Manifestos for the next president

Climate action plans for the first 100 days and beyond

Posted by Maywa Montenegro (Guest Contributor) at 1:59 PM on 12 Jun 2008

Read more about: politics | climate | ag policy | ethanol | energy

I am blown away by the depth and scope of the nonpartisan Presidential Climate Action Project. Its centerpiece is a first-100-days plan, detailed in a 300-page report, covering issues ranging from energy policy and green collar jobs to the farm bill and ethanol subsidies to the Law of the Sea. My only quibble is the continued support for grain ethanol -- although the project does advocate quick turnover to cellulosic sources -- how quick that evolution will be is a huge outstanding question. Apart from the report, the PCAP website also features a very cool Who's Who in Climate Action, a database of climate professionals and a Contact the Candidates link, where you can submit your own suggestions to the presidential hopefuls (the page needs to be updated; although I'm sure Giuliani would still welcome email about the state of the planet).

And PCAP isn't the only player in the game. As Elizabeth Kolbert reports, a number of think tanks and coalitions have been cranking out climate recommendations for the next president of the United States. Whoever that turns out to be, the next president's problem won't be a lack of guidelines or expert advice ... if anything, it will be the opposite.

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50% by 2030 too slow.

ties up lots of money in the first decade in too-moderate cuts. come 2020 you still have what, nearly 90% of infrastructure to fix? we don't want to go through this cycle twice.

by hapa at 2:38 PM on 12 Jun 2008

Same old, same old on ethanol

Ironically, the chapter on Agriculture and Rural America starts off with a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself."

That quote was made during the dust bowl years of the early 1930s, when the southern Great Plains was loosing millions of tons of soil thanks to the ploughing up of land that had for eons supported native grasses.

Under Part 6, "Manage the evolution of ethanol fuels", the report calls for "mitigating the environmental damage from grain ethanol production and improving its net-energy and net-greenhouse gas profile, while facilitating a transition to cellulosic ethanol."

I have spoken to political appointees in the government who are great corn-ethanol fans, and they would maintain that corn farmers are already using low-till and no-till cultivation methods and precision fertilizer application, "so what's the problem?". The only transition they're interested in is getting government-funded cellulosic-ethanol plants up and running as soon as possible so that they can make money selling corn stover as well as corn kernels.

PCAP's approach is consistent with the industry's assertion that corn-ethanol serves as a "bridge" to cellulosic ethanol. Would PCAP be content if the main cellulosic ethanol feedstock were corn stover? Second, the report is completely silent on the issue of current biofuel subsidies and mandates, and whether they are efficient. For how long are the PCAP authors willing for the government to support conventional ethanol production, and do they agree with the new Renewable Fuels Standard, which mandates a doubling of corn-ethanol production by 2015? Would they advocate continuing to subsidize that production (at more than $7 billion per year) indefinitely? What kind of impact on grain prices would they consider acceptable, and would they introduce any kind of relief valve in the mandates in the event that pestilence or adverse weather substantially reduces the harvest?

As for biodiesel, they mention it in passing in the third paragraph, and that's all. What is their opinion on continuing to support it at a buck a gallon? What about the trade tensions that this subsidy is causing, through the practice of "splash-and-dash", for one of the USA's main trading partners, Europe? Do they realize that last year the EU imported 1 million tonnes (300 million gallons) of subsidized biodiesel from the United States last year, at a cost to the U.S. Treasury of $300 million?

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 11:57 PM on 12 Jun 2008

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