Bond's New Approach: Climate Change Bill Really Bad If We Only Read Parts of It
Kit Bond took another shot at Congress' proposed comprehensive climate change legislation today. Bond's primary concern with the legislation--that piling it on top of other bills will create an unnecessarily tall stack of paper--has apparently not swayed many of his colleagues, so he's trying a new approach.
Today, Bond took to cherry-picking content from a memo drafted especially for him, without mentioning either of the following facts about the analysis:
- It doesn't look at any of the positive benefits or credits in the proposed legislation, and
- It's based on research from a company with a history of producing questionable research on behalf of polluting interests.
This morning, Bond pointed to a recent analysis from the University of Missouri's Food & Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) which shows, in Bond's words, that the Waxman-Markey climate change bill "will cost the average Missouri farmer up to $30,000 per year." Except, by its own admission, the FAPRI study Bond uses to support his opposition doesn't consider any of the positive impacts of selling carbon offsets or energy efficiency credits in the bill, and ignores any gains from increased biofuel production.
From the first page of the study:
This report is not a full analysis of the impact of H.R. 2454 on Missouri crop producers. This report does not incorporate likely responses by producers to these changes in production costs. As input costs increase, producers could adjust input usage and the mix of crops produced, with implications for crop yields, production and prices. Crop prices would also be affected by any impacts of H.R. 2454 on biofuel production. This analysis also does not consider any gains that Missouri crop producers could receive by selling carbon credits. All of these issues remain important to include in any overall analysis of H.R. 2454.
These issues are "important to include in any overall analysis" of the legislation, but not convenient for Bond to include in his selective reading of the study. He ignores these key caveats and proclaims that the study concludes the cap and trade bill will "drastically increase farmer costs."
The study on which FAPRI based its analysis was completed by CRA International, which has produced questionable research on energy and pollution reduction costs in the past. Last year, CRA International was hired by mining companies to provide favorable data for opposing legislation that would limit their ability to pollute as they pleased. Not surprisingly, an EPA analysis showed the opposite of the pollution company-funded study.
One of CRA's Directors even has a history of colossally bad predictions about Missouri's electricity rates. In 1989, David Carlisle helped predict huge increases in Missouri electricity rates if Congress passed legislation to cut down on acid rain. According to the Center for American Progress:
Of the 10 states [the study produced by Carlisle's firm] specifically identified...would suffer some of the highest rate hikes, the average electricity price in 2006 dollars was 35 percent lower in 2006. Missouri’s electricity rate fell nearly 59 percent, almost a 71 percent difference than what the Edison Electric Institute predicted. Their Illinois and West Virginia predictions had similar outcomes, with a difference of nearly 68.5 percent and 55 percent respectively. [...]
How could the Edison Electric Institute so badly miscalculate their predictions? Because the study failed to account for the innovation and savings that occur once managers and engineers have binding reduction targets with firm deadlines. In other words, Temple, Barker and Sloane’s study could not predict or account for future ingenuity.
Indeed, the study cited by Bond is far from the definitive perspective on how the bill may impact farmers. The director of Iowa State University’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development estimates the legislation will raise "production costs for corn and soybean operations by less than $5 an acre."
And, in a point that continues to be lost in this debate, the FAPRI study and Kit Bond hysteria don't consider any of the costs to farmers of doing nothing about global warming and climate change, which Bond says is not a "crisis." One can't fault FAPRI for this in their study -- that's not what Bond asked them to do -- but it's a question Bond and other opponents need to answer. Human-caused global warming and climate change is already affecting agriculture, and will continue to do so in unexpected ways. If the current legislation is untenable -- what is the counter-proposal?
Image credit: PudDef.net
