News: Inside Dems’ internal climate feud

Monday, April 1, 2024

Inside Dems’ internal climate feud

Apr 01, 2024

By Garrett Downs, Meredith Lee Hill and Marcia Brown

QUICK FIX

— President Joe Biden and Democrats are running hard on their signature climate law ahead of November. But USDA’s implementation of billions in climate-ag funding is alarming key progressives on Capitol Hill.

— Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) acknowledged lawmakers are divided over the issue. But, she also sought to downplay any potential fallout among climate-focused voters over the intraparty row.

— EXCLUSIVE: A group of lawmakers are pressing Senate leaders to oppose proposed legislation — in the farm bill or another vehicle — that would limit how state and local governments can regulate the use of pesticides.

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Driving the Day

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, when asked in a brief interview about some progressive lawmakers and advocates' concerns that new practices don’t target greenhouse gas reductions strongly enough, replied: “I trust the professionals.” | Francis Chung/POLITICO

CLIMATE-SMART FIGHT: Key progressives on Capitol Hill are alleging that Biden’s USDA is undermining the Inflation Reduction Act and its goals to reduce U.S. emissions by expanding what qualifies as a “climate-smart” agriculture project.

Politically, Biden has a tightrope to walk with the direction of the IRA’s climate-focused agriculture program ahead of November. Expanding it, as his USDA is doing, could help the climate funding reach more farmers as Democrats struggle to win back rural voters.

But it also risks backlash from progressives, who are incensed that many of the dozen or so newly allowed practices are less targeted to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and are also subsidizing the country’s largest “factory” farms that are a big source of emissions.

“I’m not happy about it,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a House Agriculture Committee member, told MA. “This is not the direction I would like them to go.”

Progressives like McGovern, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and others are demanding Biden reverse course.

The intraparty tensions are rising just as Democrats, including those in tough races, are trying to use the IRA’s nearly $20 billion climate-focused agriculture investment to rally young and climate-focused voters as they seek to hold the White House and Senate, and win back the House majority.

STABENOW WEIGHS IN: Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who is also a member of Democratic leadership, dismissed any potential fallout among progressive and climate-focused voters over the intraparty row.

“I think we’ll be fine,” Stabenow told MA in a recent interview. “I think people — they're thrilled to have the climate money.”

Stabenow said she hadn’t reviewed all of USDA’s newly allowed practices for the IRA money. But in contrast to Booker, who strongly opposes IRA funds being used for practices like methane digesters, Stabenow argues it’s better to get as many people adopting climate-friendly farming practices as possible.

“Senator Booker and I are just on opposite ends on this,” Stabenow said, adding she supports the use of methane digesters. “Because I believe methane is 25 percent more dangerous than carbon and so keeping them out of the atmosphere from a climate standpoint is critical.”

“I appreciate the other concerns that people have, and certainly I share in terms of the large corporate farms, but from a climate standpoint, methane is very dangerous and we need to deal with that,” Stabenow added.

Farm bill fallout: The fight over the IRA’s climate-ag money is only set to heat up in coming months on Capitol Hill. The fate of the funding is at the center of the impasse between Hill Democrats and Republicans. We noted last week that House Republicans, in their latest push to unveil a farm bill draft this spring, are still pressing to repurpose some of the funds in order to pay for some key farm programs and other bipartisan priorities in the legislation.

USDA VIEW

VILSACK ON CLIMATE-SMART FIGHT: Top USDA officials have argued that the newly allowed practices are “provisional” and all provide climate benefits, but they will be evaluated for their climate value in the coming months. For example, the department says irrigation pipelines funded by the IRA will result in reduced energy use on farms.

As we’ve noted, Biden’s USDA has also struggled to provide American taxpayers with detailed data tracking emissions from climate-smart ag projects.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, when asked in a brief interview about some progressive lawmakers and advocates' concerns that the new practices don’t target greenhouse gas reductions strongly enough, replied: “I trust the professionals.”

“They understand that a lot of what is on that list are things that actually will result in reduced greenhouse gasses or carbon being sequestered and we want to encourage that,” Vilsack added.

PESTICIDES

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) joined environmentalists Thursday in opposing a move to ease pesticide rules. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

FIRST IN MA: Twenty Democratic lawmakers are urging Senate leadership to reject proposed legislation that would prevent state and local governments from implementing additional safeguards on the use of pesticides, they write in a new letter.

“State and local governments have long acted to supplement federal pesticide laws to protect people from the serious health problems--including neurological and behavioral issues, cancer, and Parkinson’s Disease--that can be caused by unsafe exposure to pesticides,” the senators write. They point to at least 35 states with such laws.

One bill the lawmakers point to, the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act, boasts bipartisan support. Supporters of the bill say that it’s intended to clarify that only the EPA has the authority to regulate pesticide labels. Opponents say that it would preempt states from requiring additional label disclosures and even insulate pesticide makers like Bayer and Syngenta from litigation.

“Preemption proposals like these would eliminate laws that give consumers the ability to make informed decisions about using a pesticide product, based on the product’s risks to their health,” the senators write, adding that the law would also prevent users from suing.

A spokesperson for Bayer told MA that without legislation, billions of dollars in litigation over EPA-approved products could still occur. And, that "the future of glyphosate and other valuable crop protection tools and critical innovations may be at stake,” absent the legislation.

A Syngenta spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

A letter of support for the ag labeling bill in June 2023 had dozens of sign-ons, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers Union and dozens of commodity and livestock groups.

State-level bills: Even as lawmakers are battling over federal legislation, a series of similar bills are cropping up in a handful of states. The bills would bar anyone who uses pesticides from suing the manufacturers for failing to disclose the possible risks associated with exposure to these pesticides.

“This is the same strategy that we've seen corporations use in the asbestos context, in the tobacco context, and in any sort of product manufacturer that's trying to get away with causing widespread harm over decades,” said Daniel Hinkle, senior state affairs counsel for the American Association for Justice.

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Row Crops

— A report finds that more than half of the water from the Colorado River is used for agriculture. (ABC News)

— Oregon’s Ag Department reverses regulations on dairy farms. (Oregon Public Broadcasting)

— Angry farmers are reshaping Europe. (The New York Times)

THAT’S ALL FOR MA! Drop us a line: gdowns@politico.com, meredithlee@politico.com, marciabrown@politico.com, mmartinez@politico.com, abehsudi@politico.com and ecadei@politico.com.