Sustainable Food

Collin Peterson, Congress in Denial

by Natasha Chart

categories: Climate, Corporate Influence, Farm Economics, Livestock, Organic, Policy

Published June 23, 2009 @ 02:24PM PT

Collin Peterson may be the only person in politics who believes in global warming and is thrilled about its prospects for agriculture. Ahem. That this suggests, as Brad Johnson points out over at the Wonkroom, that he doesn't actually believe in it must remain in the realm of conjecture for now.

But seriously, Peterson said, "We’ve just had the biggest floods and coldest winters we’ve ever had. They’re saying to us [that climate change is] going to be a big problem because it’s going to be warmer than it usually is; my farmers are going to say that’s a good thing since they’ll be able to grow more corn."

Are there actually any farmers who are pro-flood and drought? That question sort of answers itself. As further noted at the Wonkroom:

The report Peterson dismissed as being good news for farmers also shows that if no action is taken to halt global warming, the U.S. grain belt could see one to two months of heat waves over 100°F and two to three months of heat waves over 90°F by the end of the century. Corn, by the way, “will fail to reproduce at temperatures above 95°F.”

Chris Bowers amply described the political situation around Peterson's hold up of the climate bill, which got around 300 pages added to the still-fluid legislation.

Peterson's getting information in hearings and political backing from people like American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman, who thinks the only agricultural implications of climate change are higher energy costs.

However, the Congressional Budget Office indicates that the Waxman-Markey bill's per household costs will average $175 per year, and save $40 per year for households making under $20,000. And indeed, that estimate pessimistically excludes efficiency savings and job creation, understating its likely benefits.

Imperfect as the current (and evolving, probably up until the morning of its actual release) bill is, it would still benefit low-income households and cost most of us less than the price of a postage stamp per day. The benefits in carbon savings are expected to be significant, even if clean energy jobs would not be increased past a baseline, business-as-usual scenario.

Nonetheless, Peterson stood up not only for Big Ag, whose largest factory livestock farm interests had already been exempted from any climate regulation, he stood up for Big Coal, which had already secured huge concessions. Considering that the Obama White House refused to release records of their meetings with coal executives, Peterson probably got very little pushback on that. Latest evidence to date that large corporations with lots of lobbying clout by and large don't give a flying frak about the rest of us. They'll burn the whole planet down around our ears and their bought and paid for Congress will give them the matches.

So they'll keep lying about the 'terrible' costs of preserving our planetary life support systems, lie about organic agriculture, and pay (off) as many people as it takes to convince our government to ignore the public interest.

Good job, guys.

There will be amendments offered to the Waxman-Markey bill on Thursday, but based on what I'm hearing, I expect very little. For all that I disagree with Tom Laskawy's suggestion that the bill is a 'good enough' measure, he's right that we have very little time in which to be wrong on this, very little time left for denial.