Clean Energy & Climate Bill a Boon to Virginia Farmers

Posted by The Green Miles

Public News Service reports Virginia farmers stand to reap the benefits of Congressional action on clean energy & climate change:

Virginia's farmers may get a boost for burying carbon in the soil thanks to new federal legislation that's currently before Congress. Federal lawmakers returned this week to consider a bill that, for the first time, addresses climate change. Farmer's groups, such as the National Farmers Union and the American Farmland Trust support the bill, in part because the unpredictable weather conditions that are likely to occur due to climate change will greatly affect farming. In addition, the bill contains provisions to pay farmers for working to lower their environmental impact.

Nathan Lott, of the Virginia Conservation Network, says farmers have heard that the legislation may increase their fuel, oil and fertilizer costs, but he says those increases will be offset by new types of payments.

"Farmers might actually have a new revenue stream to be paid for helping to keep carbon out of the atmosphere; to put the black back into the soil, as they say."

And in potentially more good news for the Chesapeake Bay, many of the same farming practices that will protect Virginia's climate will also protect its waters. Rewarding farmers for using sustainable practices instead of just plopping tons of commercial fertilizers on their fields would help reduce harmful runoff.

A "game-changing play" on Chesapeake Bay?

Let's hope this works out a lot better than past efforts to "save the Chesapeake Bay":

The federal government said Thursday that it would seek an unprecedented role as the environmental police of the Chesapeake Bay -- enforcing new rules on farmers and keeping a closer eye on state-level bureaucrats -- in an effort to halt the estuary's long decline.

If the Environmental Protection Agency's plan works, a bay known for soft-touch oversight could become one of the most aggressively regulated bodies of water in the country.

[...]

On Thursday, environmental groups said they were hopeful that this time would be different.

They said the EPA is threatening to do something it has never done before -- punish states that don't meet specific environmental targets. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation called these ideas "the edge pieces of the jigsaw puzzle" required to really improve the bay.

"That would be a game-changing play in this really complicated game," said Tommy Landers of the group Environment Maryland. "What we have been calling for is a commitment to enforcement and accountability. And we are seeing the signs of that from the EPA."

UPDATE: More excellent news from the EPA, this time pertaining to the abomination known as "mountaintop removal coal mining," e.g., destroying entire ecosystems and ruining entire communities so - as Jim Webb wrote in "Born Fighting" - "the man" can get his coal and his (exorbitant) profits.

On Chesapeake Bay, We Have Met the Enemy, and...

I couldn't agree more with the Baltimore Sun's editorial this morning on the much ballyooed pledge by Tim Kaine, Martin O'Malley and EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson "to clean up the bay no later than 2025" and to set "two-year goals for reducing levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, key pollutants harming the bay." Here's what the Sun has to say about all of this:

Not to mock Gov. Martin O'Malley, Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty or the other officials who traipsed to Mount Vernon Tuesday to announce plans to "accelerate bay restoration efforts," but watching the event without healthy skepticism is to ignore too many years of experience.

While there are some signs of progress in efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay (a patch of bay grass or a revival of an aquatic species), too many recent scientific report cards portray it as failing overall, and in many cases badly so, for the palest spirit of optimism to prevail.

So, if 10-year goals won't save the Bay, what about 2-year goals? 1 year and 9 month goals? 3 month and 2 week goals? Zzzzzzzz.

In all seriousness, there's a much more fundamental problem here, and that is, as the Sun says: "What the Virginia and Maryland politicians have demonstrated time and time again is that they are unwilling to tackle the serious polluters."

So what do we need to do? In short, we need to look in the mirror for a change and get serious - personally and politically.

...To start, a much more ambitious (or at least enforceable) smart growth policy that curbs sprawl in favor of growth in established urban areas. It would mean an end to state budgets that shortchange regulators and conservation efforts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would need to take a far more aggressive approach to regional enforcement to ensure all jurisdictions complied.

Finally, it would require heightened public outrage so that feet are truly held to the fire and a greater sense of urgency prevails. It's one thing to put a bumper sticker on your car; it's another to demand action, especially at the ballot box. Voters must be willing to eradicate any species of politician who talks big but acts small in defense of our state's most treasured natural resource.

Personally, I'd broaden that last point out from the Bay to include ALL important environmental issues (from water pollution to sprawl to global warming). If politicians, "D" or "R," aren't willing to take bold actions, then we should toss them out and try other politicians. But the bottom line is that politicians will only be as courageous as we force them to be. In politics, as in life, occasionally there's a "profile in courage," but if we hold our breaths waiting for those rare situations, the bay will turn algae-green while we turn asphyxiated-blue. I don't know about you, but I suggest that we might want to try a different approach.