
reforestation, the changes in planting patterns, and even
changes out of feedlot operations, in order to address the
issues of increasing greenhouse gases.
Could you just talk with me a little bit today about how
such a system would work? You have the emitter on the one hand
who needs the credit for the emission reductions. They choose
not to change the fuel mix. They choose not to invest in
technology. They say they are going to go a third way.
I think I am pretty clear on reforestation. Talk with me a
little bit about planting patterns and how this might help us
in this battle. Talk with me a little bit about feedlot
operations. Talk about any others that I am not aware of.
Mr. Knight. At the Department we have continued to work on
this issue. You are seeing quite an evolution of mindset on
what you can do. I will just give a couple of examples. This is
as much from my own experience as a farmer as it is from the
experience from the Department.
I have no-till on my operation, which means that I have
replaced what used to be three or four tillage passes with one-
plant/one-pass at planting. This means a lot less soil
disturbance. I have removed the summer fallow that I used to
have in the operation where we would let it rest for a year to
save moisture.
All of those tillage practices churn up the soil, mixes the
stubble and the aftermath into the soil, and speeds up
decomposition. Instead that is sitting on top of the soil
building organic matter. It is improving the overall level of
organic matter in that soil. That means that we have
dramatically boosted the overall amount of carbon that is
sequestered on those soils.
I will give you an example from the livestock side. There
are two ways to control greenhouse gas emissions on livestock.
One are things like the methane digesters, where we capture the
methane that may be given off by the manure, and are able to
run that through a generation facility of some sort, burn that
off, create electricity, and convert that into hopefully a
better and more stable gas. Or, you do avoidance. You can do
avoidance by how you either manage the manure, or in what you
feed the critter at the front end and have a better match of
their nutritional needs.
Each of those are methods that we can do to either avoid
greenhouse gases, or control them from being emitted.
Senator Carper. The animal operations with respect to
methane, is that something that is being talked about or is it
something that is actually being done on a widespread basis?
Mr. Knight. We are working very aggressively on that. We
put several standard changes in place this year in one of our
most important programs, EQIP, in order to ensure that we could
do cost-share and assistance with farmers and ranchers that are
wanting to put methane digesters in place. So, yes, we are
doing that very rapidly.
Senator Carper. In addition to reforestation, the kind of
no-till approach you have described, and the animal lot
operations, what other opportunities are there out there that
maybe I am not mindful of?
Mr. Knight. The other side of the work that the Department
of Agriculture is doing a great deal of effort on is how to
ensure that we have a registry established between the
Department of Agriculture, DOE, and EPA. Once we have these
efforts underway, the question is how do you measure them, how
do you make sure that they are repeatable and verifiable, and
able to register them. The market place can then help those
utilities trade that particular credit that may result from the
activities that a farmer is doing and the activities that the
utility may want to be able to offset.
The final component that you see folks already starting to
work on, and is going to be very important, is that the
utilities tend to not want to work with 500 farmers out there.
What is needed is an aggregator that actually combines the
interests and efforts of 400 or 500 farmers across the
geographic area, puts that together, pools that, and then
transfers that pooled collective action to something that a
utility or some other purchaser of those credits may be
interested in buying.
Senator Carper. If I understood you correctly, you are
talking about a registry? I would call it almost an entity to
certify the value of the amount of sequestration or reduction
of CO2. There has to be some entity there.
I had not thought about the aggregator before we talked
about the registry. I am sure that others, like Jim Reilly
sitting right behind me, have thought about the aggregation. If
I were an utility, I would not want to deal with 500 or 5,000
farmers if I could deal with just one entity.
I was just thinking, Mr. Chairman, we have farmers in Ohio
and Delaware and a lot of other places where they are badly
strapped financially these days. Commodity prices are not what
they need in order to make much of a living. In order to be
able to come up with ways for farmers to sustain themselves
economically, one of the ways they can do it is to encourage
the use of more bio-fuels, whether it is bio-diesel or ethanol.
That will enable the farmers to supplement their incomes as
well through a market system instead of a system that some
would describe as welfare payments to our farmers.
Let me ask another question of you, if I could, Mr. Knight.
Do you believe that it would be prudent to reduce our net
emissions of greenhouse gases given what we have heard from the
National Academy and other world scientists? If you think it
might be prudent, would you explain why?
Mr. Knight. Sir, I tend to be a pragmatist on these things.
There is a clear opportunity in managing this Agency for us to
be able to find these win-win solutions of the work that we are
doing on conservation, on water quality, on soil conservation,
and to be able to have a reduction in greenhouse gases as a
result of carbon sequestration from that aspect.
While I continue to see a vast array of scientific debate
about how far to go and how rapidly to go, I see for the Agency
an opportunity while that debate swirls, for us to manage our
way through it in a manner that just continues moving ahead on
those things and finding that win-win solution. We are going
ahead with those opportunities of being able to do that while
that larger debate swirls.
Senator Carper. It is going to swirl for a while.
What do you think some of the risks are to American
agriculture of increasing greenhouse gas emissions and global
climate change?
Mr. Knight. One of the more intriguing scientific efforts
that the Department is pursuing is what the potential impacts
of greenhouse gases are on the pest community. We have to look
not only what the greenhouse gas emissions do conceivably to
the production of corn, soybeans, cotton, or rice, but also
what do those greenhouse gas emissions do to the weeds that are
in that field. Does that put a particular weed at a greater
advantage compared with those crops in competing for the
limitations of soil, water, air, and sunlight?
You have the same sort of things with the insect community
if you have changes in temperatures, growing degree days, all
of those sorts of things. There is a large amount of research
that has to be done in that arena as well as we move forward on
looking to manage through this very difficult issue.
Senator Carper. Can you talk with us a little bit about
weather patterns and how that may have some impact on
agriculture?
Mr. Knight. I may have to beg off and have us follow up
with you on that one. Weather patterns are a little beyond my
comfort level to discuss.
Senator Carper. All right.
Senator Voinovich. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
Recent studies have examined the potential implications of
climate change for U.S. agriculture. Most studies indicate
that, for a range of potential climate changes and atmospheric
CO2 levels, crop production in the United States
during the 21st century will not be imperiled. Under some
scenarios, productivity of many major crops increased at a
national level. However, not all agricultural regions of the
United States are projected to be affected to the same degree
or in the same direction by the climates simulated in the
various scenarios. In general, the Midwest (especially the
northern half), West, and Pacific Northwest exhibit large gains
in yields for most crops while the South and Southern Plains
exhibit losses in yields.
However, the multifaceted impacts of climate change defy a
simple characterization. The results for one crop or one region
may be opposite the results for another crop or another region.
Further, the details of climate change and its impacts on
agriculture remain hard to predict with confidence given the
existing state of the science, but the results of this study
offer some detailed estimates as a first step toward thinking
about how U.S. agriculture can better prepare for the climate
changes it may face in the future.
As noted by the National Research Council, in response to
questions from the Administration on the state of climate
change science ``one of the weakest links in our knowledge is
the connection between global and regional predictions of
climate change.'' The National Research Council's response to
the President's request for a review of climate change policy
specifically noted that fundamental scientific questions remain
regarding the specifics of regional and local projections (NRC
2001). Predicting the potential impacts of climate change is
compounded by a lack of understanding of the sensitivity of
many environmental systems and resources--both managed and
unmanaged--to climate change.
Senator Carper. Mr. Chairman, I have one more question, if
you do not mind.
Senator Voinovich. Go ahead.
Senator Carper. I read your biographical information. Do
you grow corn on your farm? What do you grow on your farm?
Mr. Knight. I have corn, wheat, sunflowers some years,
soybeans, alfalfa, and a cow-calf operation.
Senator Carper. I am a proponent of bio-diesels. In
Delaware we use a mixture of 20 percent soy oil and 80 percent
diesel. As I understand from the perspective of corn growers
and their position on ethanol, and that of bio-diesel
proponents, these non-petroleum products have several
beneficial effects, including reducing greenhouse gas
emissions.
What is the Department, to your knowledge, to treat
greenhouse gas emissions in its own operations and reducing its
petroleum consumption? I think there are two goals identified
in an Executive Order. One of them deals with greenhouse gas
reduction goals and the other relates to petroleum.
Please comment on what the Department itself is doing.
Mr. Knight. I will make mention of a couple of things. I
will have staff follow up with you and provide you that for the
record.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
USDA's Energy and Environment program strives to improve
the ``greening'' of USDA's facilities, fleets, and operations
nationwide by implementing pertinent energy legislation and
``Greening the Government'' Executive Orders. The program
focuses on increasing energy efficiency and use of renewable
energy sources at USDA facilities; use of alternative fuels in
Agency fleets; acquisition of environmentally preferable,
biobased, and recycled content products; and recycling and
waste prevention activities.
The Department has developed an Energy Implementation Plan
focused on specific action areas targeted to achieve the 30
percent energy consumption goal for fiscal year 2005. The
Forest Service, Agricultural Research Service, and Office of
Operations each developed agency specific plans that are part
of the overall plan. More information is available at: http://
www.usda.gov/energyandenvironment/index.html
Mr. Knight. There is a good study recently completed that
talks about the net energy balance of bio-fuels--ethanol and
bio-diesel--as it pertains to greenhouse gas emissions. It
shows there is a very positive balance there. That supplements
work a couple of years old that Argonne National Laboratories
had conducted that was very positive.
We are continuing to move forward in the implementation of
the farm bill on each of those sections including the
acquisition of renewable products and the acquisition there.
That has turned to be a fairly problematic provision to
implement because of the way that it was constructed. We are
continuing to move forward very quickly on that. I will include
in that follow up work the time line we are on there.
There is, however, the continued efforts that each of the
Agencies do as it pertains to new vehicle acquisitions and
those sorts of things. I believe last year, in the case of the
Natural Resources Conservation Service, nearly 90 percent of
our vehicle acquisitions last year fell into the flexible fuel
category, which meant that they, in turn, could operate on a
traditional blend of gasoline, a 10 percent ethanol blend, or
even as high as an 85 percent ethanol blend.
Each of the Agencies have tried to meet those objectives in
a variety of ways. Certainly the vehicle acquisitions have been
an important component of that endeavor.
Senator Carper. All right. Mr. Knight, thank you for being
here today. I look forward to some follow from you. We
appreciate your presence, your testimony, and your stewardship.
Mr. Knight. Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much. It was very good
testimony. It was very good hands-on. You really understand it.
Thanks for being here today. We look forward to working with
you.
Mr. Knight. Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. We are very fortunate to have our next
panel, which includes Robert Stallman, President, American Farm
Bureau Federation; Dr. Rattan Lal, Director, Carbon Management
and Sequestration Center, the Ohio State University. Dr. Lal
has testified before this Committee a couple of times during
the last several years. I was fortunate to have a presentation
made by Dr. Lal when I was there at the Ohio State University a
couple of weeks ago. We were talking about sequestration and
what they are doing on that in conjunction with the Battelle
Institute.
We also have Joseph Bast, President, the Heartland
Institute. Mr. Bast, I am sure you will tell us a little bit
about the Heartland Institute. It sounds healthy.
We have Debbie Reed, Legislative Director, National
Environmental Trust; and Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, Research
Scientist, Goddard Institute for Space Studies. We will get
that perspective on things.
Without further words, we will call on Mr. Stallman from
the American Farm Bureau. I would like to say, Mr. Stallman,
that I have an excellent relationship with the Farm Bureau in
the State of Ohio. They have been my good friends. We have
worked together since the days when I was Governor. They
provide me with an enormous amount of input whenever I need it,
and sometimes when I do not need it. They are doing a good job.
We are glad to have you here.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT STALLMAN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FARM BUREAU
FEDERATION
Mr. Stallman. I am glad to hear that they are doing a good
job, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee, I am Bob
Stallman, President, of the American Farm Bureau Federation,
and a rice and cattle producer from Columbus, Texas. On behalf
of the 5.3 million members of the American Farm Bureau, I am
pleased to be speaking to you today on agriculture's role in
sequestering carbon in our Nation's soil.
Carbon is the key building block for all things living. For
those of us in agriculture, we have learned through years of
research and practical experience that soil carbon is essential
for optimizing the production of food and fiber, as well as
improving the profitability of farming and ranching.
The USDA's Agricultural Research Service estimates that 20
million metric tons of carbon are currently sequestered each
year in U.S. farm and grazing land soils. Many producers have
made a decision on an economic basis to employ conservation
tillage practices such as minimum till, no-till, and cover crop
regimens in their operations. With more producers changing farm
management practices, USDA and State Department personnel
estimate that an additional 180 million metric tons annually
could be stored in farm and range land acres.
Carbon and its role in the climate change issue has been
the subject of recent debate and will continue to be. We are
not here today to discuss the merits or demerits of the theory
of the climate change issue. With regard to carbon
sequestration, our message is that agriculture can play a vital
role.
In 2001, President Bush announced the development of a
comprehensive strategy to reduce greenhouse gas intensity in
the United States by 18 percent by 2012. A vital component of
the strategy is to encourage increased sequestration of carbon
in forest and range lands.
In February of this year, the President announced the
Climate VISION Program. A voluntary public-private partnership,
the primary goal of the program is to pursue cost-effective
initiatives that will reduce the projected growth in American's
greenhouse gas emissions. AFBF has begun discussions with the
Administration to see what role the agricultural sector can
play in the President's Climate VISION Program.
Chief Knight did a good job of describing the new rules
with respect to considering a greenhouse gas management
practices in evaluating conservation programs. We view that as
a very positive development. I will not repeat those comments.
America's farm and ranch community has long supported and
responded to voluntary incentive based programs, as evidenced
by the waiting list to participate in the many conservation
programs. Time and time again, when an environmental challenge
has presented itself, American agriculture has answered the
call.
I would be remiss if I did not reiterate our opposition to
any mandatory measures pertaining to climate change and carbon
sequestration, but rather the need to maintain a voluntary
approach to agricultural sequestration.
While a mandatory cap and trade may increase the value of
the carbon being sequestered, an analysis by Sparks Companies
re-released last month, concludes that the increased energy
cost to the agricultural sector associated with any Kyoto-like
mandatory program would more than offset any cash value in the
sequestration of carbon by farmers and ranchers on a per-acre
basis.
Agriculture has in the past, and will in the future,
respond if the appropriate voluntary incentive-based tools are
employed. Some of the needed tools like EQIP and CRP already
exist. Private entities are also developing and piloting other
tools such as voluntary carbon trading systems.
In one case the Iowa Farm Bureau and Kansas Farm Bureau are
involved. They are disseminating information to farmers and
ranchers and helping to put land owners together with the
carbon trading exchanges in an effort to trade carbon under
free market rules. AFBF supports the development of a
practical, voluntary carbon trading system and the development
of trading criteria standards and guidelines.
While the potential for agricultural carbon sequestration
exists, many challenges do remain. One area that must be
addressed is the development of methods and procedures to
credit farmers and ranchers who have already employed
conservation tillage practices and their operations.
Other challenges include the refinement of carbon trading
guidelines, the establishment of accurate crediting and values
for sequestered carbon, and the development of other cost-
effective incentives to further advance carbon sequestration in
agricultural soils.
None of these challenges is insurmountable. AFBF looks
forward to working with the USDA, the Department of Energy, the
EPA, Congress, and many others within the private sector to
find solutions and move forward with this endeavor.
There is no doubt that agriculture can and will play an
expanded role in sequestering carbon American's farmlands. We
strongly support President's Bush voluntary approach to climate
change issues and his call for the public and private sectors
to work together to increase the sequestration of carbon on
America's farm and range land.
The American Farm Bureau appreciates this opportunity to
come before you today to share our view on agriculture's role
in sequestering carbon. I look forward to answering any
questions you may have later. I would ask that my written
statement be placed in the record in its entirety. Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you
very much, Mr. Stallman.
Dr. Lal?
STATEMENT OF RATTAN LAL, DIRECTOR, CARBON MANAGEMENT AND
SEQUESTRATION CENTER, THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
Mr. Lal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
Committee.
I greatly appreciate the opportunity to address this
Committee today. I am Rattan Lal, Professor of Soil Science and
Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at
the Ohio State University.
At the very outset, I acknowledge the very strong
cooperation. We have a seed from the USDA, especially the NRCS.
I would also like to point out that OSU is a member of the
CASMGS initiative, which is indeed a very important undertaking
to enhance carbon soil sequestration.
The question of an increase in the atmospheric
concentration of CO2 since the 1850's can partly be
addressed by: (a) reducing emissions, and (b) sequestering
emissions. Strategies for emission reductions include enhancing
energy production and user efficiency, and using renewable bio-
fuels.
Emission sequestration, on the other hand, involves natural
and engineering options. Important natural options include
carbon sequestration in soils, vegetation, and wetlands. Some
bio-fuel options are to switch grass, fast growing trees, and
enhanced carbon sequestration.
The weather carbon sequestration in soil and vegetation is
called terrestrial sequestration, which I am going to address
today.
Aside from reducing the carbon dioxide concentration in the
atmosphere, the terrestrial carbon sequestration has numerous
benefits. Some of them were pointed out by Chief Knight,
including for example, erosion and sedimentation control, water
quality improvement, and increase in soil diversity. Over and
above these environmental benefits, there is also a definite
improvement in soil quality and crop productivity.
In contrast to geologic and oceanic sequestration which may
be expensive and perhaps have some unknown ecological impacts,
the terrestrial carbon sequestration is the most cost effective
option to date.
An ecosystem with the capacity to absorb carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere are called carbon sinks. Ocean and land are
the two natural carbon sinks, which are presently absorbing
about 4.7 billion tons of the total human-induced emissions of
8 billion tons, which is about 60 percent of the total global
emissions.
Therefore, it is prudent to identify and enhance the carbon
storage capacity of the natural sinks, such as soil and
vegetation. It is in this context that agriculture, as Mr.
Stallman has already pointed out, indeed has a very important
and positive role to play in enhancing the capacity of the
natural sinks.
I might state that all the potential for the carbon
sequestration in soil is about one million tons per day which
is about 360 million metric tons of carbon equivalent per year.
In addition to that, the forest biomass carbon capacity is 250
million tons. Therefore, the total terrestrial sink capacity of
forest and vegetation soils is 610 million tons, of which 220
million tons are being absorbed today. Out of the 220 million
tons, only 20 million tons are being absorbed in the soil
sinks.
This 610 million ton capacity contrasts with the 1,890
million tons of carbon equivalent emitted by the Nation ever
year. Out of that, 140 million tons is from agriculture.
Therefore, the terrestrial sink capacity of 600 million tons
potential is about one-third of the total national emissions,
which is a very large amount indeed.
Let us now look at the global picture comparing what was
just pointed out. The soil carbon sink capacity on the world
scale is about one billion tons a year, of which control has
the capacity of about a half-billion tons. Now, one billion
tons contrasts with about a three billion ton increase in the
atmospheric CO2 every year. That is one-third of the
total annual increase.
This potential, which is very large indeed, is possible
through the Conservation Reserve Program. We indeed have one
million hectares, 2.5 million acres, of unrestored strip mine
land, which has a tremendous potential. The rate of carbon
sequestration in soil in the United States ranges from a low of
about 100 pounds per acre per year in a very dry climate, to
perhaps as much as 1,000 pounds per acre per year in humid and
cold climates. There is tremendous potential.
I would like to make four points here which I think are
very important. No. 1, the Conservation Reserve Program that
Chief Knight has pointed out already, has been extremely
successful. We have almost 14 million acres of land which is in
a set-aside Conservation Research Program. The sediment load in
the U.S. rivers, because of this conservation activity and
other activities, has been reduced by 50 percent. It is a
global success story which the farm ranches and the farm lands
can also duplicate with carbon sequestration.
The second point is promoting natural soil carbon
sequestration and biomass carbon sequestration buys us time and
relieves pressure in the industry to put a cap on the
emissions.
No. 3, the world soil has the potential of one billion tons
over a 50 to 60 year period of the soil carbon sequestration.
This potential has a very important implication in developing
countries, especially the tropics. The Amazon Forest, which
will have a pressure of reducing deforestation at a rate of
nine to ten million hectares a year, that pressure can be
relieved because we can produce more from the existing land to
an adoption of conservation programs. Indeed, soil carbon
sequestration is a land-saving option. We save the forestation
to that.
No. 4, the world soil has lost 60 to 80 billion tons of
carbon. The U.S. soils have lost three to five billion tons of
carbon. While we sequester that carbon, with or without climate
change, the important thing is that we ensure global security
by doing that. Therefore, climate change is not the only reason
for soil carbon sequestration.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity given to me
in offering this testimony. I would be very glad to answer any
questions that you may have. I would ask that my written
statement be placed in the record in its entirety. Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you
very much, Dr. Lal.
Mr. Bast?
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH BAST, PRESIDENT, THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE
Mr. Bast. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to be
here. Senator Carper, thank you for attending.
The Heartland Institute, my organization, is a 19-year-old
nonprofit research organization based in Chicago. The ``heart''
in Heartland is a geographical reference and not to the body's
organ. It is a mistake often made.
Senator Voinovich. Our State motto is, ``Ohio is the heart
of it all.''
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bast. I think Kansas would disagree.
[Laughter.)
Mr. Bast. This is a joint research project by economists at
the Heartland Institute, the Hudson Institute, and the American
Farm Bureau Federation. The opinions I am about to express are
my own and those of my coauthors.
Carbon sequestration certainly appears at a distance to be
an attractive alternative to mandating reductions in greenhouse
gas emissions, especially since many experts believe that
forcing utilities and other significant emitters to reduce
their emissions would be very costly and would produce very few
offsetting benefits.
Upon closer inspection, carbon sequestration in agriculture
faces some daunting problems of its own. I would like to
comment on four such problems.
First, paying farmers and livestock producers to sequester
carbon would lead to heavy-handed and potentially ruinous
regulation of farms and ranches. Farmers can indeed help store
carbon in their crops and in their soil, but farming,
especially dairy farming and cattle ranches, are also a
significant source of greenhouse gases.
According to the EPA in 2001, agricultural soil sequestered
on net only 15.2 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent,
whereas agriculture as an industry released 526 million metric
tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, 35 times as much. If you
want to be paid to store carbon, you had better expect to be
charged for admitting carbon as well. Farmers are going to be
very vulnerable to any proposal to regulate their emissions.
Second, endorsing sequestration may mean endorsing cap-and-
trade programs which, in turn, mean higher energy costs.
Without a Government-imposed cap on greenhouse gas emissions,
few emitters would need to buy the emission permits that
farmers would earn by sequestering more carbon. But a cap-and-
trade program would have the same effect as higher energy
taxes. Such a tax would have to be the equivalent of at least
50 cents a gallon of gasoline or more in order to reduce
emissions enough to make a difference.
Higher energy prices, in turn, would dramatically reduce
profits in the U.S. agricultural sector. Research that I
conducted in 1998 with the American Farm Bureau estimated that
a 50 cent per gallon tax on gasoline would reduce net profits
for dairy farmers as much as 84 percent, and typically 50
percent if gasoline taxes are raised by 50 cents per gallon.
Total annual U.S. farm production expenses would increase
by $20 billion. Since it is difficult for farmers to pass cost
increases along to consumers, a cap-and-trade greenhouse gas
program would cause a 48 percent decrease in net farm income.
Following what Mr. Stallman said, the net impact on farmers of
higher energy costs, which is part-and-parcel of proposals to
reward farmers for sequestrating carbon, would be extremely
negative.
Third, environmentalists would be disappointed as well.
Even if a carbon sequestration program benefited farmers, it
would do very little to moderate greenhouse gas emissions.
Agricultural soils in the U.S. today capture only 1/20th of 1
percent of the total annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. This
is according to EPA's latest assessment of greenhouse emissions
and sinks for 1990-2001.
Once saturation levels are reached, there would be no more
gains on cropland with known farming systems, which means
sequestration is not a long-term tool for reducing greenhouse
gas emissions.
Finally, my fourth point is that emissions trading is more
problematic than its advocates admit. In thirty seconds I
cannot describe all of those problems, but I should say that
current programs for trading sulfur dioxide, for example, are
not as robust and not as successful as many of their advocates
would claim. They are characterized by very thin markets. Over
80 percent of trades in sulfur dioxide, for example, are trades
within companies, not between companies. Government
overregulation kills innovation.
There are examples in California where innovative programs
to remove carbon have been killed by the emissions trading
program under RECLAIM. Changing rules leave investors high-and-
dry, making a very risky sort of endeavor. There are
verification problems and problems with Government changing the
rules halfway through. As a result, farmers, especially, should
be very wary about making investments in emissions trading.
I conclude that carbon sequestration by farmers and
ranchers in the United States may be a good thing for the
farmers, and may be a good thing for the soil. Ultimately,
though, it is a false hope for those seeking to be paid to do
what they would do anyway. It is a false dream for
environmentalists who see it as a major part of the solution to
global warming. It is a poor strategy for an industry that
should know better than to join a movement composed of groups
and individuals who have been among its most strident critics.
Thank you very much for allowing me to testify today. I
would ask that my written statement be placed in the record in
its entirety. Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you
very much, Mr. Bast.
Ms. Reed?
STATEMENT OF DEBBIE REED, LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
ENVIRONMENTAL TRUST
Ms. Reed. Chairman Voinovich and Senator Carper, I am
Debbie Reed. I am the Global Warming Campaign Director and
Legislative Director at the national Environmental Trust. We
are a nonprofit organization located in Washington, DC.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk with you today
about what I think is perhaps the greatest environmental issue
confronting the world today, and that is global climate change.
U.S. agriculture can make important cost-effective
contributions to offset a portion of U.S. emissions of
greenhouse gases in the near and medium-term. But it is not a
panacea, nor is it a solution. Agriculture can provide a bridge
to a less fossil-carbon intensive future while improving the
sustainability, environmental quality, and profitability of a
vital U.S. economic sector.
Global warming is occurring. Evidence continues to
accumulate that human activities and man-made greenhouse gases
contribute to global climate change. Just last week the World
Meteorological Organization issued an unprecedented alert
indicating that record extremes in weather and climate events
were continuing to occur around the world.
The organization documented recent extreme weather events
in several countries, including the United States. To prevent
dangerous consequences from climate change, we must reduce our
reliance on the burning of fossil energy sources. Mandatory
credible policies to reduce greenhouse gases and emissions are
needed, but will take time to implement.
We should pursue with vigorous strategies, such as
agricultural sequestration, to help offset greenhouse gas
emissions in the interim. Global warming is a threat to
agriculture. U.S. agriculture is a major industry. Farming
contributed $80.6 billion, or .8 percent to the national gross
domestic product in 2001. However, the threat of global warming
and potentially severe weather events jeopardize the very
livelihood of farmers in rural communities, as well as the
ability of agriculture to continue to fuel U.S. prosperity.
Catastrophic storm events, flooding, or drought can
overwhelm not just individual farmers, but entire communities
and regions. Agriculture and forestry do represent a net sink
in the U.S., and helped to offset just over 7 percent of U.S.
emissions in 1999. Policies to promote more widespread adoption
of proven management practices to enhance this sink effect can
boost this potential above current business-as-usual levels.
Agricultural soils alone were about .6 percent of the total
net sink in 1999 but scientists estimate that soils have the
capacity to offset an additional 10 percent of U.S. emissions.
Changes in tillage practices can result in net sequestration of
CO2, reduce fossil fuel use, reduce nitrous oxide
emissions from soils and fertilizers, improve water quality,
and increase wildlife habitat.
Simply put, soil carbon enhances agricultural
sustainability. Fortunately, soil carbon is a component of soil
that can be changed by management practices. Soil scientists
estimate the potential for U.S. agricultural soils to sequester
additional carbon at 187 million metric tons of carbon per
year, or fully 10 percent of U.S. annual emissions.
This capacity represents the upper potential for soils and
will only occur if all croplands were immediately managed to
maximize carbon intake. Carbon uptake could go on for a period
of decades, but a saturation level would be reached.
Agriculture can act as a Band-Aid, but it will not prevent
climate change.
Farmers experiences with no-till have confirmed the
research. Some compelling stories from farmers who have
converted to conservation tillage and no-till farming perhaps
best provide a picture of the many benefits to society and
farmers of this management practice. At a recent briefing on
global warming and soil carbon sequestration, Elmon Richards of
the Richards Farms in Circleville, Ohio, shared his
experiences.
Beginning in the 1970's, the Richards Farms began planting
their 3,500 acres of corn and soybeans without tilling the
soil. Among the benefits of no-till farming documented by the
Richards Farms, are the need for fewer, smaller tractors, the
need for fewer passes over their fields, reduced fuel use,
reduced labor costs, and more free time.
Specifically, the tractors the Richards use for
conventional tillage consumed an average of three to four
gallons of fuel per acre. No-till, with its reduced passes,
consumes an average of .3 or .4 gallons of fuel per acre, or
one-tenth the fuel use per acre.
If we were to apply the Richards' figures on a national
scale, we could begin to appreciate the potential impacts of
just one aspect of this agricultural management change. If all
farmers in the U.S. were to convert to no-till, the savings in
fuel use could be as much as 744 million gallons of fuel
annually. Since each gallon of fuel burn represents 6.1 pounds
of carbon released to the atmosphere, this would reduce carbon
emissions by approximately 2.1 million metric tons of carbon
annually, which does not even account for the carbon which is
also sequestered in the soil.
Evidence from other farmers who have converted to no-till
is just as compelling, showing, for instance, higher yields and
thus, higher profits during drought years compared with their
neighbors who are conventionally tilling, increased soil carbon
content, significantly improved water infiltration and water
holding capacity of the soils, reduced nitrogen fertilizer
applications by up to 50 percent, which reduces the leaching of
nitrogen in runoff, and reduced phosphorus runoff.
In conclusion, credible policies to reduce net U.S.
greenhouse gas emissions are needed to prevent the potential
economic, social, and environmental consequences of unmitigated
climate change. The agricultural sector is particularly
vulnerable to global climate change and severe weather events,
but with the right mix of policies and incentives to enhance
its sink effect, agriculture can also help to mitigate the
greenhouse effect by reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The enhanced sink effect of agriculture can be a win-win
solution for this sector, for farmers, for society, and the
environment, but it is not a panacea for greater action.
Rather, it can be a useful and cost-effective bridge as we
transition to a less fossil carbon intensive future.
Thank you. I can answer any questions you might have. I
would ask that my written statement be placed in the record in
its entirety. Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you
very much, Ms. Reed.
Dr. Rosenzweig?
STATEMENT OF CYNTHIA ROSENZWEIG, RESEARCH SCIENTIST, GODDARD
INSTITUTE FOR SPACE STUDIES, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Ms. Rosenzweig. Mr. Chairman and Senator Carper, I am
Cynthia Rosenzweig, a research scientist from the Goddard
Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University.
After nearly two decades of research on potential impacts
of climate change on agriculture, attention is now turning to
mitigation and adaptation responses. Mitigation actions, such
as carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, are aimed at
reducing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and
other greenhouse gases, thereby countering climatic change.
Adaptation actions, such as changes in crop types and
management practices, are responses that optimize production
under changing climate conditions. Here, I analyzed these
response actions and suggest that it is both useful and
necessary for them to be considered jointly.
A review of a combination of approaches, including field
experiments, regression analyses, and modeling studies leads to
the following conclusions regarding how a changing climate may
influence agriculture, and how mitigation and adaptation
responses may interact.
First, agricultural regions will experience change over
time under a changing climate. Some regions will experience
increases in production and some declines due to the presence
of minimum and maximum thresholds for crop growth. Adaptation,
such as adjustments in planting dates, crop types, and
irrigation regimes will likely be required. Geographic shifts
in crop growing areas are likely to occur with associated
changes in production systems.
Although climate influence changes in agriculture are
likely in the coming decades, the magnitudes and rates of these
changes are uncertain at the regional scale.
Despite these general uncertainties, agricultural
production in developing countries is more vulnerable. Studies
have consistently shown that overall production in mid and high
latitudes is likely to benefit in the near term, approximately
to mid-century, with increasing CO2 and warming,
while production systems in the low latitudes are likely to
decline. This finding has implications for world food security
since most developing countries are located in lower latitude
regions.
Third, long-term effects on all agricultural regions are
negative. If climate change effects are not abated,
agricultural production in the mid and high latitudes, even
here in the United States, is likely to decline in the long
term. This is a long-term problem for the end of this century.
These results are due primarily to the detrimental effects of
heat and water stress on crop growth as temperatures rise.
Increased climate variability, such as droughts and floods,
under climate change, is also likely to negatively affect
agriculture.
I turn now to solutions and responses to climate change. A
changing climate will affect mitigation potential. Responses to
a changing climate will contribute to determining which
mitigation techniques are successful and at what levels over
the coming decades. Because some carbon sequestration projects
have long durations on the order of 40 to 50 years in temperate
regions--farmers may need to consider which sequestration
techniques have the better chance to succeed under changing
climate regimens.
If changing climate is not taken into consideration,
calculations of carbon, in terms of how much carbon can be
sequestered, may be in error.
It is important to know that mitigation and adaptation
responses are synergistic. Mitigation practices can also
enhance the adaptation of agricultural systems. For example,
carbon sequestration in agricultural soils lead to more stable
soil-water dynamics, enhancing the ability of crops to
withstand droughts and flood, both of which may increase under
changing climate conditions.
Finally, a new way to look at the issue of mitigation and
carbon sequestration in agriculture is to consider that
mitigation practices may help to make the U.S. sector carbon
neutral. The combination of management techniques, reduced no-
till, modified irrigation and fertilization application has the
potential to sequester, by our calculations, about 50 million
tons of carbon yearly. These approximately match greenhouse gas
emissions from the U.S. agricultural sector.
However, we need to recall the caveat that the capacity for
agricultural soil carbon sequestration is constrained by the
amount of carbon previously lost during conversion for
agriculture so that its effectiveness as a mitigating activity
for climate change is not unlimited. In this way, the U.S.
agricultural sector could take the lead as a key sector in our
Nation to address the significant issue of climate change.
In conclusion, our research suggests that planning and
implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures in
response to the global climate change issue should be
coordinated, and proceed hand-in-hand. Investments in programs
and research will be needed to assure effectiveness in both
adaptation and mitigation activities for U.S. agriculture.
Thank you. I would ask that my written statement be placed
in the record in its entirety. Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you
very much, Dr. Rosenzweig.
This has been very interesting testimony. Obviously there
have been different perspectives presented on carbon
sequestration in terms of its effectiveness and maybe it is not
as effective as we think it would be.
What I would like to do with my portion of the questioning
is to allow each one of you to have an opportunity to comment
for the record on what someone else has said.
Dr. Lal?
Mr. Lal. Maybe I can begin with my colleague, Mr. Bast. He
gave some numbers which obviously are different than my
numbers. As a professor, I have a habit of finding out where
the mistake is when two students give different numbers.
He is giving carbon emission numbers as carbon dioxide gas
equivalent, CO2, and he is giving carbon
sequestration numbers as carbon equivalent. For example, the
EPA report which he quoted, talks about 6,952 million metric
tons of carbon dioxide equivalent as total emissions annually.
If you can work that to carbon equivalent where all the
sequestration data is, that is approximately one-fourth of the
total number. So, 6,952 million metric tons of carbon dioxide
converts to 1,892 million metric tons of carbon.
His quotation on carbon sequestration in soil of 15 million
metric tons is almost right. It is about 20. But his conversion
that it was one-fiftieth of that, he was taking CO2.
That is the discrepancy and I would like to correct that.
Mr. Bast. May I respond to that?
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Bast?
Mr. Bast. I thought this might become an issue of some
contention so I brought with me EPA's report on greenhouse gas
emissions and sinks. The table here in carbon dioxide
equivalents--not carbon, but carbon dioxide equivalents--is net
sequestration from agriculture of 15.2 million metric tons,
only 15.2.
Total emissions from agriculture, according to the same
report, was 526 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent.
This is an apples-to-apples comparison, and not apples-to-
oranges. The total emissions from agriculture, including
methane, are 35 times what is currently net being sequestered
on agricultural soil.
Where I do not disagree with my distinguished colleague
here is in the area of forestry and perhaps overall
sequestration. I think there are tremendous opportunities in
forestry to sequester more carbon, but I would worry if we
subsidize tree planting that what we do is reduce U.S.
agricultural production, and encourage Third World countries to
clear forests in order to create more food. So you get what
economists call a leakage effect, where for every acre you
reforest cropland or grazing land in the United States, you
might end up with two acres, or even five acres, being cleared
for low productivity agricultural growth in a Third World
country. I do not know that that would be an effective
alternative, either.
Senator Voinovich. Any other comments?
Mr. Stallman?
Mr. Stallman. I would just have a little clarification.
This is not ``Pick on Joe Bast Day.'' But the Heartland study
that he referenced, we did participate in. I think many of the
comments that Mr. Bast made with respect to mandatory cap-and-
trade systems, we would agree with. We do not think that is a
good route to go.
However, we do support the voluntary system and the
incentives as proposed under the President's plan for
agriculture to play a greater role in carbon sequestration. I
think we can do that.
The larger questions of how long can that role last before
you are saturated, and what net benefit that would be long
term, that goes beyond the scope of where we are right now. We
are looking at what can we do in the short-term, in terms of a
voluntary incentive-based plan to help with the issue of carbon
sequestration.
Senator Voinovich. Any other comments?
I thought that would be a little more lively.
[Laughter.]
Senator Voinovich. The thing that strikes me is that
whatever we do here, we have to take into consideration what is
happening over there. In other words, this is a world problem
that we have. We are really focusing in on just what
contribution we are making here in the United States to the
solution to it.
Would anyone like to comment on that?
Mr. Bast?
Mr. Bast. I perhaps already have, but I absolutely agree
with you. I think we need to be looking at this as a world
problem and at net and life cycle emissions rather than short-
term sorts of projects. It is very easy for an utility, or for
a manufacturer, or for a farmer to be able to point to a
project that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. You simply stop
producing something, or you outsource the production of it.
Instead of producing electricity at your plant, you simply
start buying electricity.
On paper it looks like there is a reduction in emissions.
In fact, all you have done is shifted the emission to some
other source, either in another business nearby, in another
State, or in another country.
Because the United States has the most productive
agriculture in the word, anytime we discourage farming in the
United States, we end up encouraging deforestation in other
parts of the country. I do not think that that is a healthy
prospect. So, even a voluntary program, as much as I respect
the American Farm Bureau's distinction between voluntary and
mandatory programs, I would worry that a voluntary program sets
the stage for a mandatory program.
In order for those emission permits to be worth anything,
there has to be a mandatory cap on emissions. That takes us
down the path to imposing restrictions on agriculture and
industry in the United States, with the consequence that a lot
of this moves to other countries where the environmental impact
is many times worse.
Senator Voinovich. I would just to comment on that. One of
the things that is really boiling in my State is the
importation of products from China and how they are displacing
our manufacturing sector. Two millions jobs have been lost in
the last 2 years.
All of a sudden it struck me that what tradeoffs are we
having in regard to the environment. They are impacting on our
manufacturing sector, but the question is how much are they
contributing to the climate change and some of the other
pollution problems that we have. I do not think we have even
thought about that or have investigated it.
There are so many parts to this. You keep turning it, and
you see something else that is there that needs to be taken
into consideration. At the same time I think all of us feel
that regardless of what the facts are, we ought to be doing
everything that we possibly can to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.
Senator Carper?
Senator Carper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To all of our
witnesses, thank you for coming here and for casting some light
on what we all agree is an important subject.
Mr. Stallman from Columbus, Texas, Dr. Lal from Columbus,
Ohio. I am an old Buckeye myself. The two of us are both
Buckeyes, Ohio State graduates. We are really pleased to
welcome you.
I used to live in Texas myself when I was a Naval flight
officer, down near Flower Bluff, which most people have never
heard of. It is nice to have a Texan here at the table. We
welcome all of you for coming.
Rob Baker is our Farm Bureau president in Delaware. His
predecessor is Joe Calhoun. Before that was Jack Tarnburn. Jack
Tarnburn was my Secretary of Agriculture for the 8 years I was
privileged to be Governor of Delaware.
We have worked on a commodity problem in Delaware. It is
also a pollution problem. We raise a lot of chickens in
Delaware. Most people do not think of Delaware as much of an
agricultural State.
I think we raise more chickens in Sussex County, Delaware,
which is where we have a lot of beach resorts--Fenwick Island,
Bethany Beach, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Cape Henlopen. Most
people probably think of Sussex County as a place to go on
vacation. It is a great place for that. But we also raise more
chickens in Sussex County, Delaware, than in any county in
America. I think we raise more soybeans in Sussex County,
Delaware than any county in America.
All those chickens create a fair amount of waste. In our
State what we have historically done is that we have taken the
chicken waste and after it has been cleaned out of the chicken
houses, we use it to fertilize our fields. Over the years we
have had more and more chickens to come along, and more and
more waste, and fewer acres over which they are spread. As a
result, there is a lot of phosphorous and nitrogen in our
waterways that eventually gets into our inland bays and even to
the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay.
One of the things that we have done is that we have a real
interesting partnership between the State of Delaware and
Perdue which raises a lot of broilers. We have created, with
their good work, a technology that enables us to take chicken
litter through a treatment process. We create a product high in
nitrogen and high in phosphorous that can be used as a
fertilizer. It is shipped all over the world. It can be shipped
to the Midwest. The size of the pellets can be used and used
for lawns. It can be used for golf courses and so forth.
The idea there is to take what had been a problem polluting
our waterways and to try to transform it into a marketable
commodity for our farmers. We have only been doing this now for
about 2 years, but I am encouraged that we are getting our sea
legs and that it is going to be a successful proposition for
Perdue and for poultry growers, and for our farmers as well.
I am always looking at ways to help raise commodity prices
for farmers and to reduce the amount of subsidies that are paid
to farmers. I want to find a way to provide another source of
cash for our farmers, whether they are in Delaware, Texas, or
any other State.
Talk with me a little bit about the potential for us
helping increase commodity prices and provide another commodity
source of cash for our farmers through a system that enables
the emitter of CO2 to enter into a contract with
farmers or those who aggregate on behalf of farmers. Talk with
me about the potential of what they can mean for our farmers?
Mr. Stallman. Well, the potential would obviously vary
across the country, depending on the type of land, the type of
crops, and those kinds of things. We are encouraged by some of
the private efforts that I mentioned in my testimony to put
farmers in touch with entities that need to do this. TVA, I
think, was doing some reforestation. There were some farmers
involved in that at one point.
Throughout all this discussion about the long-term effects
of carbon on the atmosphere and some of the projections, I
think what is missing--and you cannot quantify it--is what will
technology do. The example you have laid out as to what Perdue
and some of the poultry farmers are doing in Delaware, is one
example of many.
But I truly believe that technology, through additional
research, will allow us ways of handling a lot of these
problems, whether it is waste, better incorporation practices,
and sequestration of carbon. As long as the systems that are in
place, in terms of providing farmers some additional dollars--
and all of us are in favor of that happening--are voluntary
incentive-based and done through a market approach, we would
support that.
It will take awhile before the research and the technology,
to quantify what ``x'' practice will mean in terms of ``y''
benefit that you can actually get paid for. Those are some of
the hurdles that we have to overcome if we are going to put
forth a successful system.
But I think the potential is there to do that. The question
is: Can we get the extra research and the dollars associated
there to quantify those things better? Can we have private
entities, aggregators, like some of our State farm bureaus, in
terms of getting groups of farmers together, and selling those
credits to some industry?
I think all that potential is there. But it is going to
take some work to get there.
Senator Carper. Ms. Reed, would you mind responding to the
same question? Let me know what that potential might be.
Ms. Reed. I think there is a great potential. I would like
to give you one example of a situation in the Pacific Northwest
where an energy company called Entergy, has entered into a 3-
year contract with a group of farms to purchase carbon from
them. Entergy feels that climate change is a risk that we need
to deal with. They want to reduce their emissions of greenhouse
gas.
They have purchased, over a 3-year period, carbon from a
group called the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association.
They are a no-till and conservation tillage group. As Carl
Cooper, of the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association would
tell you, the check is not in the mail. It is in the bank. They
have been paid for the carbon that they have sequestered. There
are, in fact, emerging carbon markets that are operating in
this country. Agriculture has often been looked at as a source
of low cost offsets. Energy companies are, in fact, talking
with groups like the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association
about doing that. So I think it is not only a possibility, it
is a reality.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you.
Dr. Lal, let me go back. I think you are the member of the
panel who talked about the amount of carbon that is being
emitted and how much could reasonably be sequestered or drawn
into, whether it is forest or agriculture or the oceans.
Could you just go back and review some of those numbers for
me, please?
Mr. Lal. We have the potentials. That is not what is
actually happening. The potential for the U.S. cropland--and
Ms. Reed gave that number also--is 142 million tons a year. The
potential of our U.S. grazing lands is 70 million tons a year.
The potential for forest lands is 118 million tons a year. For
all three categories of land, you have the potential for U.S.
soils of 360 million tons, which I calculate at about one
million tons per day. That is in the soil only.
In addition to that, the potential forest biomass carbon is
250 million tons. The total comes to about 600 million tons,
which is about one-third of the total emissions, which is about
1,900 million tons.
Senator Carper. The best case, if we were to use all of the
avenues you have just described, we might be able to address
about a third of our current CO2 emissions?
Mr. Lal. That is correct, sir.
Senator Carper. Mr. Chairman, that is pretty encouraging. I
do not pretend to believe that we could maximize the potential
in all those areas, but that is a pretty good potential.
Mr. Lal. I would also mention that on a global scale, as
Senator Voinovich mentioned, the potential is about one billion
tons a year in soils. That is more difficult because of the
developing countries in Africa and Asia may not be able to do
what we can do in the United States. The potential is
tremendous, especially because the full security in Africa is
linked to that carbon sequestration.
Senator Carper. Dr. Rosenzweig, I want to ask a question of
you. I like the question that our Chairman asked of the panel.
He asked if you wanted to comment on any of the testimony of
any other witnesses. One of the great things about having a
panel like this is that we have really diverse perspectives. I
always look for a common ground. What we have to do is to try
to figure out what the consensus is, what the middle ground is,
and to propose that to our colleagues.
As you listened to the testimony here today of each of our
other witnesses, what were some of the elements of commonality
that you heard that you think might help us in producing
consensus legislation, that addresses CO2,
greenhouse gases, and global warming?
Ms. Rosenzweig. I do not think I can say that there is
complete common ground. But there is a strong opinion across
the panel that encouraging carbon sequestration in the
agricultural sector is a beneficial thing to do for a number of
reasons.
The idea of the win-win situation, I think, is very
powerful. It will benefit crop productivity and soil-water
runoff erosion by increasing carbon in our soils. And, at the
same time, it will work on the larger uncertain, but still
looming issue of global warming.
When I look across the testimony, that is what I see. I
think clearly we need more research on carbon sequestration
potential, because we have heard various estimates presented
here. The estimates are dependent on changing climate
conditions--dynamic climate conditions. Most of the
calculations that have been presented here do not take the
potential for a changing climate into account. I believe that
they should.
We should also look to the warming that has already
occurred over the past 100 years. The global temperature has
risen 0.6 degrees Centigrade, about 1 degree Fahrenheit.
Because of the greenhouse gases that we have put into the
atmosphere already, there is likely to be a continuing
potential for a change. I think those are important things that
we need to take into account as we go forward.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that three
items be included in the record. One was actually alluded to, I
think, by Ms. Reed.
It says, ``Statement from the World Meteorological
Organization.'' They forecast weather around our planet. They
apparently met last week and said, as Ms. Reed mentioned in her
testimony, that the number of severe weather events are likely
to increase due to climate change. That would be one request.
The National Farmers Union is not present with us today.
They have a statement that I would ask be submitted. They
encourage efforts to establish a strong CO2
reduction strategy, and to include agriculture in that
strategy.
There is a statement of a group of leading climate
scientists who have researched weather data. They determined
that the warmth experienced in the late 20th century was an
anomaly, and that human activity likely played an important
role in causing that warming.
Those would be the three that I would ask unanimous consent
to place in the record.
Senator Voinovich. Without objection, so ordered.
[The statement appears at the end of the following the
hearing record:]
Senator Voinovich. I am getting a little bit confused here
with these numbers. The estimate of the incentives just
announced by the USDA show that if widely used, they will
sequester 12 million metric tons of carbon in 2012. Did we just
say that right now we are sequestering 15 million tons
currently; is that right?
Dr. Lal?
Mr. Lal. My guess is that that is not 12 million. That is
12 percent of the emissions. I think that was probably 12
percent and not 12 million. That is my interpretation on that.
We are already sequestering 20 million tons, not 15. That is in
soils alone. So 12 million tons sequestered by 2012 is grossly
inaccurate. I think it is 12 percent of the emissions.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Bast?
Mr. Bast. I believe he was referring to the sequestration
of specific programs that the Department of Agriculture was
planning to fund rather than making a forecast of how much
could be sequestered. That is why it is a seemingly small
amount.
Concerning this confusion between tons of carbon and carbon
dioxide, carbon is 12/44 of the weight of carbon dioxide. So
you can convert one into the other by multiplying it by either
12/44ths or 44 12ths, which is 3.66666.
We can take the estimates that Dr. Lal has been giving us,
multiply it by 3.66, and you will get what the United Nations
and the EPA both now use as the standard method of measuring.
EPA, when it uses tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, comes up
with 15 million metric tons. That is not carbon. That is
actually the higher of the two numbers. If you express it only
as tons of carbon, it would be even less than that.
The 20 million tons that other people have used here is the
Department of Agriculture's estimate. That is just tons of
carbon. If you convert that into carbon dioxide, it is about 73
million metric tons.
EPA says 15 million metric tons. The Department of
Agriculture says 73 million metric tons. If EPA is right, it is
about 1/20th of 1 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions every year, just 1/20th of 1 percent. If the
Department of Agriculture is right, it is still just about 1
percent--73 million metric tons is about 1 percent of 6.9
billion metric tons, which is what EPA estimates total U.S.
emissions to be.
Total sequestration, regardless of whose number we are
using, currently is very small--one percent at best, 1/20th of
1 percent if EPA is correct--of current U.S. emissions. How
much and how rapidly that could be increased has been the
subject of speculation on this panel. I am certainly not a soil
specialist, but EPA notes that total sequestration has only
increased 14 percent over the last 11 years. From 1990 to 2001,
the amount of carbon stored in soil has only increased 14
percent.
Now we are proposing perhaps to very rapidly increase it by
100 percent or 1,000 percent in order to get up to some of the
numbers that other speakers are talking about. I would doubt
that that is feasible.
Senator Voinovich. I will check this out. I thought they
said they were talking about 12 million metric tons of carbon
in 2012.
Ms. Rosenzweig?
Ms. Rosenzweig. I just have a comment further to the point
that I was making about thinking about agriculture as a carbon
neutral sector, and thinking about other sectors as well.
From sitting on many panels over about the 20 years that I
have been doing research on climate change and agriculture, one
thing that I have come to learn is that there are no silver
bullets for the global warming issue. Really, there is only
silver buckshot. When you look at the sector, compared to the
whole problem, yes, it could be small. But it can play a very
important role by beginning the address the issue and doing
what it can, vis-a-vis its own sector and also helping out the
other sectors.
Senator Voinovich. Dr. Lal?
Mr. Lal. Senator, your point about the numbers being
confusing, like the estimates by UDSA on soil carbon
sequestration of 20 million tons, are based on sensory model
use. We really do not have actual measurements on farm
conditions. Most of the data that we have presented is based on
the research.
What really is needed is validation of which farmers have
adopted practices in different regions in the United States,
actually going out there and monitoring how the carbon is
changing. That data is just being collected. That is the kind
of information that is really needed to verify what is actually
happening.
Senator Voinovich. You are saying that we still are not
there to really get the real numbers of what is really being
captured and that there is speculation on these numbers?
Mr. Lal. Yes, Senator.
Senator Voinovich. I know we throw numbers around here and
I always ask: Where do they come from: You peel it back. A lot
of it is speculation. We are still in a speculative arena in
terms of what this is really going to do?
Mr. Lal. That is very correct. The actual on-farm
assessment of soil carbon sequestration numbers and the on-farm
conditions are few. Some are being collected. I think Jack is
collecting some. We are collecting some. But it is very few. We
have only a few farms.
The other point that I want to mention is the 20 million
tons that the USDA uses is net sequestration by soil. When I
say ``net,'' there is a lot of emission by cultivation by
organic soils. These are cultivated organic soils, like sugar
cane plantations in Hawaii, and some vegetable production in
some parts of Ohio. We have very serious emissions from those
soils which is really quite a large number. When you calculate
the net part of the soil carbon sequestration happening, we
deduct that the emissions from the organic soils. So the net
number given is not really the net number. The soil carbon
sequestration number is much bigger.
The other point which I think is important to mention is
that soil carbon sequestration, carbon offsetting is only one
of the benefits. Improving the quality of our soil resources is
a very important factor.
Senator Voinovich. I think that Mr. Stallman would agree
with this, that going forward with this program has other
benefits to the agriculture community, correct?
Mr. Lal. Yes, sir, to the environmental community as well--
sedimentation control, the water quality benefits, the bio-
diversity benefits, and the pollutants use of land. There are
numerous other things.
Soil organic matter is what makes the soil a living entity.
We have lost three to five billion tons of carbon from the soil
in the U.S. We need to put it back, regardless of the debate of
climate change. We have lost 60 to 80 billion tons of carbon
from the world's soils. Why the full security situation
perpetuates in Africa? We are talking about a 30 percent loss
in the U.S. They are talking about a 90 percent loss in the
soil in Africa. We need to put it back before even those soils
can respond to fertilizer use. We cannot possibly achieve the
full security without restoring the soil carbon. The benefits
are tremendous.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Mr. Stallman, Mr. Bast testified that mandatory carbon
controls could increase gasoline costs by 50 percent, driving
up agri-production costs. There is a big issue around here
about cap-and-trade. I am opposed to cap-and-trade. I think we
should go ahead and move forward and do what we can without
cap-and-trade. There are others that say that if you do not
have cap-and-trade, then you are not going to get people to do
some of these things that we are talking about here today. It
is a dilemma.
Frankly, it is standing in the way of moving forward with
reducing NOx, SOx, and mercury. There are certain groups in
this country who say unless you do four of them, we are not
going to do anything about the other three. We have been
coasting around here in the last 2 or 3 years.
Would you like to comment on the cap-and-trade thing? Do
you agree with that in terms of the impact that it will have on
agriculture? You are going to get involved in sequestration,
but you are saying if you get into this cap-and-trade, the cap-
and-trade will impact negatively on farmers in this country and
drive up their costs; is that correct?
Mr. Stallman. Yes, we strongly believe that any kind of
mandatory cap-and-trade system would be a net detriment in
terms of the economic impact to agriculture.
Senator Voinovich. Let me ask you another thing. In your
opinion, would it put us in a noncompetitive position in the
global market place?
Mr. Stallman. Certainly less competitive, and probably
noncompetitive in many instances. If we implemented some Kyoto-
like mandatory greenhouse gas regulations, the Sparks study
indicates that it would lower net farm income by over $21
billion a year. Production costs would increase about $16
billion, due to the higher energy and fertilizer costs.
Agriculture is a very intensive energy user.
Senator Voinovich. Part of that comes from that if you do
cap-and-trade, the concept is that the energy companies would
stop burning coal. They use more natural gas. More natural gas
equals higher costs for fertilizer. That is the scenario.
Mr. Stallman. A lot of that is in the Sparks study that I
referenced. We will be glad to get a copy of it to you.
Senator Voinovich. OK. I would like to get that Sparks
study.
Mr. Stallman. We will provide it, Mr. Chairman.
Without objection, so ordered.
Senator Voinovich. Senator Carper?
Senator Carper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have two last questions.
Ms. Reed, I think in an earlier life you worked for Senator
Bob Kerry; is that true?
Ms. Reed. Yes, I did.
Senator Carper. Subsequent to that, I think maybe you had a
stint at EPA. You had to think, by virtue of some of your
former jobs, about what we and our staffs go through in
crafting legislation and looking for some compromises.
Let me just ask this, if I could. What should the
Administration, and what should Senator Voinovich and I and our
colleagues do to more effectively address climate change,
including promoting carbon sequestration. What should we do?
Ms. Reed. I do not think, first of all, that we should
discount the idea of a cap-and-trade program. Senators McCain
and Lieberman have a bill called the ``Climate Stewardship
Act,'' which is a cap-and-trade program. It would impact just
the major and most intensive emitting sectors of the economy.
MIT recently completed an analysis of that bill that
showed, for instance, the two phases to the bill. The first
phase of the bill would decrease U.S. greenhouse gas emissions
to 2000 levels by 2010. It would have no net impact and no cost
to the economy. It might even be beneficial to the economy.
The reason is that it is set up as a cap-and-trade program
that allows market flexibility to take over. It would allow,
for instance, agricultural sequestration to be a low cost
source of offsets, and other sources of sequestration. So I
think you need to think about using the market to actually help
us get the lowest price reductions where we can. Your bill, as
a matter of fact, does the same thing.
So I think that there are ways to do this. We need to
overcome the obstacles that people throw up that have not been
proven. Certainly, there is a sulfur dioxide trading program,
for instance. It has shown that we can, in fact, reduce
emissions of pollutants using the market.
Senator Carper. All right.
Does anyone have a closing thought that you would have for
us coming out of the hearing of hearing your colleagues on the
panel? Do you have a closing thought for us that you might
have?
Mr. Stallman, are there any parting thoughts you might want
to leave with us?
Mr. Stallman. Well, in terms of the silver buckshot,
agriculture is willing to be one of the BBs.
Senator Carper. Good. Thank you. Hopefully we will find
some more.
Dr. Lal, I might just say that this issue of global warming
and greenhouse gases first came to my attention thanks to a
research couple from Ohio State University, Drs. Thompson, who
have done a lot of work around the globe. Maybe sometime we
could actually have them come and testify and talk about the
work that they have done on examining the melting of the ice
caps around some of the tallest mountains in the world.
Mr. Lal. He predicts that some of the tropical glaciers,
like Kilimanjaro, might disappear within the next 15 to 20
years because of the climate.
Senator Carper. It is sobering stuff.
Mr. Lal. I would like to mention that agriculture has been
considered as an environmental pollutant. I think agriculture,
in addition to providing full security, can really be a
solution, if done properly.
Senator Carper. That is a great thought to close with.
Thank you.
Mr. Bast?
Mr. Bast. Mr. Stallman at the outset said that we are not
here to debate the science, but I note now that it has come up
on several occasions. I cannot hardly leave this hearing
without mentioning that the satellite data show no warming over
the last 29 years, and that there is indeed a fierce debate
taking place among scientists as to whether or not there is any
human role in the temperature trends that we have observed.
Finally, there is a lot of debate over whether or not some
global warming would have a negative effect either on the
United States or the rest of the world. The most authoritative
research on that by Robert Mendelson at Yale University,
recently published by Oxford Press, suggests that a 2.5 degree
Celsius warming would actually benefit agriculture in the
United States to the tune of $41 billion a year through its
fertilizing effect and through more rain and other things like
that.
We should not assume that we have a problem here in need of
solving. I think that would be the first step. Secondarily, if
we try to solve this nonexistent problem, let us make sure the
unintended consequences do not make it even worse by leading to
deforestation and other problems in Third World countries.
Senator Carper. Thank you. A friend of mine likes to say,
in response to those kind of arguments, if we can get the
temperature up high enough, we can eliminate all the
agricultural subsidies for the farm community. But that is his
sense of humor.
Ms. Reed?
Ms. Reed. I commend you for dealing with the issue of
climate change. I do think it is time for us to start taking
action. I think we can do so in a way that is not prohibitive,
either to the economy or to the agricultural sector. Most
farmers operate on a three-to-four percent profit margin.
Agriculture can clearly benefit from starting to help mitigate
our greenhouse gas emissions.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Ms. Rosenzweig?
Ms. Rosenzweig. I am actually a coauthor on a chapter in
the book that Mr. Bast mentioned. I think it is important to
remember that unabated temperatures are likely to continue to
rise even above 2.5 degrees Centigrade. That is why it is so
important that we address both mitigation of greenhouse gas
emissions and adaptation to a changing climate, a dynamic
climate, jointly.
Senator Carper. Thank you all.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Voinovich. I would just like to make one point. I
am anticipating the McCain-Lieberman bill. According to the
energy information from the Administration, it will increase
electricity costs, natural gas costs, and have a major impact
on all aspects of the economy.
So there is a difference of opinion, Ms. Reed, about what
that bill will do or not do. I just wanted to get that on the
record.
Thank you very much.
We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned,
to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
[Additional statements submitted for the record follow:]
Statement of Bruce I. Knight, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to discuss the Department of Agriculture's carbon
sequestration programs and outline the steps being taken within USDA to
address the long-term challenge of global climate change. The issue of
climate change cuts broadly across the Department, involving several
agencies and mission areas. To provide policy guidance, the Secretary
created a climate change working group that is chaired by the Deputy
Secretary and includes the Under Secretaries for all of the relevant
mission areas: Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service; Natural Resources
and the Environment; Research, Education, and Economics; and Rural
Development, as well as the General Counsel and Chief Economist. The
Department plays an active role in the government's activities to
address climate change, including: Scientific research, technology
development, international bilateral and multilateral cooperation,
efforts to encourage actions in the private sector, and policy
development and implementation.
Last month, Secretary Veneman announced a series of actions that
the Department will take to increase carbon sequestration and reduce
greenhouse gas emissions from forests and agriculture. The actions
represent a major step for the Department. For the first time, USDA
will consider the reduction of greenhouse gases in setting priorities
and in allocating resources within the portfolio of conservation
programs we administer. The actions build on a foundation of ongoing
research and technology development. USDA researchers and our
cooperators are improving our understanding of climate change and its
implications for managed and unmanaged natural systems, the potential
risks to agriculture and forests, and effective ways to sequester
carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and
forests.
The actions announced by USDA include financial incentives,
technical assistance, demonstrations, pilot programs, education, and
capacity building. We are also setting out to improve our ability to
measure and monitor changes in carbon storage and greenhouse gas
emissions so that we can accurately track our progress in implementing
these actions.
Coupled with the increases in overall conservation spending, these
actions are expected to increase the carbon sequestration and
greenhouse gas emissions reductions from the conservation programs by
over 12 million tons of carbon equivalent in 2012, which represents
approximately 12 percent of President Bush's goal to reduce greenhouse
gas intensity of the American economy by 18 percent in the next decade.
USDA's conservation programs were designed to offer assistance and
incentives to farmers and other landowners in addressing multiple
conservation and environmental challenges. Historically, programs have
focused on reducing soil erosion, improving water quality, creating
wildlife habitat, reducing air pollution, and protecting sensitive
areas. While maintaining these priorities, the programs will now also
include explicit consideration of greenhouse gas reductions and carbon
sequestration. We can accomplish this without compromising our other
objectives because, in many cases, the technologies and practices that
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration also
address other conservation priorities. Planting trees and other natural
covers can increase above and below-ground carbon. However, cropland
doest not need to be taken out of production to sequester carbon. For
example, conservation tillage (reduced, minimum, or no-till) reduces
the extent of soil organic matter oxidation and decomposition by soil
microorganisms that occur with plowing and tillage. Thus, more of the
organic matter added to the soil remains, leading to increases in soil
carbon.
There are many opportunities to apply these practices in the U.S.
Most U.S. cropland soils have lost at least a third and some up to 60
percent of their carbon since they were first converted to crop
production beginning about 200 years ago. This diminished carbon pool
can be replenished by improvements in land management.
Under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), NRCS
provided guidance to States to reward actions that sequester carbon and
reduce greenhouse gases within the EQIP ranking system. These practices
can include the soil conservation practices already mentioned and
technologies to reduce methane emissions from livestock waste. Last
month, we hosted a Summit on one of these promising technologies
anaerobic digesters. Anaerobic digesters can reduce odors and pathogens
and methane (a powerful greenhouse gas) from manure. The methane from
digesters can be captured and used as fuel for power generation or
direct heating. The Summit, held in Raleigh, North Carolina brought
together farmers, Federal and State conservation officials,
representatives from the power industry, inventors and technology
developers, and the conservation and environmental organization
representatives.
At the summit, we unveiled three new conservation practice
standards specifically for digesters. The performance standards lay out
standard expectations for the technology but do not prescribe or
endorse a particular vendor's product. One of the standards is for
covers for new and existing lagoons; the second standard is for new
ambient temperature digesters; and the third standard is for new
controlled temperature digesters. These new standards will have two
major benefits. They will make it easier for producers to fit anaerobic
digesters into their EQIP contracts as part of a comprehensive nutrient
management plan. They will also make it easier for producers to use
technical service providers to plan and construct digesters.
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Wetlands Reserve Program
(WRP) can provide significant amounts of carbon sequestration.
Conversion of cultivated lands back into forests, grasslands or
wetlands, which occurs on CRP and WRP lands, fosters the accumulation
of carbon in soils and vegetation. On Earth Day, Secretary Veneman
announced that the Farm Services Agency (FSA) will target 500,000 acres
of continuous signup enrollment toward bottomland hardwood trees, an
action that will increase the amount of carbon stored by the CRP.
Bottomland hardwoods are among the most productive ecosystems for
carbon sequestration in the United States. In another step to provide
incentives for carbon sequestration, FSA modified the environmental
benefits index (EBI) used to score and rank bids into the program. The
revised EBI will give points specifically for practices that sequester
carbon, giving these practices a higher priority under the program than
they otherwise would have.
The Forest Service also has responsibilities for implementing
actions announced by the Secretary. Using new authority established
under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, carbon
sequestration will be one of the formal objectives of the Forest Land
Enhancement Program (also known as FLEP). Through FLEP, the Forest
Service, working with States, can promote carbon sequestration with
tree planting, forest stand improvements, and agroforestry practices.
Forests and agriculture can also be the source of domestic,
renewable energy. USDA recently announced the availability of $44
million in grants for energy efficiency, biomass energy, and biomass
products development. Twenty-three million dollars of this will be
available from USDA's Rural Development for the Renewable Energy
Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements program to assist farmers,
ranchers, and rural small businesses to develop renewable energy
systems and make energy efficiency improvements to their operations.
Farmers and ranchers are eligible for loan guarantees for renewable
energy systems, including anaerobic digesters under the Rural Business
and Industry Programs administered by Rural Development.
Through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative, in
cooperation with the Department of Energy, $21 million in grants are
available to carry out research, development and demonstration of
biomass energy, biobased products, biofuels and biopower processes.
USDA also recently announced key revisions to the Commodity Credit
Corporation Bioenergy Program to expand industrial consumption of
agricultural commodities by promoting their use in the production of
ethanol and biodiesel.
USDA is also working with partners in the private sector. This
February, Secretary Veneman announced commitments from two industry
groups with strong natural resource ties. The members of the American
Forest and Paper Association have committed to actions that they expect
will improve their greenhouse gas intensity by 12 percent by 2012. The
members of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association agreed
to work with USDA to break down the barriers that farmers and ranchers
face in generating renewable power. America's rural landowners can be a
source of solar, wind, and biomass power. These opportunities can be
win-win partnerships for the rural utilities and farmers.
Companies and industrial sectors are making commitments under the
Administration's Climate VISION program. Companies with an interest in
forest and agricultural carbon sequestration are looking to USDA to
give them the tools they need to measure and report on their actions.
Last year, USDA was directed to develop new accounting rules and
guidelines for reporting greenhouse gas activities on forests and
agricultural lands. The new accounting rules and guidelines will be
used by companies and individuals to report their activities to the
Department of Energy under their voluntary greenhouse gas reporting
system. The DOE reporting program is undergoing revisions that are
expected to be completed by January 2004. The Forest Service and NRCS
have taken the respective leads for the forest and agriculture
components of the guidelines. USDA has undertaken an extensive public
comment process including two well-attended workshops in January 2003.
We solicited written comments from the public on our process and will
provide additional opportunities for public input before the accounting
rules and guidelines are finalized.
USDA's research program plays an important role in the government's
efforts to understand climate change. The budget for USDA's
participation in the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and
Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI) has increased in each of the
last 2 years. The USDA fiscal year 2003 budget for CCRI and USGCRP
combined is $63 million, up from $57 million in fiscal year 2002. In
fiscal year 2004, USDA is requesting an additional $7.1 million for the
President's CCRI priorities. The increases requested for fiscal year
2004 fall primarily in the following areas: Improving the methods for
measuring and estimating above and below-ground carbon storage on
forest and agriculture systems; Collecting carbon flux measurement data
at specific locations that can be scaled to regional and national
statistics; Developing management practices and techniques for
increasing carbon sequestration and reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
Demonstration projects to facilitate the incorporation of carbon
sequestration into USDA programs; Finalizing the new accounting rules
and guidelines for estimating and reporting carbon sequestration and
greenhouse gas emissions from forest and agricultural activities.
Finally, USDA continues to invest in research to improve our
understanding of how crops, livestock, trees, pests, and other facets
of ecosystems will respond, either positively or negatively, to higher
levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We are seeking cost-
effective ways to make agriculture and forests more adaptable to any
changes in climate and weather, should they occur. We are pursuing an
improved understanding of the role of natural and managed ecosystems in
the global carbon cycle. We are developing technologies and practices
to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and increase carbon
sequestration. We are now harnessing the portfolio of conservation
programs to build carbon back into the soil and vegetation, integrating
greenhouse gas considerations in our conservation efforts.
Thank you again for the opportunity to address this Subcommittee. I
am now available to answer your questions.
__________
Statement of Bob Stallman President, American Farm Bureau Federation
Chairman Voinovich, members of the Subcommittee, my name is Bob
Stallman. I am President of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF)
and a rice and cattle producer from Columbus, TX. On behalf of the 5.3
million members of the American Farm Bureau I am pleased to be speaking
to you today on agriculture's role in sequestering carbon in our
nation's soil. Carbon is the key building block and cornerstone element
for all things living. For those of us in agriculture, we have learned
through years of research and practical experience that soil carbon is
essential for optimizing the production of food and fiber in addition
to the profitability of farming and ranching. Carbon used in crop
production is replenished in the soil by crop and root residues, with
less soil carbon being lost when minimum or no-till regiments are
implemented.
The USDA's Agricultural Research Service estimates that 20 million
metric tons of carbon is currently sequestered each year in U.S. farm
and grazing land soils. This estimate indicates that U.S. farms and
ranches are indeed a net ``carbon bank'' or sink, sequestering carbon
in the soil and keeping it out of the atmosphere. Many producers have
made a decision on an economic basis to employ conservation tillage
practices such as minimum/no till and cover crop regimens in their farm
and ranch operations. With more producers changing individual farm
management practices, USDA and State Department personnel estimate that
an additional 180 million metric tons annually could be stored in farm
and range land acres. This would account for 12 to 14 percent of the
total U.S. emissions of carbon according to the State Department.
Carbon and its role in the climate change issue has been the
subject of recent debate, and will continue to be as attempts are made
to attach climate change legislation to the energy bill or other
legislative vehicles. We are not here today to discuss the merits or
demerits of the theory of the climate change issue. With regard to
carbon sequestration, it is undeniable that agriculture can play a
vital role.
In 2001, President Bush announced the development of a
comprehensive strategy to reduce greenhouse gas intensity in the United
States by 18 percent by 2012. A vital component of the strategy is to
encourage increased sequestration of carbon in forests and rangelands.
In February of this year, the President announced the Climate Voluntary
Innovative Sector Initiatives: Opportunities Now, or Climate VISION
program. A voluntary, public-private partnership, the primary goal of
the program is to pursue cost-effective initiatives that will reduce
the projected growth in America's greenhouse gas emissions. AFBF has
begun discussions with the Administration to see what role the
agricultural sector could play in the Climate VISION program.
Last month, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman announced that the
USDA would consider greenhouse gas management practices when evaluating
applications for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP),
the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and the Forest Land Enhancement
Program (FLEP). America's farm and ranch community has long supported
and responded to voluntary, incentive based programs, as is evident by
the waiting lists to participate in many conservation programs such as
EQIP and CRP. Time and time again, when an environmental challenge has
presented itself, American agriculture has answered the call.
I would be remiss if I did not reiterate our opposition to any
mandatory measures pertaining to climate change and carbon
sequestration but rather the need to maintain a voluntary approach to
agricultural sequestration. Some involved in the climate change issue
have advocated a mandatory cap and trade approach for carbon as a way
to ``establish'' a carbon market and increase sequestrations and
trading participation. We strongly disagree with that approach. While a
mandatory cap and trade may increase the value of the carbon being
sequestered, an analysis by Sparks Companies, Inc., re-released, last
month concludes that the increased energy costs to the agricultural
sector associated with any Kyoto-like mandatory program would more than
offset any cash value in the sequestration of carbon by farmers and
ranchers on a per-acre basis.
Like many other industries, agriculture has in the past, and will
in the future, respond if the appropriate incentive-based tools are
employed. Some of the needed tools like EQIP and CRP already exist.
Other tools, like voluntary carbon trading, are just now being
developed. Private entities are currently developing and implementing
voluntary pilot carbon trading systems. In one case, the Iowa Farm
Bureau and Kansas Farm Bureau are already involved with private trading
entities, disseminating information to farmers and ranchers and helping
to put landowners together with carbon-trading exchanges in an effort
to trade carbon under free market rules. The American Farm Bureau
Federation supports the development of a practical, voluntary carbon
trading system and the development of trading criteria, standards and
guidelines.
While potential for agricultural carbon sequestration in the United
States exists, many challenges remain. One area that must be addressed
before increased sequestration can be realized is the development of
methods and procedures to credit farmers and ranchers who have employed
in the past, and continue to employ, conservation tillage practices in
their operations. Other challenges include the continued development of
carbon trading guidelines, the establishment of accurate crediting and
values for sequestered carbon on farm and ranch lands, and the
development of other cost effective incentives to further advance
carbon sequestration in agricultural soils. None of these challenges is
insurmountable and AFBF looks forward to working with the USDA,
Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, Congress and
many others within the private sector to find solutions and move
forward with this endeavor.
There is no doubt that agriculture can and will play an expanded
role in sequestering carbon on America's farmland. We strongly support
President Bush's voluntary approach to climate change issues and his
call for the public and private sectors to work together to increase
the sequestration of carbon on America's farm and rangeland. The
American Farm Bureau appreciates this opportunity to share our views on
agriculture's role in helping solve the carbon sequestration puzzle. We
look forward to working with you.
__________
Statement of Rattan Lal, Director Carbon Management and Sequestration
Center/FAES, OARDC The Ohio State University
Mr. Chairman, members of the Senate Committee on Environment and
Public Works. I am Rattan Lal, Professor of Soil Science and Director
of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at The Ohio State
University. I am especially thankful to Senator Voinovich for the
opportunity to offer testimony on ``Soil Carbon Sequestration by
Agriculture and Forestry Land Uses for Mitigating Climate Change.''
Let me begin by expressing my appreciation of strong cooperation
with several institutions and organizations across the country. During
the past decade, the program at The Ohio State University (OSU) has
been supported by USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). We
have also worked with scientists from USDA-Agricultural Research
Service (ARS). The multi-institutional team comprised of OSU/NRCS/ARS
has published 15 books, which constitute a major literature on this
topic. In addition, OSU also has on-going activities under the C-site
program with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory. Being a founding member of the ``Consortium
for Agricultural Soils Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases (CASMGS),'' the
OSU team is collaborating with faculty from ten universities in
assessing soil carbon (C) sequestration in the U.S. cropland. The OSU/
NRCS/ARS team has completed assessment of the potential of U.S.
cropland, grazing lands and forestlands to sequester C. In cooperation
with the Ohio Coal Development Office, American Electric Power, and the
Los Alamos National Laboratory, we are assessing the rate of soil
carbon sequestration and soil quality improvement by reclamation of
mineland sites in Ohio and New Mexico. We have collaborated with USDA-
Economic Research Service (ERS) on the topic of soil degradation and
its effects on productivity and soil carbon dynamics. We are now
developing a National Soil Carbon Assessment Program (NSCAP) with NRCS.
The objective of NSCAP is to assess soil carbon sequestration under on-
farm conditions for principal ecoregions, major soils and dominant land
uses of the U.S. It is our hope to continue receiving funding for this
important undertaking. We are working with these partners because we
share the same values and goals of ``sustainable management of soil and
water resources, reducing net emissions, and creating a clean
environment.''
The basis of our shared commitment is the mutual concern about the
quality of the nation's soil and water resources and the environment.
We realize how important and critical the quality of soil resources is
for maintaining high economic agricultural production while moderating
the quality of air and water. Soils constitute the third largest carbon
pool (2,300 Gt or billion tons), after oceanic (38,000 Gt) and geologic
(5,000 Gt) pools. The soil carbon pool is directly linked with the
biotic (600 Gt) and atmospheric (770 Gt) pools. Change in soil carbon
pool by 1 Gt is equivalent to change in atmospheric concentration of
CO2 by 0.47 ppm. Therefore, increase in soil carbon pool by
1 Gt will reduce the rate of atmospheric enrichment of CO2
by 0.47 ppm.
The atmosphere carbon pool has progressively increased since the
industrial revolution. With industrialization and expansion of
agriculture, through deforestation and plowing, came soil degradation
and emission of gases into the atmosphere. Indeed, the atmospheric
concentration of three important greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrous oxide) has been increasing due to anthropogenic
perturbations of the global carbon and nitrogen cycles. For example,
the pre-industrial concentration of CO2 at 280 parts per
million (0.028 percent or 600 Gt) increased to almost 365 ppm (0.037
percent or 770 Gt) in 1998 and is increasing at the rate of 0.43
percent/yr or 3.2 Gt/y. The historic gaseous increase between 1850 and
1998 has occurred due to two activities: (1) fossil fuel burning and
cement production which has contributed 270 (+30) Gt of carbon as
CO2, and (2) deforestation and soil cultivation which has
emitted 136 (+55) Gt. Of this, the contribution from world soils may
have been 78 (+12) Gt of which 26 (+9) Gt may be due to erosion and
related soil-degradative processes. In comparison with the global
emissions, cropland soils of the United States have lost 3 to 5 Gt of
carbon since conversion from natural to agricultural ecosystems.
The projected climate change caused by increase in atmospheric
concentration of CO2 and other trace gases can be mitigated
by reducing emissions and sequestering emissions. Strategies for
emission reductions include enhancing energy production and use
efficiency, and using biofuels. Emission sequestrations involve biotic
and abiotic options. Important biotic options include carbon
sequestration in soils, vegetation and wetlands. Together, biotic
sequestration in soil and vegetation is called ``terrestrial
sequestration.''
Terrestrial carbon sequestration is a natural process with numerous
ancillary environmental benefits. In contrast to geologic and oceanic
sequestration, which may be expensive and have unknown ecological
impacts, terrestrial sequestration is the most cost effective option.
Natural carbon sinks (terrestrial and oceanic) are presently absorbing
4.7 Gt out of the total anthropogenic emissions of 8.0 Gt or about 60
percent of the total emission. It is prudent, therefore, to enhance the
carbon storage capacity of natural sinks (such as soils and vegetation)
through conversion to a judicious land use and adoption of recommended
management practices for soil, water, and crop/vegetation. Agriculture
has an important and positive role to play in enhancing the capacity of
natural terrestrial sinks.
Greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere when trees are
cut down and burnt, soils plowed, and wetlands are drained and
cultivated. In addition, excessive soil cultivation and inappropriate
or inefficient use of nitrogenous fertilizers can result in emission of
greenhouse gases from soil to the atmosphere. Finally, accelerated soil
erosion can lead to a drastic reduction in soil organic carbon (SOC)
content. Although the fate of the carbon that is transported by wind
and water is not well understood, it is believed that a considerable
portion of the eroded carbon may be mineralized and emitted into the
atmosphere. It is estimated that soil erosion annually emits 1 Gt of
carbon globally and 0.15 Gt from soils of the United States. Although
agricultural processes are presently not the main source of gaseous
emissions, they have clearly been a significant source. Yet, the
emissions of carbon from soils are reversible through conversion to a
restorative land use and adoption of recommended agricultural
practices. These estimates of the amount of lost C, crude as these may
be, provide a reference point about the sink capacity through land use
conversion and adoption of recommended practices.
Soil organic matter (SOM), of which 58 percent is carbon, is one of
our most important national resources. It consists of a mixture of
plant and animal residues at various stages of decomposition and by-
products of microbial activity. The SOM is a minor component of the
soil (1-3 percent), but plays a very important role in biological
productivity and ecosystem functions. Enhancing SOM concentration is
important to improving soil quality, reducing risks of pollution and
contamination of natural waters, and decreasing net gaseous emissions
to the atmosphere. The SOM pool can be enhanced through: (1)
restoration of degraded soils and ecosystems, and (2) intensification
of agriculture on prime soils.
Enhancing the SOM pool is an important aspect of restoration of
soils degraded by severe erosion, salinization, compaction, and
mineland disturbance. Degraded soils have been stripped of a large
fraction of their original SOM pool. Globally, there are 1216 million
hectares (Mha) (3 billion acres) of degraded lands of which 305 Mha
(753 million acres) are strongly and extremely degraded soils. U.S.
cropland prone to moderate and severe erosion is estimated at 19.4 Mha
(48 million acres) by wind erosion and 26.2 Mha (65 million acres) by
water erosion. An additional 0.3 Mha (0.7 million acres) are affected
by salinization, 2.1 Mha (5.2 million acres) of land affected by all
mining, and 0.6 Mha (1.5 million acres) of land strip-mined for coal is
in need of restoration. Land conversion and restoration transforms
degraded lands into ecologically compatible land use systems. The
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is designed to convert highly
erodible land from active crop production to permanent vegetative cover
for a 10-year period. In addition to erosion control, land under CRP
can sequester carbon in soil at the rate of 0.5 to 1.0 t/ha/y (450 to
900 lbs C/acre/y). Erosion control also involves establishing
conservation buffers and filter strips. These vegetated strips, ranging
from 5 to 50 m wide (16.5 to 165 ft. wide) are installed along streams
as riparian buffers and on agricultural lands to minimize soil erosion
and risks of transport of non-point source pollutants into streams. The
rate of carbon accumulation in soil under conservation buffers is
similar to that of the land under CRP. The USDA has a voluntary program
to develop 3.2 million km (2 million miles) of conservation buffers.
Wetlands are also an important component of the overall
environment. Approximately 15 percent of the world's wetlands occur in
the United States (40 Mha or 100 million acres) of which 2 Mha (5
million acres) are in need of restoration. Natural wetlands have a
potential to accumulate carbon (net of methane) at the rate of 0.2 to
0.3 t/ha/y (180 to 270 lbs/acre/y).
Surface mining of coal in the U.S. affected 2 Mha (5 million acres)
between 1978 and 2002, of which 1 Mha (2.5 million acres) have been
reclaimed. The land area affected by surface mining of coal was about
40,283 ha (100,000 acres) during 2002. Restoring minelands, through
leveling and using amendments for establishment of pastures and trees,
has a potential to sequester 0.5 to 1 t C/ha/y (450 to 900 lbs C/acre/
y) for 50 years. Similar potential exists in restoring salt-affected
soils.
The overall potential of restoration of degraded soils in the
United States is 17 to 39 million metric tons (MMT) per year for the
next 50 years or until the sink capacity is filled. Intensification of
agriculture involves cultivating the best soils using the best
management practices to produce the optimum sustainable yield. Some
recommended agricultural practices, along with the potential of SOC
sequestration are listed in Table 1. Conversion from plowing to no till
or any other form of a permanent conservation till has a large
potential to sequester carbon and improve soil quality. There is a
strong need to encourage the farming community to adopt conservation
tillage systems.
Adoption of recommended practices on 155 Mha (380 million acres) of
U.S. cropland has a potential to sequester 75 to 208 MMTC/y. Grazing
lands, rangeland and pastures together, occupy 212 Mha (524 million
acres) of privately owned land and 124 Mha (300 million acres) of
publicly owned land.
Total soil carbon sequestration potential of U.S. grazing land is
30 to 110 MMTC/y.
The potential of U.S. forest soils on 302 Mha (746 million acres)
to sequester carbon is 49 to 186 MMTC/y.
Thus, the total potential of U.S. agricultural and forest soils
(Table 2) is 171 to 546 MMTC/y or an average of 360 MMTC/y. In addition
to crop residue, there are other biosolids produced that can be
composted and used on agricultural lands. The potential of using manure
and compost on agricultural lands need to be assessed. Of the total
national emission of about 1,892 MMTCE/y for 2001, agricultural
practices contribute 143 MMTCE/y. Therefore the potential carbon
sequestration in U.S. soils represents 19 percent of total U.S.
emissions, and 2.5 times the emissions from agricultural activities.
Thus, soil carbon sequestration alone can reduce the net U.S. emissions
from 1,892 MMTCE to 1,532 MMTCE/y.
If the full potential of soil carbon sequestration is realized, the
total sink capacity can be 609 MMTC/y (Table 3). These statistics
indicate the need for a serious consideration of determining what
fraction of the total potential is realizable, at what cost and by what
policy instruments. There is a widespread perception that agricultural
practices cause environmental problems, especially those related to
water contamination and the greenhouse effect. Our research has shown
that scientific agriculture and conversion of degraded soils to a
restorative land use can also be a solution to environmental issues in
general and to reducing the net gaseous emissions in particular. Thus,
soil carbon sequestration has a potential to reduce the net U.S.
emissions by 360 MMTC/y. This potential is realizable through promotion
of CRP, WRP, erosion control and restoration of degraded soils,
conservation tillage, growing cover crops, improving judicious
fertilizer use and precision farming, and composting. Actions that
improve soil and water quality, enhance agronomic productivity and
reduce net emissions of greenhouse gases are truly a win-win situation.
It is true that soil carbon sequestration is a short-term solution to
the problem of gaseous emissions. In the long term, reducing emissions
from the burning of fossil fuels by developing alternative energy
sources is the only solution. For the next 50 years, however, soil
carbon sequestration is a very cost-effective option, a ``bridge to the
future'' that buys us time in which to develop those alternative energy
options.
References
1. Birdsey, R. 2001. Potential carbon storage in forest soils of the
U.S. Unpublished, USDA-FS.
2. Lal, R., J. Kimble, E. Levine and B.A. Stewart (eds). 1995. Soils
and Global Change. Advances in Soil Science, Lewis Publishers,
Chelsea, MI, 440 pp.
3. Lal, R., J. Kimble, E. Levine and B.A. Stewart (eds). 1995. Soil
Management and Greenhouse Effect. Advances in Soil Science, Lewis
Publishers, Chelsea, MI, 385 pp.
4. Lal, R., J.M. Kimble, R.F. Follett and B.A. Stewart (eds). 1998.
Soil Processes and the Carbon Cycle. CRC. Boca Raton, FL, 609 pp.
5. Lal, R., J.M. Kimble, R.F. Follett and B.A. Stewart (eds). 1998.
Management of Carbon Sequestration in Soils. CRC, Boca Raton, FL,
457 pp.
6. Lal, R., J.M. Kimble, R.F. Follett and C.V. Cole. 1998. The
Potential of U.S. Cropland to Sequester C and Mitigate the
Greenhouse Effect. Ann Arbor Press, Chelsea, MI, 128 pp.
7. Lal, R., J.M. Kimble and B.A. Stewart (eds). 2000. Global Climate
Change and Pedogenic Carbonates. Lewis/CRC Publishers, Boca Raton,
FL, 378 pp.
8. Lal, R., J.M. Kimble and B.A. Stewart. 2000. Global Climate Change
and Tropical Ecosystems. Lewis/CRC Publishers, Boca Raton, FL, 438
pp.
9. Lal, R., J.M. Kimble and B.A. Stewart 2000. Global Climate Change
and Cold Regions Ecosystems. CRC/Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL.
10. Lal, R., J.M. Kimble and R.F. Follett (eds). 2001. Assessment
Methods for Soil Carbon. CRC/Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL, 676
pp.
11. Follett, R.F., J.M. Kimble and R. Lal (eds). 2000. The Potential of
U.S. Grazing Lands to Sequester Carbon and Mitigate the Greenhouse
Effect. CRC/Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL, 442 pp.
12. Lal, R. and J.M. Kimble. 1997. Conservation tillage for carbon
sequestration. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, 49, 243-253.
13. Lal, R., R.F. Follett, J.M. Kimble and C.V. Cole. 1999. Managing
U.S. cropland to sequester carbon in soil. J. Soil Water Conserv.
54: 374-381.
14. Lal, R. (ed) 2001. Soil Carbon Sequestration and the Greenhouse
Effect. Special Publication, Soil Science Society of America,
Madison, WI.
15. Kimble, J., R. Lal and R.F. Follett (eds) 2002. Agricultural
Policies and Practices for Carbon Sequestration in Soils. CRC
Press, Boca Raton, FL, 512pp.
16. Kimble, J., R. Birdsey, L. Heath and R. Lal (eds) 2002. The
Potential of U.S. Forest Soils to Sequester Carbon and Mitigate the
Greenhouse Effect. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 429pp.
17. Lal, R. 1999. Soil management and restoration for C sequestration
to mitigate the greenhouse effect. Prog. Env. Sci. 1: 307-326.
18. Lal, R. and J.P. Bruce. 1999. The potential of world cropland to
sequester carbon and mitigate the greenhouse effect. Env. Sci. &
Policy 2: 177-185.
19. Lal, R. 2000. Carbon sequestration in drylands. Annals Arid Zone
38: 1-11.
20. Izaurralde, R.C., N.J. Rosenberg and R. Lal. 2001. Mitigation of
climate change by soil carbon sequestration. Adv. Agron. 70: 1-75.
21. Lal, R. 2001. World cropland soils as a source or sink for
atmospheric carbon. Adv. Agron. 71: 145-191.
22. Lal, R. 2000. We can control greenhouse gases and feed the world
with proper soil management. J. Soil Water Conserv. 55: 429-432.
23. Lal, R. 2001. Potential of desertification control to sequester
carbon and mitigate the greenhouse effect. Climate Change 15: 35-
72.
24. USEPA 2001. Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks:
1990-2001 (draft). EPA 23RR-00-001.
25. Akala, V.A. and R. Lal. 2001. Soil organic carbon pools and
sequestration rates in reclaimed minesoils in Ohio. J. Env. Qual.
30: 2098-2104.
26. Starr, G.C., R. Lal, R. Malone, L. Owens, D. Hothem and J.M.
Kimble. 2000. Modeling erosional impacts on soil carbon. Land
Degrad. & Dev. 11: 83-91
27. Lal, R. 2002. The potential of soils of the tropics to sequester
carbon and mitigate the greenhouse effect. Adv. Agron. 74: 155-192.
28. Lal, R. 2002. Soil carbon dynamics in cropland and rangeland. Env.
Pollution 116: 353-362.
29. Lal, R. 2002. Carbon sequestration in dryland ecosystems of West
Asia and North Africa. Land Degrad. & Dev. 13: 45-59.
30. Lal, R. 2002. Soil C sequestration in China through agricultural
intensification and restoration of degraded and desertified soils.
Land Degrad. & Dev. 13: 469-478.
31. Lal, R. 2003. Global potential of soil C sequestration to mitigate
the greenhouse effect. Crit. Rev. Plant Sci. 22: 151-184.
Table 1. Recommended practices for soil C sequestration
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Potential
rate of soil
Practice carbon
sequestration
(t/ha/yr)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conservation tillage & mulch farming..................... 0.1-0.5
Compost and manuring..................................... 0.05-0.5
Elimination of summer fallow............................. 0.05-0.4
Growing winter cover crops............................... 0.2-0.5
Integrated nutrient management/precision farming......... 0.1-0.4
Improved varieties and cropping systems.................. 0.05-0.4
Water conservation and water table management............ 0.05-0.3
Improved pasture management.............................. 0.05-0.3
Afforestation/reforestation.............................. 0.08-0.4
Fertilizer use in forest soils........................... 0.8-3.0
Restoration of eroded mineland and otherwise degraded 0.3-1
soils...................................................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Lal et al. (1998); Follett et al. (2000); Birdsey (2000)
Table 2. Total potential of U.S. agricultural soils for carbon
sequestration.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Potential of
soil carbon
Strategy sequestration
(MMT C/yr)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Land conversion and restoration.......................... 17-39
Intensification of cropland.............................. 75-208
Improved management of grazing land...................... 30-110
Improved management of forest soils...................... 49-189
--------------
Total................................................ 71-546 (360)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Lal et al. (1998); Follett et al. (2000); Birdsey (2000); Kimble
et al. (2002)
Table 3. Potential sink capacity of terrestrial ecosystems.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sink
Activity capacity
(MMTC/yr)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Above-ground forest........................................ 247
Soils...................................................... 360*
Landfill................................................... 2
------------
Total.................................................. 609
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*The soil sink potential can be realized through policy intervention,
and needs to be adjusted for hidden carbon costs of input used.
Table 4. Potential of soil carbon sequestration.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Potential
State/region (MMTC/y)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ohio....................................................... 8-12
U.S.A...................................................... 147-546
World croplands............................................ 600-1200
------------------------------------------------------------------------
__________
Statement of Joseph L. Bast, President, The Heartland Institute
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to testify here today. My
testimony is based on a joint research project by economists at The
Heartland Institute, the Hudson Institute, and the American Farm Bureau
Federation. Our opinions are our own.
Carbon sequestration, the topic of this hearing, certainly appears
from a distance to be an attractive alternative to mandating reductions
in greenhouse gas emissions, especially since many experts believe
forcing utilities and other significant emitters to reduce emissions is
very costly and would produce few offsetting benefits. But upon closer
inspection, carbon sequestration faces daunting problems of its own.
I would like to call your attention to four such problems.
1. Paying farmers and livestock producers to sequester carbon would
lead to heavy-handed and potentially ruinous regulation of farms and
ranches.
Farmers can indeed help store more carbon in their crops and soil,
but farming especially dairy farms and cattle ranches is also a
significant source of greenhouse gases. It is unrealistic to expect the
industry would be for long exempted from the same emission permit
requirements imposed on other emitters. Soon, other regulations would
be imposed on farmers in the name of fighting global warming, including
limitations on production per acre for some crops, mandatory fallowing
of crop land, limits and restrictions on livestock production, and
restrictions on the use of fertilizer.
2. Endorsing sequestration may mean endorsing ``cap and trade''
programs, which in turn means higher energy costs.
Without a government-imposed cap on greenhouse gas emissions, few
emitters would need to buy the emission permits farmers would earn by
sequestering more carbon. But a cap and trade program would have the
same effect as an energy tax, and such a tax would have to be set high
the equivalent of $0.50 a gallon of gasoline or more in order to reduce
emissions enough to make a difference.
Higher energy prices would dramatically reduce profits in the U.S.
agricultural sector. Farmers stand to see their net profits fall by as
much as 84 percent, and typically 50 percent, if gasoline taxes are
raised by 50 cents per gallon. Total annual U.S. farm production
expenses would rise over $20 billion. Since it is difficult for farmers
to pass cost increases along to consumers, a cap and trade greenhouse
gas program could cause a 48 percent decrease in net farm income.
3. Environmentalists will be disappointed, too. Even if a carbon
sequestration program benefited farmers, it would do little to moderate
global warming. Agricultural soils in the U.S. today capture only one-
twentieth of 1 percent of total annual greenhouse gas emissions,
according to EPA, or 1 percent according to USDA. According to EPA,
agricultural greenhouse emissions are 35 times greater than the amount
being sequestered. And once saturation levels were reached, there could
be no more gains on cropland with known farming systems, meaning
sequestration is not a long-term solution.
The biggest gains in carbon storage occur when cropland is returned
to forests. Subsidizing tree planting, however, would reduce U.S. farm
exports and prompt more farm output in countries where there are no
artificial constraints on farming. This would lead to more clearing of
forests in Third World countries, where deforestation is already a
major problem. On a global scale, more carbon, not less, would be
released into the atmosphere.
4. Emissions trading is more problematic than its advocates admit.
The ubiquitous presence of carbon dioxide in ambient air makes it
very difficult to associate emissions with any specific source. Unlike
sulfur dioxide, there are potentially hundreds of thousands or even
millions of sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. To
avoid participants ``gaming the system,'' complex and probably
unenforceable rules would be needed to determine that emission
reductions are genuine, entity-wide, and net of any increases in
emissions caused by higher energy use or other emission-generating
activity in some other division of a plant or company, either
concurrently or at some later time.
Existing emissions trading programs are characterized by thin
markets, government over-regulation that kills innovation, changing
rules that leave investors high and dry, verification problems, and
government meddling. All this uncertainly will, and quite rightly
should, discourage participation by businessmen and women. The new
Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which criminalizes even minor accounting mistakes,
could hold the chief executive officer liable if a restatement of the
value of permits earned or purchased becomes necessary.
I conclude that carbon sequestration by farmers and ranchers in the
U.S. is a false hope for those seeking to be paid to do what they would
do anyway. It is a false dream for environmentalists who see it as a
major part of the solution to global warming. And it is a poor strategy
for an industry that should know better than to join a movement
composed of groups and individuals who have been among its most
strident critics.
Thank you again for giving me this opportunity to be with you
today. I am happy to answer any questions you might have.
__________
Statement of Debbie A. Reed, Legislative Director, Global Warming
Campaign, Director, National Environmental Trust
Introduction
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I am Debbie Reed, the
Global Warming Campaign Director and Legislative Director at the
National Environmental Trust, a nonprofit organization located in
Washington, DC, with an organizing presence in 15 States. The National
Environmental Trust conducts public education campaigns on important
environmental issues through media education and field outreach.
I am pleased to have this opportunity to share my expertise and
that of the National Environmental Trust on what we feel is perhaps the
greatest environmental issue confronting the world today: global
climate change. While climate change is one of several important
campaigns we work on at the National Environmental Trust, it is an
overarching issue which affects virtually all the areas that we are
concerned with as an organization. We commend this Committee and the
Senate for dealing with the issue, and hope that you will continue to
grapple with ways to reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG).
Global climate change can have a major impact on agriculture, and
yet agriculture can play a positive role in helping to combat climate
change. These two areas are of particular interest to me and my
organization. Prior to joining NET in 2000, I was the Legislative
Director and Director of Agricultural Policy at the White House Climate
Change Task Force, and I previously worked for Senator J. Robert Kerrey
of Nebraska, and at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was while I
worked for Senator Kerrey that I began working on the issue of
agriculture and global climate change. Coming from a largely rural,
agricultural State, Senator Kerrey was concerned first with the impact
of global climate change on agriculture, which, as a business conduced
largely outdoors, may be hardest hit by increased global temperatures,
changes in precipitation, and severe weather events. He was equally
concerned with strategies to deal with climate change in order to
prevent the potentially devastating consequences of unmitigated global
warming. Fortunately, there is a nexus between agriculture and
mitigation strategies to begin dealing with climate change.
U.S. agriculture can make important, cost-effective contributions
to offset a portion of U.S. emissions of GHG in the near-and medium-
term. But it is no panacea, nor is it a solution. With the proper mix
of policies and incentives, agriculture can provide a bridge to a less
fossil carbon-intensive future, while improving the sustainability and
perhaps profitability of a beleaguered but nonetheless vital U.S.
economic sector. Agriculture and climate change policy, approached
correctly, offer truly ``win-win'' opportunities for society and the
environment.
I will limit my remarks today to the U.S. situation and domestic
agricultural policies and practices, but the impacts of these policies
and practices are universal. The same process by which agricultural
soils absorb carbon, leading to improved agricultural sustainability
and soil fertility and reduced erosion, also helps to reverse
desertification and soil degradation in lands the world over.
Forests and forest soils are also important carbon reservoirs in
the U.S. and worldwide. Currently, deforestation, or the cutting and
clearing of forests, accounts for approximately 25 percent of global
GHG emissions, and is responsible for significant environmental
degradation.\1\ Policies to protect forest ecosystems and manage
forests for climate change benefits are extremely important, but are
not the focus of my testimony.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\IPCC, (2001), ``Third Assessment Report Climate Change 2001'',
The Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, IPCC/WMO/UNEP. Summary for Policymakers
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ipcc/ch/pub/un/syreng/spm.pdf.
Global Warming is Occurring As the overwhelming majority of
scientists internationally and in this country have concluded, global
climate change is occurring, and is linked to increased atmospheric
concentrations of GHG.\2\ Evidence continues to accumulate that human
activities and man-made GHG are contribute to global climate change.\3\
Fossil fuel combustion in the U.S. and globally accounts for the
greatest amount of GHG emissions and increasing atmospheric
concentrations, but other activities, including land use, land-use
change and agriculture, also contribute.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\Ibid.
\3\Ibid.
\4\Ibid; U.S. Department of State, U.S. Climate Action Report
2002, Washington, DC, May 2002. Report at http://www.epa.gov/
globalwarming/publications/car/index.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just last week, on July 2, 2003, the World Meteorological
Organization issued an unprecedented alert indicating that record
extremes in weather and climate events were continuing to occur around
the world, stating: ``(r)ecent scientific assessments indicate that, as
the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the
number and intensity of extreme events might increase.''\5\ The
Organization documented recent extreme weather events in several
countries, including the following in the United States:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\World Meteorological Organization, WMO-No 695, Geneva, 2 July
2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``In the United States, there were 562 tornados during May, which
resulted in 41 deaths. This established a record for the number of
tornados in any month. The previous monthly record was 399 tornadoes in
June 1992. In the eastern and southeastern part of the US, wet and cold
conditions prevailed for well over a month. Weekly negative temperature
anomalies of--2 degrees Celsius to--6 degrees Celsius were experienced
in May while precipitation excesses, ranging from 50 mm to 350 mm over
a period of more than 12 weeks starting in March 2003, have been
recorded.''
To prevent dangerous consequences from climate change, the U.S. and
other countries must reduce our reliance on the burning of fossil
energy sources.\6\ Mandatory policies to reduce GHG emissions are
needed to command the resources and ingenuity necessary to convert to a
less fossil-carbon-intensive future, and in a timeframe that prevents
potentially devastating consequences for our society and others. Such
policies, once enacted, will take time to implement. But until the U.S.
begins to approach global climate change with credible policies that
reduce net GHG emissions, we should pursue with vigor strategies such
as agricultural sequestration to help offset as much of our emissions
as possible.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\IPCC, (2001), ``Third Assessment Report Climate Change 2001'',
The Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, IPCC/WMO/UNEP. Summary for Policymakers http://www.ipcc/ch/pub/
un/syreng/spm.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Global Warming is a Threat to Agriculture
U.S. agricultural is a major industry. Farming contributed $80.6
billion (0.8 percent) to the national gross domestic product (GDP) in
2001.\7\ The U.S. agricultural sector provides the safest, most
abundant and economical food and fiber supply in the world, and is the
engine behind U.S. growth and prosperity, literally fueling our ability
to prosper. However, farmers and many rural communities operate on the
financial edge, within narrow profit margins and under variable
environmental conditions. The threat of global warming and potentially
severe weather events jeopardize the very livelihood of farmers and
rural communities, as well as the ability of agriculture to continue to
fuel U.S. prosperity. The potential impact of global climate change on
agriculture should not and cannot be ignored.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis,
http://www.bea.gov/bea/dn2/gpoc.htm).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some general circulation models (GCMs) predict that regional
temperatures and moisture shifts caused by warming trends will require
adaptive changes in agriculture across the country.\8\ However,
predictions for reduced crop yields, increased flooding, droughts,
pests and diseases also raise the possibility that U.S. agricultural
production will be harmed.\9\ U.S. farmers are a resilient, market-
savvy group, keeping up with futures markets and trade boards, reacting
as necessary to optimize profits and remain viable. However,
catastrophic storm events can overwhelm a farmer's resilience and
ability to adapt, as can changes in moisture that can devastate
harvests, forage, and livestock production. Warmer climates also favor
the proliferation of insect pests and crop and livestock diseases.
Potential severe weather events, such as flooding or drought, can
overwhelm not just individual farmers, but entire communities and
regions. The agricultural sector and rural communities alike thus have
vested interests in addressing the threat of climate change.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\International Food and Policy Research Institute, 2020 VISION:
``Global warming changes the forecast for agriculture,'' April 2001.
(http://www.ifpri.org/2020/newslet/nv--0401/nv--0401--Global--
Warming.htm)
\9\ Rosenzweig, C., A. Iglesias, X.B. Yang, P.R. Epstein, and E.
Chivian, ``Climate Change and U.S. Agriculture: The Impacts of Warming
and Extreme Weather Events on Productivity, Plant Disease, and Pests;''
Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School,
May 2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agriculture and Forestry as a Source and Sink of GHG Emissions
Agriculture and forestry currently represent a ``net sink'' in the
U.S., and helped to offset just over 7 percent of U.S. emissions in
1999. The enactment of policies to promote more widespread adoption of
proven management practices to enhance this sink effect can boost this
potential above current ``business as usual'' levels. Agricultural
soils were but 0.6 percent of the total net sink, for instance, but
scientists estimate the soils have the capacity to offset up to 10
percent of U.S. emissions.
Total U.S. emissions in 1999 were 1840 million metric tons of
carbon equivalents (MMTCE).\10\ The agricultural and forestry sectors
contributed roughly 134 MMTCE, or 7 percent of total U.S. emissions,
but also reduced emissions by 270 MMTCE, or nearly 15 percent of total
U.S. 1999 GHG emissions. Thus, agriculture and forestry accounted for a
net reduction of 137 MMTCE, or just over 7 percent of total U.S.
emissions in 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ U.S. Department of State, U.S. Climate Action Report 2002,
Washington, DC, May 2002. Report at http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/
publications/car/index.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Approximately 91 percent of the ``net sink'' effect of agriculture
and forestry (or approximately 125 of the 137 MMTCE) was due to forest
sequestration, including trees, forest soils, and harvested wood.
Agricultural soils accounted for 8 percent of the 137 MMTCE net sink,
or 11 MMTCE.\11\ For both agricultural soils and forests, this
represents the net sink effect under current, ``business as usual''
conditions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\Ibid.
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Agriculture as a source of GHG Emissions
Agriculture contributes emissions of 3 of the 6 GHG's of concern:
carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. For CO2,
agricultural emissions are primarily from fossil fuel use, soil carbon
release, and biomass burning. Methane emissions from agriculture are
primarily from enteric fermentation in ruminant animals, rice
cultivation, and biomass burning. For nitrous oxides, soils,
fertilizers, manures and biomass burning contribute to releases from
agriculture, with the greatest amount coming from the use of
fertilizers.
Reductions from any of these sources can help to offset U.S.
emissions. Scientists and policymakers are working on many of these
areas.
For example, wind power on agricultural lands can reduce some of
our reliance on fossil fuel combustion, as can the production of
renewable energy sources and biofuels produced from agricultural
materials (plant materials, animal wastes). Changes in tillage
practices and the use of cover crops can reduce on-farm fuel use and
nitrogen fertilizer applications rates. Methane from livestock and
manures can be reduced through improved diets and changes in manure
treatment. And soil carbon sequestration can be increased through
improved management practices such as no-till and other conservation
practices, the use of shelterbelts, grass waterways, site specific
management, restoration of wetlands, and improved irrigation
management, to name a few. Taken individually and together, these
practices can make significant contributions toward offsetting our
national emissions.
The Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC), a public-
private partnership dedicated to sharing information and data on
agricultural management systems, estimates that approximately 80
percent of environmental issues that result from cropland and cropping
practices can be corrected with the proper management approaches,
including integrated conservation tillage.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\Conservation Technology Information Center
(WWW.ctic.purdue.edu).
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Production Agriculture as a Sink
I would like to focus specifically on agricultural soils, and
practices that can increase soil carbon sequestration. Changes in
tillage practices can reduce fossil fuel use; result in net
sequestration of CO2 in soils as soil organic carbon, or
humus (the ``life bread'' of soils); reduce nitrous oxide emissions
from soils and fertilizers; improve water quality; and increase
wildlife habitat. Simply put, soil carbon enhances agricultural
sustainability. Fortunately, soil carbon is a component of soil that
can be changed via management practices.
Soil scientists estimate that the potential for U.S. agricultural
soils to sequester additional carbon ranges from 98-276 MMTCE per year
(average 187 MMTCE per year) which represents fully 10 percent of U.S.
annual emissions.\13\ However, this capacity represents the upper
potential for soils, and would only occur if all cropland soils were
immediately managed to maximize carbon uptake. If that were to occur,
the ability of these soils to absorb carbon at these levels would still
fall over time, since soils have a finite ability to absorb carbon,
until a 'saturation' level is achieved. Rates of carbon sequestration
drop as saturation levels are approached. In other words, maximization
of agricultural soil carbon sequestration could mitigate up to 10
percent of our national emissions annually, but only for a 10-to 20-
year period. But that timeframe is enough to offset some of our
emissions as we transition our economy away from the current reliance
on fossil fuels, and toward a less fossil-carbon intensive energy base.
Agriculture can be a band-aid, but it won't prevent global climate
change.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\Lal, R., R.F. Follett, J.M. Kimble, 2003, pre-publication
data.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soil Carbon: Multiple benefits to farmers and society
Agricultural and soil scientists have measured the carbon content
of soils for more than a century; USDA maintains test plots where
they've collected and monitored soil carbon content for well over 100
years. Carbon monitoring in soils did not begin because of a potential
link to global warming, however. The carbon content of soils is
indicative of the ``health'' of soils. Increased soil carbon content or
soil carbon sequestration leads to improved soil ``tilth'' (structure),
thus reducing erosion of soils from wind and water; improved soil
fertility and crop productivity; reduced runoff of agricultural
nutrients and chemicals; and improved air quality.
Soil carbon content is increased via the addition of organic matter
to soils also known as ``humus.'' Plants, via photosynthesis, remove
CO2 from the air for the production of plant biomass, which
over time is sequestered in the soil as soil carbon, or humus. The
carbon remains sequestered and stable in the soil as long as it is not
disturbed or tilled. Tillage or the turning over of soils leads to
exposure of the humus, and the resulting release of carbon. Thus,
traditional tillage practices that ``inverted'' soils have led to the
release of carbon. In this way, conversion of lands for agricultural
uses in this country historically has led to emissions of carbon
dioxide. Traditional tillage practices continue to add to U.S. carbon
releases, albeit at a lower rate, since most agricultural soils that
are traditionally tilled have reached a low-point of carbon emissions,
a near-equilibrium.
Scientists have shown that the adoption of conservation or no-till
by farmers can reverse the historic and continued carbon loss thus
helping to reduce U.S. emissions, while contributing to agricultural
sustainability and ancillary environmental benefits.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\Lal, R., J.M. Kimble, R.F. Follett, and C.V. Cole, ``The
Potential of U.S. Cropland to Sequester Carbon and Mitigate the
Greenhouse Effect,'' Sleeping Bear Press, Inc., 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Farmer's Experiences with No-Till: Practice Confirms Research
Some compelling stories from farmers who have converted to
conservation tillage and no-till farming perhaps best provide a picture
of the many benefits to society and farmers of this management
practice. At a February, 2003 congressional briefing on global warming
and soil carbon sequestration,\15\ Elmon Richards of Richards Farms in
Circleville, Ohio shared his experiences with Senate and House staff.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\February 10-11, 2003 briefing on Agriculture and Climate
Change, sponsored by the National Environmental Trust, the National
Academy of Sciences, the Conservation Technology Information Center,
the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America,
the Soil Science Society of America, and the National Farmers Union;
and hosted by Senators Sam Brownback and Tom Harkin, and Congressmen
Wayne Gilchrest and John Olver.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beginning in the 1970's, Richards Farms began planting their 3,500
acres of corn and soybeans without tilling the soil. By converting to
``no-till,'' they found that the time it took to plant their fields was
significantly reduced, as were fuel use, labor and equipment costs.
Through experimentation they additionally found that by planting crop
rows closer together, the crop canopy developed earlier and reduced the
use of herbicides for weed control. Despite initial reduction in
yields, the Richards' found that after 5 years of complete no-till on
their croplands, yields increased back to pre-conversion rates or even
higher, due mainly to increased soil quality and improved water
infiltration and retention. Additionally, the carbon content of the
soils started to increase, leading to improved aggregate stability and
higher earth worm populations in other words, the soil began to look
more like natural soils, teaming with biological life.
Among the benefits of no-till farming documented by the Richard's
family are:
the need for fewer, smaller tractors;
the need for fewer tractor passes over fields;
reduced fuel use;
reduced labor costs; and
more free time.
More specifically, the tractors the Richards' used for conventional
tillage consumed an average of 3-4 gallons of fuel per acre for
chiseling, disking, field cultivating, planting and spraying. The
smaller no-till tractors consume an average of 0.3 to 0.4 gallons of
fuel per acre for planting and spraying or one-tenth the fuel use per
acre.
If we were to apply the Richards' figures on a national scale, we
can begin to appreciate the potential impacts of just one aspect of
this agricultural management change. Cropland nationwide accounts for
420 million acres, of which about 240 million are used for the major
grain crops. Traditional tillage methods on these 240 million acres
would use approximately 840 million gallons of fuel to till and plant.
Using the Richards' data, fuel use would drop to 96 million gallons
nationwide for no-till planting a savings of 744 million gallons of
fuel annually. Since each gallon of fuel burned releases 6.1 pounds of
carbon to the atmosphere, a reduction of 744 million gallons would
reduce carbon emissions from fuel savings alone by approximately 2.1
MMTCE per year\16\ which does not even account for the carbon
sequestered in the soil!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\Calculation: [(774 million gal. fuel X 6.1 tons carbon per
gal. fuel)/2000 lbs/ton) x 0.907 U.S. tons to metric tons = MMTCE].
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Gallup of Idaho, who is currently President of the Idaho
Grain Grower's Association, offers similar evidence of the benefits of
no-till. Gordon, his wife and sons currently farm about 3,000 acres in
a wheat-barley rotation on the Snake River plateau in Southeast Idaho.
The Gallup's switched to no-till in 1985, and documented the following
results:
Tractor hours reduced from 1,400 to 120 per year;
Water adsorption tests show the soils adsorb at a rate of
3.25 inches per hour of rainfall, compared to the neighbor's
conventionally tilled soils, which adsorb at 0.6 inches per hour;
``Phenomenal soil structure,'' evidenced by rarely having
to clean sediment basins (which collect eroded soil sediments) since
converting to no-till;
Higher yields (higher profit) during drought years,
compared to neighbors who conventionally till;
No significant difference in crop diseases between the
Gallups' fields and neighboring, conventionally tilled fields; and
Carbon content of soils has more than doubled.
Terry Davis of Roseville, Illinois also shared his experiences with
congressional staff at the February briefing. Among the benefits he
emphasized, Terry documented the effect of no-till on water
infiltration, run-off, and soil erosion. He found that carbon
sequestration from no-till:
Significantly improved water infiltration and the water
holding capacity of his soils, and virtually eliminated run-off and
soil loss (compared to neighboring fields experiencing same weather
impacts);
Led to an increase in the organic content of his soils
from 2.1 percent in 1980 to 3.4 percent in 1995 an increase in soil
carbon content of nearly two-thirds; and
Allowed him to cut nitrogen fertilizer applications by 50
percent, which translates into less nitrous oxide emissions and less
leaching of nitrates into groundwater (which would ultimately end up in
the Gulf of Mexico).
Finally, the following data are from farmers in the Colonial Soil
and Water Conservation District in nearby Virginia. Conversion to no-
till planting:
Reduced run-off by 75 percent;
Reduced sediment loss by 98 percent;
Reduced nitrogen fertilizer losses in run-off by 95
percent;
Reduced phosphorus run-off by 92 percent; and
During Hurricane Floyd in 1999 (a 500+ year storm event),
the soils held up incredibly well, showing no evidence of concentrated
flows, a lack of down-stream bank erosion, of sediment deposition, and
affected vegetation.
Barriers to Adoption of Conservation Tillage
The percentage of total planted acres in the U.S. under
conservation tillage rose from 25 percent in 1989 to nearly 37 percent
in 2002.\17\ No-till increased from 5 to 20 percent in that same
period. While not all crops and soils are suited to no-till, policies
to promote conservation tillage could ensure greater adoption rates.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\Conservation Technology Information Center, Crop residue
management data. (WWW.ctic.purdue.edu).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Richards', the Gallups', Terry Davis and other agricultural
producers have attested that landowners are reticent to change from
conventional tillage to no-till for a variety of reasons, including:
tradition and culture; the prohibitive costs of purchasing or renting
new equipment; and the need for technical assistance.
There is a 2-5 year 'risk period' when converting from traditional
to conservation tillage, where management practices are unfamiliar, and
soils need to become ``reestablished'' in the absence of tillage.
Technical assistance is especially important during this period.
However, some farmers are unable to weather the short-term drop in
yields during the 'risk period' even though yields tend to rebound and
in many cases are higher under no-till, once the soil and the farmer
adapt to this management change. Financial incentives may help.
Finally, it is important to ensure that policies to promote
practices that optimize carbon sequestration do not have unintended
(negative) environmental impacts. Assessments of the impacts on other
GHG and on wildlife should be conducted prior to enactment.
Measurement, Monitoring, and Verification of Soil Carbon Content
Soil carbon content and changes in content can be accurately
measured and monitored, and have been for many years. Farmers routinely
collect soil samples to determine fertilizer application needs, and
soil carbon is one of the parameters measured. Over two million such
samples are collected every year, and these samples document changes in
carbon over time. Specific sampling performed at experimental plots
also shows changes in carbon content over time.
Natural variability of soils and carbon content of soils exists,
even within the same field, making it difficult to accurately assess
soil carbon content over large areas without a large number of soil
samples. However, recent research has shown that soil scientists can
apply their knowledge of landforms (topography) to selectively and
precisely measure carbon within fields such that the aggregate carbon
content of the soils can be reported with less than 10 percent
variability.\18\ Such data can then be extended to large areas with the
use of computer modeling, soil maps, and other resource information.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Nishantha, F., G. Watson, C. Rice, J. Kimble, and M. Ranson,
``Establishment of Benchmarks for the Measurement and Monitoring of
Soil Carbon Sequestration,'' pre-publication data.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With additional research, rates of change in soil carbon content
can be calculated and predicted for various management practices, and
remote sensing and other methods can be used to confirm and calibrate
carbon data. Models such as CENTURY are already being used to show
changes in soil carbon content over time in areas as large as the
continental U.S.\19\ Continued work can enhance the accuracy of the
data at smaller spatial scales, to ensure accuracy at the field level
for individual farmers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\Kimble, J.M., R. Lal, and R.F. Follett, eds, ``Agricultural
Practices and Policies for Carbon Sequestration in Soil,'' CRC Press
LLC, 2002.
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Carbon Markets
Carbon markets are forming and operating in this country. The
concept of emissions trading can provide financial opportunities to
farmers who sequester additional carbon (i.e., above ``business as
usual'') on their lands. Agriculture offers the prospect of
sequestering carbon in a low-cost, societally beneficial way for the
emerging carbon market. If carbon tons sequestered on agricultural
lands are to be traded or sold by farmers, it is important that such
issues as baselines, additionality, leakage and permanence be
addressed, and that transparent accounting protocols be developed.
Conclusions
Credible policies to reduce net U.S. GHG emissions are needed to
prevent the potential economic, social, and environmental consequences
of unmitigated climate change. The agricultural sector is particularly
vulnerable to global climate change and severe weather events, but with
the right mix of policies and incentives to enhance its sink effect,
agriculture can also help to mitigate the greenhouse effect by reducing
U.S. GHG emissions. The enhanced sink effect of agriculture can be a
``win-win'' for the sector, for farmers, for society, and the
environment, but it is not a panacea for greater action. Rather, it can
be a useful and cost-effective bridge as we transition to a less fossil
carbon intensive future.
I would be happy to answer any questions you have about any portion
of my testimony.
Thank you.
__________
Statement of Cynthia Rosenzweig, Goddard Institute for Space Studies at
Columbia University
Agriculture and climate are mutually dependent. Their interactions
involve temperature effects, water supply and demand, and fluxes of
carbon through the processes of photosynthesis and respiration. Climate
also affects the crop pests and predators. Climate is important not
only in terms of average conditions, but also in regard to the
frequency and intensity of extreme events, such as floods, droughts,
and heat spells.
Agricultural soils can be both a contributor to and a recipient of
the effects of a changing climate. In the past, land management has
generally resulted in considerable depletion of soil organic matter and
the release of carbon dioxide. Now, there is the potential to restore
soil organic carbon through improved management techniques, enhancing
soil structure and fertility and helping to counter climate change. An
important caveat is that the capacity for agricultural soil carbon
sequestration is constrained by the amount of carbon lost during the
conversion of natural ecosystems to agriculture, so that its
effectiveness as a mitigating activity for climate change is not
unlimited.
After nearly two decades of research on potential impacts of
climate change on agriculture (see Rosenzweig and Hillel, 1998),
attention is now turning to mitigation and adaptation responses.
Mitigation actions such as carbon sequestration in agricultural soils
are aimed at reducing the atmospheric concentration of CO2
and other greenhouse gases, thereby countering climatic change.
Adaptation actions such as changes in crop types and management
practices are responses that optimize production under changing climate
conditions. Research on these actions is proceeding on parallel tracks.
Here, we analyze these response actions and suggest that it is both
useful and necessary for them to be considered jointly. A review of a
combination of approaches, including field experiments, regression
analyses, and modeling studies, leads to the following conclusions
regarding how a changing climate may influence agriculture and how
mitigation and adaptation responses may interact:
1) Agriculture regions will experience change over time. Effects on
agricultural production systems will be heterogeneous across the Nation
and the world. Some regions will experience increases in production and
some declines, due to the presence of minimum and maximum thresholds
for crop growth. Adaptations, such as adjustments in planting dates,
crop types, and irrigation regimes will likely be required. Geographic
shifts in crop growing areas are likely to occur, with associated
changes in production systems. Some production systems will likely
expand while others contract. Although climate-influenced changes to
agriculture are likely in the coming decades, the magnitudes and rates
of these changes are uncertain at the regional scale, given the range
of projected temperature and precipitation changes from global climate
models and the unknown degree of manifestation of direct physiological
effects of increasing CO2 on crops growing in farmers'
fields.
2) Agricultural production in developing countries is more
vulnerable. Despite general uncertainties, studies have consistently
shown that overall production in the mid-and high latitudes is likely
to benefit in the near term (approximately to mid-century), while
production systems in the low-latitudes are likely to decline. This
finding has implications for world food security, since most developing
countries are located in lower-latitude regions. The vulnerability of
developing countries is related to the growth of crops under current
climate conditions nearer their optimum temperature limits and the
potential for greater increases in water stress under a warming
climate. Developing countries also have fewer resources for development
of appropriate adaptation measures to counter negative impacts.
3) Long-term effects on agriculture are negative. If climate change
effects are not abated, agricultural production in the mid-and high-
latitudes is likely to decline in the long term (approximately by the
end of 21st century). These results are consistent over a range of
projected temperature, precipitation, and direct CO2 effects
tested. They are due primarily to detrimental effects of heat and water
stress on crop growth as temperatures rise. Increased climate
variability under climate change is also likely to negatively affect
agriculture.
4) A changing climate will affect mitigation potential. Responses
to a changing climate will contribute to determining which mitigation
techniques are successful, and at what levels, over the coming decades.
Because some carbon-sequestration projects have long durations (?40-50
years needed to accumulate carbon in agricultural soils in temperate
regions), farmers may need to consider which sequestration techniques
have the better chance to succeed under changing climatic regimes. Our
research shows that the soil carbon sequestration potential of
agricultural soils is likely to vary under changing climate conditions
(Fig. 1). If changing climate is not taken into consideration,
calculations of carbon to be sequestered may be in error.
5) Mitigation and adaptation responses are synergistic. Conversely,
mitigation practices can also enhance the adaptation potential of
agricultural systems. For example, carbon sequestration in agricultural
soils leads to more stable soil-water dynamics, enhancing the ability
of crops to withstand drought and floods, both of which may increase
under changing climate conditions. In addition, many of the strategies
proposed for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are
``best practices,'' i.e., they increase input efficiency while limiting
environmental damage. For instance, use of tree shelterbelts can help
to minimize soil erosion and stabilize soil carbon; mulches added
between row crops help to conserve soil water, reduce erosion, and
sequester carbon (Fig. 2).
6) Mitigation practices may help to make the U.S. agriculture
sector ``carbon-neutral.'' A combination of management techniques, from
reduced or no-tillage, to modified irrigation and fertilization
application, has the potential to sequester ?50 million tons of carbon
yearly, approximately matching yearly greenhouse gas emissions from the
U.S. agricultural sector, estimated at ?50 million tons carbon (Fig.
3). Recall, however, the caveat that the capacity for agricultural soil
carbon sequestration is constrained by the amount of carbon previously
lost during conversion to agriculture, so that its effectiveness as a
mitigating activity for climate change is not unlimited.
In conclusion, our research suggests that planning and
implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures in response to the
global climate change issue should be coordinated and proceed hand-in-
hand. Investments in programs and research will be needed to assure
effectiveness in both adaptation and mitigation activities for U.S.
agriculture.
Key References
CAST (Council for Agricultural Science and Technology), 1992.
Preparing U.S. Agriculture for Global Climate Change. Task Force Report
No. 119, Ames, IA.
Fischer, G., Shah, M., van Velthuizen, H., and Nachtergaele, F.O.,
2002. Global Agro-ecological Assessment for Agriculture in the 21st
Century. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and
United Nations, Special Report 118, Laxenburg, Austria.
Rosenzweig, Cynthia and Daniel Hillel. 1998. Climate Change and The
Global Harvest: Potential Effects of the Greenhouse Effect on
Agriculture. Oxford University Press. New York. 324 pp.
Rosenzweig, C. and D. Hillel. 2000. Soils and global climate
change: Challenges and opportunities. Soil Science 165(1):47-56.
__________
Statement of David J. Frederickson, President, National Farmers Union
Chairman Voinovich, Ranking Member Carper, and Members of the
Subcommittee, I am grateful to have the opportunity to submit a
statement on behalf of the National Farmers Union 300,000 independent,
diversified, owner-operated family farms and ranches from 27 States
across the Nation. We commend your efforts today to discuss the complex
issues surrounding agriculture production, carbon sequestration and
climate change.
What we do know is that farmland, rangeland, and forests will play
an important role in meeting the challenge of climate change through
carbon sequestration and renewable bioenergy. Farmers Union members
historically have been very interested in, and our stated policy has
specifically called for, increased funding for carbon sequestration and
bioenergy research, development, and deployment.
We encourage you to significantly expand efforts to conduct a
comprehensive scientific inventory of carbon stored in U.S. soils and
to develop methods to predict how soil carbon levels would be affected
by different practices and policies. For example, over the past few
years the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service has invested over
$3 million in projects to demonstrate and test various means of
reducing greenhouse (methane) gas emissions in agriculture, such as
compost based waste-handling facilities, rotational grazing systems,
and improved feed and forage systems. We suggest that this effort could
be expanded and made more comprehensive.
Our farmers and ranchers also see opportunities for increased
income and increased environmental benefits in projects that will
expand efforts aimed at broadening the use of biomass to produce power,
fuels, and chemicals. In the late 1990's we saw funding for this
specific research at a level of $251 million; $105 million for USDA and
$146 million for the Department of Energy. We encourage you to keep a
close eye on the level of basic research funding that will provide the
necessary data and information that will hopefully make carbon
sequestration and biomass energy and fuels programs a reality for
farmers and ranchers.
Our members are agricultural producers, both row croppers and
ranchers, and they participate in all of USDA agricultural, rangeland,
grassland and forestry conservation programs, in one way or another.
Our members also hope to participate in climate change studies and
pilot projects, especially if these studies and projects benefit the
future of America's family sized farms and ranchers.
Our members are anxious to learn from experiences with farming
methods that promote soil carbon sequestration and improve soil quality
and agricultural sustainability, as these practices can identify
additional benefits beyond carbon sequestration. We have as well
supported greater emphasis on improved farm management techniques,
because we believe that teaching farmers to be the best possible
stewards of their resources is a better long-term approach to
sustainability than simple land retirement.
It is said that the feed-grain crops and soils most prevalent in
the areas farmed by our membership are among the highest in potential
carbon sequestration, especially in our row crop farming States. We
will be glad to see the results of a National Soil Carbon Inventory
that might verify this claim, so that our farmers and ranchers can
better understand and realize the potential benefits they are producing
for climate change efforts, especially now that it is grasped that they
might be considered active participants in a global climate change
carbon sequestration program. Our farmers and ranchers want to
contribute to and participate in programs that produce potential
environmental and biomass energy benefits for our country.
Our membership is also very interested in any studies that will
help us better understand the potential future consequences of global
climate change as it affects the various farming regions of the United
States. We have seen that climate changes brought about by the El Nino
and La Nina events in the past few years have affected the U.S. farming
regions in different ways. We hope to better understand these phenomena
so that out family farmers and ranchers can plan for the future, and so
that policymakers can make voluntary climate change and agricultural
policy more effective for our producers.
However, if there are costs associated with climate change and
carbon sequestration policy approaches that result in an undue burden
borne by the family farm and ranch, we will ask that Congress actively
seek an appropriate mechanism that will provide incentives for the
cash-strapped family owned farm and ranch to participate fully in these
initiatives.
We as well look forward to the further development of legislative
initiatives that have already been offered (that we are aware of) in
this Congress such as Senator Carper's Clean Air Planning Act of 2003
(S. 843); Senator Lieberman's Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 (S. 139);
and Senator Jeffords' Clean Power Act of 2003 (S. 366). We think the
voluntary programs that have been described in these types of
legislative vehicles could be valuable in pushing forward initiatives
that could create useful opportunities for farmers and ranchers.
Thank you for the chance to offer our comments today and we look
forward to working with you and your staff's on these important issues.
__________
Integrating Conservation Principles into the Development of Accounting
Rules and Guidelines for Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration: A White
Paper of the International Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies
Introduction
This paper is intended to serve as a guide to the International
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (IAFWA) member agencies, as
well as the conservation community in general, in developing and
articulating positions relative to pending and future policies and
legislation pertaining to carbon sequestration. Specifically, this
paper will deal with the issue of accounting rules and guidelines that
are to be developed for terrestrial carbon sequestration, and how
conservation principles can and should be integrated into those rules
and guidelines. We will offer the view that carbon sequestration is, in
essence, a conservation issue, with tremendous potential to not only
offset the emissions of greenhouse gases through the storage of carbon,
but also to restore the ecological functions of terrestrial ecosystems
and their capacity to store carbon.
Much in the same way that Farm Bill conservation programs have had
a tremendous impact on the Nation s wildlife and fish habitats since
1986, carbon sequestration programs are likely to be as influential, if
not more so, on the landscapes of tomorrow. Therefore, the conservation
community must devote the same level of attention to the development of
these new programs as we have to the Farm Bill conservation programs
that we are already familiar with. Considering that land in the United
States is a finite resource, which is being subjected to increasing
pressure to provide a variety of societal needs, it is essential that
carbon sequestration initiatives accomplish as many additional
environmental purposes as possible. It will be a poor bargain for
society if efforts to offset greenhouse gases through carbon
sequestration result in a diminishing of other natural resources for
which society would have to pay separately and additionally to correct.
Background
Carbon sequestration can be defined as the capture and secure
storage of carbon that would otherwise be emitted to or remain in the
atmosphere. As the Department of Energy s third approach (in addition
to increased fuel efficiency, and alternative technologies) in managing
greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, carbon sequestration is
believed to have immediate potential to reduce greenhouse gases in ways
and at a cost that is both economically feasible and environmentally
acceptable. The Department of Energy in its ``Carbon Sequestration
Technology Roadmap'' has identified two goals for carbon sequestration,
one of which is to demonstrate environmental acceptability. However,
some in the environmental community have expressed ideological
resistance to carbon sequestration as a greenhouse gas management tool,
primarily due to its being seen as solely an emissions-offset issue,
and a way around other strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
such as increased efficiency of automobiles, or the use of alternative
technologies to produce energy.
In addition to the release of atmospheric carbon through the
emissions of fossil fuels, another major cause of the loss of stored
carbon, as much as 50 percent over the last 50-70 years, has been the
wide-scale alterations in the landscape through de-forestation and
conversion to agriculture, urbanization, and other activities.
According to USDA (2002), ``The dominant drivers in terrestrial carbon
emissions have been the conversion of forest and grassland to crop and
pastureland, and the concomitant depletion of soil carbon from
conventional agricultural management practices.'' This has resulted in
increased carbon emissions to the atmosphere and reduced capacity of
the terrestrial ecosystem to capture and store atmospheric carbon.
On February 14, 2002, President Bush announced his Administration s
Global Climate Change Initiative, which is aimed at reducing the growth
of GHG emissions in the U.S. while sustaining economic growth. The
President established a target of reducing the greenhouse gas intensity
of the U.S. Economy (a measure of the ratio of GHG emissions to Gross
Domestic Product) by 18 percent over the next 10 years. As part of the
Global Climate Change Initiative, a range of new and expanded domestic
energy policies will be implemented, including carbon sequestration. To
accomplish this aspect of the initiative, President Bush ``directed the
Secretary of Agriculture to provide recommendations on further,
targeted incentives for forest and agricultural sequestration of
greenhouse gases. The President further directed the Secretary of
Agriculture, in consultation with the Environmental Protection Agency
and Department of Energy, to develop accounting rules and guidelines
for crediting sequestration projects, taking into account emerging
domestic and international approaches.''
Through terrestrial carbon sequestration, the Department of Energy
has established ``regional improvements in ecosystem stability,
biodiversity and water quality'' as expected outcomes of the ancillary
or collateral benefits of terrestrial carbon sequestration. In other
words, conservation benefits are seen only as a potential byproduct of
terrestrial carbon sequestration. However, there is also potential and
the need to create a paradigm whereby terrestrial carbon sequestration
is seen as an ecosystem restoration tool, providing both carbon storage
benefits and ecosystem restoration benefits. Without this new paradigm
becoming an integral component in the development of carbon storage
programs, the potential for programs with harmful impacts to natural
ecosystems and their health will increase.
Conservation Issues
As the development of accounting rules and guidelines moves
forward, there are a number of issues that the conservation community
should be prepared to address. The resolution of these issues will
greatly influence whether carbon sequestration will be viewed as an
environmental asset or an environmental liability. To strengthen carbon
sequestration s potential as an environmental asset, public agencies
with fish and wildlife population management responsibilities must be
brought into the decisionmaking process.
Terrestrial carbon sequestration, as the third approach
in managing greenhouse gas emissions, will become a conservation
catalyst, much the same way that farm policies and other major land use
policies have been catalysts for large-scale habitat change in the
past. This force for change has both positive and/or negative potential
impacts on ecosystems and their habitats.
Terrestrial carbon sequestration will introduce an
economic variable into land use and land management decisions that will
likely be unprecedented in scope, and unknown in effect. In essence,
carbon sequestration programs will affix an economic value onto an
ecological function, a value which heretofore has never been part of
the equation in making land use or land management decisions.
Without appropriate guidelines and restrictions and/or
incentives, economic forces of carbon sequestration could negatively
influence the ability to restore native habitats and ecosystem
integrity. Non-native species may be shown to possess greater carbon
storage capability than native species, thus creating an economic
market force that will provide cheaper carbon storage methods, but
yield no ecological benefits, or perhaps even cause further degradation
of ecosystems.
Within the environmental community, a number of
organizations harbor an ideological resistance to carbon sequestration
programs, seeing these programs as ways to avoid other alternatives for
reducing greenhouse gases. Without incorporating conservation
principles into the development of guidelines and accounting rules,
ideological resistance to carbon sequestration programs is likely to
become stronger and broader among many mainstream conservation
organizations, especially if carbon programs result in adverse impacts
to floral and faunal communities.
The Farm Bill and Carbon Sequestration
The President s Global Climate Change Initiative has identified the
Farm Bill and its conservation provisions as a primary vehicle for
accomplishing significant carbon sequestration benefits in the next 10
years. In his fiscal year 2003 budget, President Bush requested a $1
billion increase in Farm Bill funding ``as part of a 10-year (2002-20
11) commitment to implement and improve the conservation title of the
Farm Bill, which will significantly enhance the natural storage of
carbon.'' Activities and program objectives pertaining to carbon
sequestration are identified in three titles of the 2002 Farm Bill:
Title 2, Conservation. Sec. 1240H. Conservation
Innovation Grants ``implement projects, such as''. . . . ``(B)
innovative conservation practices, including the storing of carbon in
the soil''
Title 8, Forestry. Sec. 4. Forest Land Enhancement
Program Program Objective #4 is ``Increasing and enhancing carbon
sequestration opportunities.''
Title 9, Energy. Sec. 9009. Cooperative Research and
Extension Projects Purposes:
Developing data addressing carbon losses and gains in
soils and plants (including trees) and the exchange of methane and
nitrous oxide from agriculture;
Understanding how agricultural and forestry practices
affect the sequestration of carbon in soils and plants (including
trees);
Evaluating the linkage between Federal conservation
programs and carbon sequestration;
Developing methods, including remote sensing, to
measure the exchange of carbon and other greenhouse gases sequestered,
and to evaluate leakage, performance, and permanence issues.
It is clear that the Farm Bill will be of emerging importance as a
vehicle for delivering a significant portion of the Nation s carbon
sequestration efforts. Coupled with the Secretary of Agriculture s
responsibilities ``to provide recommendations on further, targeted
incentives for forest and agricultural sequestration of greenhouse
gases'' and ``to develop accounting rules and guidelines for crediting
sequestration projects'', conservation organizations must be prepared
to become engaged in this process to ensure that sound conservation
policies are considered and incorporated into carbon sequestration
program development.
Operating Principles to Guide the Development of Accounting Rules and
Guidelines
The following principles are offered as guiding principles for
IAFWA and its member organizations in developing positions and
recommendations relative to carbon sequestration accounting rules and
guidelines.
Adopt a Conservation-based Vision of Terrestrial Carbon
Sequestration
The vision should recognize that carbon sequestration
is a conservation issue in a fundamental sense, and not just in an
ancillary or collateral sense.
The vision should be eco-regionally based (temperate
forests, forested wetlands, prairies, grasslands, etc.), recognizing
that different ecosystems have inherently different carbon storage
mechanisms and capabilities, and carbon sequestration activities should
be tailored to those capabilities while recognizing the priority fish
and wildlife habitat needs unique to each eco-region.
Apply the Principle of Concurrent Restoration to
determinations.
The Principle of Concurrent Restoration seeks to
restore the natural ecological capability of the terrestrial ecosystem
to store carbon by promoting policies and guidelines that will restore
that ecosystem in an environmentally sustainable way. Carbon
sequestration activities should not diminish other natural resources,
including fish and wildlife.
Principle of Concurrent Restoration: Whereas the process of
terrestrial carbon sequestration involves the restoration of a degraded
ecological function, the restoration of that function should not come
at the expense of other ecological functions and values and should in
fact produce concurrent restoration benefits.
Identify fish and wildlife as public resources that are
managed by States for the benefit of present and future generations.
These public resources make significant contributions
to the Nation s economy through fish and wildlife-related recreation,
with 82 million participants spending over $100 billion in 2001.
Because terrestrial carbon sequestration has the potential to alter the
current landscape and habitats that fish and wildlife depend on, States
occupy an important and unique role as a stakeholder in the development
of these programs. Rules and guidelines that assign value to land use
and that may result in large-scale conversions of habitat require
consultation with State fish and wildlife agencies.
USDA Accounting Rules and Guidelines
As the USDA moves through its process of developing accounting
rules and guidelines, as directed by the President, there are a number
of issues and questions concerning their development that should be
addressed relative to the Principle of Concurrent Restoration for
terrestrial carbon sequestration. Therefore, we offer the following
conservation principles that should be considered in evaluating and
developing recommendations relative to Accounting Rules and Guidelines:
Qualifying activities for terrestrial carbon
sequestration should provide benefits to both carbon sequestration and
ecological restoration. Under Section 1605(b) of the Energy Policy Act
of 1992, the Department of Energy developed a Voluntary Reporting of
Greenhouse Gases Program, including voluntary reporting of carbon
sequestration projects. Within this program, a number of forestry and
agricultural activities are listed with potential carbon sequestration
benefits. Some activities, such as afforestation of agricultural lands,
have the potential to provide ecological benefits if conducted with an
ecological restoration objective. Likewise, such activities could also
adversely impact wildlife habitat if, for instance, exotic species were
used or a monoculture plantation forest were established. The
Department of Energy also recognizes that prairie and grassland
ecosystems hold great promise to provide carbon storage benefits,
though less work has been conducted in these systems compared to
forested systems. Therefore, carbon sequestration programs designed for
prairie and grassland ecosystems should be carefully constructed to
maintain and/or enhance the ecological integrity of the system while
providing carbon storage benefits.
Qualifying activities should be eco-regionally based,
to ensure compatibility of carbon sequestration practice(s) with the
climate and soil characteristics of the area. Incentives should be
established to promote and encourage carbon sequestration projects that
include an ecological restoration component.
Qualifying activities should require or provide
incentives to use native species rather than exotic or invasive species
in carbon sequestration projects.
Qualifying activities should require or provide
incentives for carbon sequestration projects to promote diverse
landscapes utilizing endemic species as opposed to exotic or
monoculture systems (except in cases where restoring natural forests
favor monoculture systems, e.g., longleaf pine ecosystems). These
incentives should be developed for both forested and prairie
ecosystems.
Qualifying activities should encourage and promote the
development of carbon sequestration projects utilizing natural
vegetation systems, as opposed to ``enhanced'' vegetation.
Qualifying activities for primary and secondary
existing forests should include provisions that allow and encourage
thinning and other forest stand improvement practices, when needed, to
reduce excessive stocking levels. This will result in benefits to many
wildlife species, with the added benefit of increased timber quality at
the end of the rotation.
Careful consideration must be given to the integration
of carbon sequestration benefits and credits into existing Farm Bill
conservation programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program and the
Wetlands Reserve Program. Likewise, new Farm Bill conservation
programs, such as the Conservation Security Program and Grassland
Reserve Program have the potential to significantly influence
conservation on private lands, and provide further carbon sequestration
benefits. If carbon sequestration benefits are included as part of the
ranking process for these programs, they should not detract from other
intended conservation benefits to wildlife habitat, soil conservation,
and water quality, and in fact should be structured to enhance these
benefits. If carbon sequestration credits are to be allowed within
these publicly financed programs, then practices should be required to
provide concurrent environmental benefits.
Addressing the issues of additionality, leakage,
permanence, and verification
To ensure that carbon sequestration programs result in
a net gain of stored carbon within an environmentally sustainable
context, the issues of additionality (carbon storage benefits accrued
in addition to what would occur in the absence of a carbon project),
leakage (migration of carbon emitting activities such as logging or
land clearing to other areas outside the project area, effectively
offsetting carbon sequestration benefits), permanence (duration of
carbon storage methods), and verification (methods for measuring and
verifying carbon sequestration benefits) should be addressed with
careful consideration of their ecological impacts.
Addressing the issue of scale
Scale refers to the land area that will be used to
determine baseline carbon storage capacity (no carbon offset programs
in place), and also to evaluate additionality and leakage as carbon
programs are established. The scale for carbon sequestration programs
should be of sufficient size to enable effective monitoring of
additionality and leakage. At a minimum, carbon programs should be
accounted for and reported at the county level. This would allow for
State and region-wide summaries with minimal effort. However,
consideration for an ecological scale is also warranted, which will
require more sophisticated measurements and analyses. Therefore, carbon
projects should be geospatially referenced, to allow for GIS analyses
utilizing remote sensing data and other technologies.
Development of demonstration and research projects
In the energy title (Title IX) of the 2002 Farm Bill,
emphasis is placed on developing demonstration and cooperative research
projects to further the understanding of carbon sequestration on the
carbon cycle, increase the understanding of how agricultural and
forestry practices affect the sequestration of carbon in soils and
plants, develop cost-effective means of measuring and monitoring
changes in carbon pools in soils and plants, evaluate the linkage
between Federal conservation programs and carbon sequestration, and to
establish benchmark standards for future carbon programs. However, none
of these objectives will lead to an evaluation of environmental
acceptance of carbon storage methods, or whether concurrent restoration
benefits will result. Therefore, In addition to these objectives,
demonstration projects should assess concurrent restoration benefits
and the environmental acceptability of carbon sequestration methods.
Demonstration projects should also promote additionality, and not
result in the conversion of native grasslands to forests or other non-
native systems.
Monitoring and evaluation should address not only the
carbon response, but also the ecological response.
A monitoring and evaluation component for a carbon
sequestration program should be able to evaluate the following: 1)
Sequestration estimates and measurement; 2) Baseline development; 3)
Leakage assessment; 4) Permanence; 5) Ecological benefits, including
habitat restoration, water quality, flood storage, etc.
__________
International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
444 North Capitol Street, NW,
Suite 544, Washington, DC 20001, February 28, 2003
Mr. William Hohenstein
Global Change Program Office
United States Department of Agriculture
Room 12-A, J.L. Whitten Building
1400 Independence Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20250-3814
Dear Mr. Hohenstein: The International Association of Fish and Wildlife
Agencies (Association) appreciates the opportunity provided by the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to comment on the
development of revisions to the agriculture and forestry sections of
the Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program and accounting rules and
guidelines for crediting carbon sequestration projects in agriculture
and forestry.
The Association represents all 50 State fish and wildlife agencies
and their interest in the professional management of the Nation s fish
and wildlife resources. Along with fish and wildlife agencies from
Canada and Mexico and many non-governmental conservation organizations
that are contributing members, the Association develops, supports and
defends legislation, rules and policies which safeguard and improve the
well-being of North America s fish and wildlife resources.
Much in the same way that Farm Bill conservation programs have had
a tremendous impact on the Nation s wildlife and fish habitats since
1986, carbon sequestration programs are likely to be as influential, if
not more so, on the landscapes of tomorrow. Considering that land in
the United States is a finite resource, which is being subjected to
increasing pressure to provide a variety of societal needs, it is
essential that carbon sequestration initiatives accomplish as many
additional environmental purposes as possible. It will be a poor
bargain for society if efforts to offset greenhouse gases through
carbon sequestration result in a diminishing of other natural resources
for which society would have to pay separately and additionally to
correct.
The Association believes that carbon sequestration is, in essence,
a conservation issue, with tremendous potential to not only offset the
emissions of greenhouse gases through the storage of carbon, but also
to restore the ecological functions of terrestrial ecosystems and their
capacity to store carbon. Rather than viewing terrestrial carbon
sequestration activities as simply a carbon storage mechanism that may
have some ancillary or collateral conservation benefits that occur by
chance, we believe carbon sequestration activities should be viewed as
an ecosystem restoration tool, with the express purpose of providing
both carbon storage benefits and ecosystem restoration benefits. Rules
and guidelines developed for greenhouse gas reporting and sequestration
accounting should make clear the expectation that qualifying activities
will provide benefits to both carbon sequestration and ecological
restoration and protection. The Association offers the following
operating principles to guide development of accounting rules and
guidelines by USDA and the Department of Energy (DOE):
Adopt a conservation-based vision of terrestrial carbon
sequestration. The vision should recognize that carbon sequestration is
a conservation issue in a fundamental sense, and not just in an
ancillary or collateral sense. The vision should be eco-regionally
based (temperate forests, forested wetlands, prairies, grasslands,
etc.), recognizing that different ecosystems have inherently different
carbon storage mechanisms and capabilities, and carbon sequestration
activities should be tailored to those capabilities.
Apply the Principle of Concurrent Restoration to
determinations. The Principle of Concurrent Restoration seeks to
restore the natural ecological capability of the terrestrial ecosystem
to store carbon by promoting policies and guidelines that will restore
that ecosystem in an environmentally sustainable way. Carbon
sequestration activities should not diminish other natural resources,
including fish and wildlife.
Principle of Concurrent Restoration: Whereas the process of
terrestrial carbon sequestration involves the restoration of a
degraded ecological function, the restoration of that function
should not come at the expense of other ecological functions and
values and should in fact produce concurrent restoration benefits.
Fish and wildlife are public resources that are managed
by States for the benefit of present and future generations. The
economic benefits generated by the Nation s fish and wildlife resources
are enormous, with 82 million U.S. residents 16 years old and older
participating in fish and wildlife associated recreation and spending
over $100 billion in 2001. Because terrestrial carbon sequestration has
the potential to alter the current landscape and habitats that fish and
wildlife depend on, States occupy an important and unique role as a
stakeholder in the development of these programs. Rules and guidelines
that assign value to land use and that may result in large-scale
conversions of habitat require consultation with State fish and
wildlife agencies.
Without incorporating these operating principles into the
development of guidelines and accounting rules, ideological resistance
to carbon sequestration programs is likely to become stronger and
broader among many mainstream conservation organizations, especially if
carbon programs result in adverse impacts to floral and faunal
communities.
As the USDA and DOE move through the process of developing
accounting rules and guidelines, there are a number of issues and
questions concerning their development that we believe must be
addressed relative to the Principle of Concurrent Restoration for
terrestrial carbon sequestration:
Qualifying activities for terrestrial carbon
sequestration should provide benefits to both carbon sequestration and
ecological restoration. Under DOE's Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse
Gases Program, a number of forestry and agricultural activities are
listed with potential carbon sequestration benefits. Some activities,
such as afforestation of agricultural lands, have the potential to
provide ecological benefits if conducted with an ecological restoration
objective. Likewise, such activities could also adversely impact
wildlife habitat if, for instance, exotic species were used or a
monoculture plantation forest were established. DOE also recognizes
that prairie and grassland ecosystems hold great promise to provide
carbon storage benefits, though less work has been conducted in these
systems compared to forested systems. Therefore, carbon sequestration
programs designed for prairie and grassland ecosystems should be
carefully constructed to maintain and/or enhance the ecological
integrity of the system while providing carbon storage benefits.
Qualifying activities should be eco-regionally based,
to ensure compatibility of carbon sequestration practice(s) with the
climate and soil characteristics of the area. Incentives should be
established to promote and encourage carbon sequestration projects that
include an ecological restoration component.
Qualifying activities should require or provide
incentives to use native species rather than exotic or invasive species
in carbon sequestration projects.
Qualifying activities should require or provide
incentives for carbon sequestration projects to promote diverse
landscapes utilizing endemic species as opposed to exotic or
monoculture systems (except in cases where restoring natural forests
favor monoculture systems, e.g., longleaf pine ecosystems). These
incentives should be developed for both forested and prairie
ecosystems.
Qualifying activities should encourage and promote the
development of carbon sequestration projects utilizing natural
vegetation systems, as opposed to ``enhanced'' vegetation.
Qualifying activities for primary and secondary
existing forests should include provisions that allow and encourage
thinning and other forest stand improvement practices, when needed, to
reduce excessive stocking levels. This will result in benefits to many
wildlife species, with the added benefit of increased timber quality at
the end of the rotation.
Careful consideration must be given to the integration
of carbon sequestration benefits and credits into existing Farm Bill
conservation programs such as CR? and WRP. Likewise, new Farm Bill
conservation programs, such as the Conservation Security Program and
Grassland Reserve Program have the potential to significantly influence
conservation on private lands, and provide further carbon sequestration
benefits. If carbon sequestration benefits are included as part of the
ranking process for these programs, they should not detract from other
intended conservation benefits to wildlife habitat, soil conservation,
and water quality, and in fact should be structured to enhance these
benefits. Carbon sequestration credits should be allowed within these
publicly financed programs in ways that will provide concurrent
restoration benefits. All carbon sequestration projects developed with
government financing should be clearly identified and tracked as such
to distinguish them from privately financed projects.
How will demonstration and/or research projects be
developed? In the energy title (Title IX) of the 2002 Farm Bill,
emphasis is placed on developing demonstration and cooperative research
projects to further the understanding of carbon sequestration on the
carbon cycle, increase the understanding of how agricultural and
forestry practices affect the sequestration of carbon in soils and
plants, develop cost-effective means of measuring and monitoring
changes in carbon pools in soils and plants, evaluate the linkage
between Federal conservation programs and carbon sequestration, and to
establish benchmark standards for future carbon programs. However, none
of these objectives will lead to an evaluation of environmental
acceptance of carbon storage methods, or whether concurrent restoration
benefits will result. Therefore, in addition to these objectives,
demonstration projects should assess concurrent restoration benefits
and the environmental acceptability of carbon sequestration methods.
Demonstration projects should also promote additionality, and not
result in the conversion of native grasslands to forests or other non-
native systems.
How will additionality, leakage, permanence, and
verification be addressed? To ensure that carbon sequestration programs
result in a net gain of stored carbon within an environmentally
sustainable context, the issues of additionality (carbon storage
benefits accrued in addition to what would occur in the absence of a
carbon project), leakage (migration of carbon emitting activities such
as logging or land clearing to other areas outside the project area,
effectively offsetting carbon sequestration benefits), permanence
(duration of carbon storage methods), and verification (methods for
measuring and verifying carbon sequestration benefits) should be
addressed with careful consideration of their ecological impacts. The
concept of independent third party verification of emission reductions
could also be applied to verification of ecosystem restoration benefits
by enlisting the State agency with resource management responsibility
(e.g., the State fish and wildlife agency) to verify project benefits,
such as whether the project contributes to fish and wildlife resource
management objectives.
How should the issue of scale be incorporated? Scale
refers to the land area that will be used to determine baseline carbon
storage capacity (no carbon offset programs in place), and also to
evaluate additionality and leakage as carbon programs are established.
The scale for carbon sequestration programs should be of sufficient
size to enable effective monitoring of additionality and leakage. At a
minimum, carbon programs should be accounted for and reported at the
county level. This would allow for State and region-wide summaries with
minimal effort. However, consideration for an ecological scale is also
warranted, which will require more sophisticated measurements and
analyses. Therefore, carbon projects should be geospatially referenced,
to allow for GIS analyses utilizing remote sensing data and other
technologies.
T3Monitoring and evaluation should address not only the
carbon response, but also the ecological response. A monitoring and
evaluation component for a carbon sequestration program should be able
to evaluate the following: 1) Sequestration estimates and measurement;
2) Baseline development; 3) Leakage assessment; 4) Permanence; 5)
Ecological benefits, including habitat restoration, water quality,
flood storage, etc.
The Association commends USDA and DOE for soliciting input from
stakeholders on revisions to the Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting
Program and the accounting rules and guidelines for carbon
sequestration projects through public workshops and the opportunity to
submit written comments. The Association looks forward to working with
USDA and DOE as the process moves forward to insure that conservation
benefits become an integral part of the reporting and accounting rules
and guidelines.
Sincerely,
John G. Baughman,
Executive Vice President,
National Farmers Union.