[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
GLOBAL WARMING'S GROWING CONCERNS: IMPACTS ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SELECT COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
AND GLOBAL WARMING
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 18, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-6
Printed for the use of the Select Committee on
Energy Independence and Global Warming
globalwarming.house.gov
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Washington, DC 20402-0001
SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
AND GLOBAL WARMING
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
JAY INSLEE, Washington Wisconsin, Ranking Member
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona
HILDA L. SOLIS, California GREG WALDEN, Oregon
STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
South Dakota JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
JOHN J. HALL, New York
JERRY McNERNEY, California
------
Professional Staff
Gerard J. Waldron, Staff Director
Aliya Brodsky, Chief Clerk
Bart Forsyth, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, opening statement............... 1
Prepared Statement........................................... 3
Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Wisconsin, opening statement................. 5
Hon. Earl Blumenauer, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Oregon, opening statement................................... 6
Hon. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a Representative in Congress from
the State of South Dakota, opening statement................... 7
Hon. John Salazar, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Colorado, opening statement.................................... 7
Prepared Statement........................................... 8
Hon. Emanuel Cleaver II, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Missouri, opening statement........................... 12
Prepared Statement........................................... 13
Witnesses
Jerry Hatfield, Supervisory Plant Physiologist, USDA............. 14
Prepared Statement........................................... 17
Heather Cooley, Senior Researcher, Pacific Institute............. 31
Prepared Statement........................................... 33
Answers to submitted questions............................... 86
Tom Troxel, Director, Black Hills Forest Resource Association.... 48
Prepared Statement........................................... 50
Answers to submitted questions............................... 93
Ford B. West, President, The Fertilizer Institute................ 60
Prepared Statement........................................... 62
Answers to submitted questions............................... 104
Johannes Lehmann, Associate Professor of Soil Fertility
Management/Soil Biogeochemistry, Cornell University............ 66
Prepared Statement........................................... 68
Answers to submitted questions............................... 107
Submitted Materials
Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Tennessee, a fact sheet from AIM-AG entitled
``Tennessee Agriculture Facts''................................ 78
GLOBAL WARMING'S GROWING CONCERNS: IMPACTS ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
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THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 2009
House of Representatives,
Select Committee on Energy Independence
and Global Warming,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:33 a.m. in Room
2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward J. Markey
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Markey, Blumenauer, Herseth
Sandlin, Salazar, Cleaver, Speier, Inslee, Sensenbrenner, and
Blackburn.
Staff present: Ana Unruh-Cohen and Aliya Brodsky.
The Chairman. This hearing is called to order.
On Tuesday, the Obama administration released a new report,
``Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.'' It is
the most comprehensive look at the current and potential
impacts of global warming on the United States to date.
The results are sobering. Temperatures are increasing. Sea
level is rising. More extreme downpours are occurring. The
report makes clear that global warming is happening and that
the impacts are now being felt in every region of America and
across society.
Today, in the first of a series of hearings on that report,
we are examining the impacts of global warming on agriculture
and forestry. All Americans should be concerned with the
impacts on these critical sectors. We all must eat. We all use
products from forests every day.
The findings of the report that rising temperatures,
precipitation changes, and increasing weeds, disease and pests
will impact the productivity of farms and forests should make
all of us apprehensive. Land managers rely on the cumulated
knowledge about their land, weather, and crops. But climate
change is rewriting the Farmers' Almanac. The past is no longer
prologue, and farmers must make decisions in the face of
growing uncertainty. The serious consequences for agriculture
and forestry provide yet another reason to take action now to
curb global warming pollution.
The report indicates that the growing season now starts 2
weeks earlier, impacting farming and crops in rural America.
Heavy downpours in the last 50 years increased 67 percent in
the Northeast and 31 percent in the Midwest. Unsurprisingly,
this time has been marked by record flooding in those regions.
Yet, in the rapidly growing Southwest, they face a different
climate challenge as water supplies are becoming increasingly
scarce.
Indeed, farmers and foresters are already suffering the
consequences of climate change. But unlike other impacted
sectors, they can also contribute to the solutions. According
to the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. forests and soils
sequestered over 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in
2007, almost 15 percent of the Nation's greenhouse gas
emissions. Land management practices designed to increase this
carbon sink can pull even more carbon dioxide out of the
atmosphere.
Biomass can be used to generate renewable electricity,
reducing global warming pollution from the burning of fossil
fuels. Biomass can also produce renewable liquid fuels,
allowing American consumers desperate for energy independence
the ability to power their cars with cellulosic fuels from
Middle America rather than oil from the Middle East.
Wind turbines are sprouting on farms and ranches,
generating clean electricity, while continuing the land's
traditional use for food production.
These practices are already growing clean-energy jobs and
generating new revenue in our rural communities. With the right
energy and climate policies, American farmers and foresters
will play a crucial role in curbing the dangerous build-up of
global warming pollution while creating new sources of income;
money can grow on trees after all.
The witnesses before us will help the select committee
understand the challenges and opportunities global warming
presents to U.S. agriculture and forestry. I look forward to
their testimony.
Let me now turn and recognize the ranking member of our
committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Sensenbrenner.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Markey follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Today's hearing gives the select committee the opportunity to
explore the impacts the proposed climate legislation will have
on the agriculture industry and the effect that it will have on
consumers.
The House Democratic leadership has spent the last 2 months
rushing to pass a carbon emissions reduction scheme that I call
cap-and-tax. I call it cap-and-tax because the legislation is a
hidden energy tax that will increase the price of nearly every
staple in American life, including electricity, goods and
services, and gasoline. Today's hearing will allow us to
explore how this flawed policy will hurt American farmers.
Cap-and-tax will reduce the security of America's food
supply. If the government mandates a cap on fossil fuel
emissions, many utilities will switch from coal to natural gas
to generate electricity because natural gas produces fewer
CO2 emissions. As demand for natural gas rises, the
price will rise as well. But natural gas isn't used solely for
electricity. As Ford West, president of The Fertilizer
Institute says in his written testimony, there is no substitute
for natural gas in nitrogen production.
The U.S. domestic nitrogen fertilizer industry supplied
about 85 percent of America's nitrogen in the 1990s, but the
high cost of natural gas has moved much of this production and
its jobs overseas. Today, just 55 percent of this vital farming
resource is made in the United States. Much of the imported
nitrogen is made in places that offer cheap natural gas like
the Middle East, China, Russia, and Venezuela. These countries
have no restrictive climate policies like cap-and-tax, and
their energy efficiency is generally lower than that in the
United States.
Mr. West cites a study by the Doane Advisory Services that
shows that a cap-and-tax scheme would add $6 billion to $12
billion in additional costs for farmers by 2020.
A recent study by the Heritage Foundation on the Democrat's
cap-and-tax proposal also shows the devastating effects this
scheme will have on agriculture. Farmers will be forced to pay
more, and those costs will be reflected in the price of nearly
every agricultural product. The Heritage study shows that
increases in costs are expected to reduce farmers' incomes by
$8 billion in 2012, and by more than $50 billion in 2035. The
average net income loss between 2010 and 2035 is projected to
be $23 billion.
With numbers like these, it isn't surprising that 37 food
and agriculture groups have opposed the cap-and-tax
legislation. In addition to expanding taxes, cap-and-tax will
expand the government, especially the Environmental Protection
Agency.
Because enforcement of a true carbon cap would debilitate
the U.S. economy, the legislative proposal currently before the
House of Representatives allows covered entities to make
substantial portions of their reduction outside the cap go
through what are called offsets. The bill allows 2 billion tons
of offsets per year, 1 billion of which must come from domestic
sources. The value of these billion offsets will easily reach
into the tens of billions. Because the cap is so broad,
agriculture and forestry are the only areas where offsets can
be applied. The result will be tens of billions of tax dollars
flowing into the farm industry.
As financial and auto industries have learned, Federal
money does not come without strings. Under the current bill,
the EPA will be in charge of pulling these strings, and the EPA
has no useful experience regulating agriculture.
We have already got a whiff of what would happen if the EPA
tries to regulate greenhouse gases. The American Farm Bureau
Federation has said that if the EPA were to apply the Clean Air
Act to greenhouse gases, nearly every dairy, cattle, and swine
farm would fall under the regulations, resulting in literally a
cow flatulence tax. The EPA has sworn this isn't their plan,
but to exclude these farms from the regulations the EPA would
have to take steps to exempt them, steps that could be
challenged in court. This is the kind of absurd regulation that
is exactly the type of policy we could see if the EPA becomes
too involved in regulating greenhouse gases and agriculture
production.
Republicans believe that any climate change legislation
must meet four simple principles: It must protect jobs and the
economy; produce tangible improvements to the environment;
advance technological progress; and feature international
participation, including that of China and India. If we keep
these principles in mind, we can address climate without
threatening American farmers or our economic health.
And I thank the Chair.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman very much.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr.
Blumenauer.
Mr. Blumenauer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I do appreciate your having the hearing at this time. I
am a little frustrated, because I have two other hearings that
are going on. I did want to be here at least for the beginning
and wanted to share some of my support for what you are doing,
because there is nobody that has a greater stake in our getting
our policies right with greenhouse gases more than agriculture.
They have much at risk. We are seeing it in the Northwest with
declining snow pack, with changing temperature patterns. If we
don't get this right, agriculture and forestry, in the area
that I represent, will be seriously at risk.
Second, we have legislation that has been advanced from our
friends on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which our
distinguished Chair has helped craft, that can make a big
difference for farmers, opportunities for farms and forests to
reduce global warming pollution, for them to make money. As my
good friend, the ranking member, pointed out, there are
potentially billions of dollars available for American
agriculture. This is an important opportunity. They also can
earn more money, and we are seeing this in my State, leasing
their land for wind turbines.
A national renewable portfolio standard is going to develop
that market even more, and thoughtful members of the
agricultural community that I have been discussing are excited
about it. Done right, there is an opportunity for cleaner fuels
to come from forestry and agriculture, not questionable things
where it is not clear that it actually creates more energy and
has dire economic and environmental consequences. But we can
get this right. We can provide a safety net to protect rural
families from higher energy prices.
And I commend you, Mr. Chairman, for the work that you have
done in your other committee hat to do that.
This is serious business. The notion that somehow there
will not be regulation of agriculture, not just for its
greenhouse gas emissions but for other things that are
consequences of massive family--massive factory farms that put
at risk American family agriculture is a pipe dream. We are
seeing demands for more thoughtful regulation to protect
people, and we are seeing millions of people in urban areas
having to spend massive amounts of money to deal with the
consequences of not having appropriate environmental
regulation. It is coming.
This is part of a framework that can help them make money.
Everybody is going to be better off. I appreciate what you are
doing with this hearing, and look forward to working with you
and other distinguished members of this panel who have the
expertise to make sure that we get this right.
Thank you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from South Dakota, Ms.
Herseth Sandlin.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank you and the ranking member for holding this
important hearing today on the impact of climate change on
agriculture and forestry.
As the at-large Member for the State of South Dakota, a
predominantly rural State, this issue is particularly important
to my constituents. Moreover, the opportunities in the
agriculture and forestry sectors to participate in mitigating
climate change is equally an important topic.
It is estimated that agriculture and forest lands currently
sequester approximately 12 percent of our Nation's carbon
emissions. With proper proactive management techniques, it has
been estimated that the ag and forest sectors can sequester up
to 25 percent of emissions. As such, the ag and forestry
industries are essential partners in our efforts to mitigate
climate change.
Forests can both emit and sequester carbon, and through
proper forest management, which includes thinning overstocked
stands, working to ensure diversity of types of ages of trees,
and other steps, we can increase carbon sequestration.
At the appropriate time, I will look forward to introducing
one of my constituents on the panel today, but again, I thank
the chairman for holding the hearing and yield back.
The Chairman. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr.
Salazar.
Mr. Salazar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am very interested in this hearing today mainly because I
am a farmer, and my wife and I still farm 3,000 acres back in
Colorado. So I look forward to hearing your testimony, and I
want to thank the chairman for calling this important hearing.
While I have my concerns about the cap-and-trade bill that
is coming up, I hope that we get it right. So thank you very
much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Salazar follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr.
Cleaver.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Missouri is a part of the U.S. breadbasket, and we produce
in our State, at least generally, depending of course on
weather conditions, about 382 million bushels of corn a year.
And I am very proud to represent a district in a State that is
a leader in promoting alternative energy sources.
In 2008, my State, Mr. Chairman, was the third State to
begin implementing a renewable fuels standard, requiring the
sale of 10 percent ethanol blends when ethanol is cheaper than
fossil fuels.
And it is perhaps a little less known that Missouri places
outdoor recreation up high in terms of its annual production of
revenue. And I think at a time like this, when recreation
sometimes bumps heads with agricultural desires and goals, we
have got to be very, very careful. And my concern is that
global warming is real. It is no longer a political issue. It
is an issue revolving around the survival of this planet as we
know it. And the more we can produce renewables for fuel, the
better off we will be.
As I have said before, we, this world in which we live,
went through a time when there were salt wars. People actually
fought wars over salt. And then as we progressed and made salt
less valuable and alternatives more viable, we stopped having
wars over salt. And refrigeration was a big part of it.
And I think the same thing can happen with renewables,
alternative fuels, that we can reduce the need to have wars
over oil. Not that we have ever had one. But I thought I might
just mention that. And so I look forward to listening to our
experts and have some questions that I would like to raise that
would hopefully help me.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my
time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cleaver follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman very much.
And now we are going to turn to our very distinguished
panel. Each witness will be recognized for 5 minutes. At 5
minutes, I am going to begin to tap. You will have 15 seconds
to conclude your statement after that 5-minute period when I
tap, just so I can give you that notice in advance.
STATEMENTS OF JERRY L. HATFIELD, SUPERVISORY PLANT
PHYSIOLOGIST, USDA AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE, NATIONAL SOIL
TILTH LABORATORY; HEATHER S. COOLEY, SENIOR RESEARCHER, PACIFIC
INSTITUTE; THOMAS A. TROXEL, DIRECTOR, BLACK HILLS FOREST
RESOURCE ASSOCIATION; FORD B. WEST, PRESIDENT, THE FERTILIZER
INSTITUTE; AND JOHANNES LEHMANN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SOIL
FERTILITY MANAGEMENT/SOIL BIOGEOCHEMISTRY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
The Chairman. Our first witness is Dr. Jerry Hatfield,
supervisory plant physiologist at the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and the lead author on the agriculture chapter in
``The Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States''
Report. Dr. Hatfield has had a distinguished scientific career,
authoring over 325 publications and serving as laboratory
director of the National Soil Tilth Laboratory. He has also
served as the president of the American Society of Agronomy.
So we thank you, sir. Whenever you are ready, please begin.
STATEMENT OF JERRY L. HATFIELD
Mr. Hatfield. It is a pleasure to be able to present this
information on climate impacts on agriculture to this
committee.
Agriculture is extremely sensitive to climate and weather,
and resilience of our production systems to changes in climate
occurs by understanding these impacts and their effects. It is
also important to realize that U.S. agriculture is diverse and
that simple, general statements about the impacts of climate
are not possible.
Climate change is evidenced by rising temperatures,
increasing precipitation and intensity of storms, rising carbon
dioxide and ozone levels that will impact agriculture. These
changes are not consistent across the United States and may
affect some agricultural areas more than others.
The scenarios of climate change in the U.S. have
implications for agriculture, which must be understood to
protect the capability of food, feed, fiber, and fuel
production and quality.
One of the easier ways for us to understand the
implications of climate on agriculture is to consider the
impacts of climate on animals. The increase of temperature and
the potential for more heat waves and extreme heat events will
affect animal production. Animals respond to a combination of
temperature and humidity in a similar fashion than do humans.
When it is hot and humid, we decrease our activity, reduce our
food intake, and generally are less energetic than at other
times. High temperature and humidity reduce the feed intake of
animals, which in turn reduces the rate of meat, milk, or egg
production.
At the opposite end of the range, cold temperature extremes
can reduce increase feed intake, but the extra energy is
consumed to keep the animals warm, which results in reduced
growth or milk production.
Extremes in hot or cold have negative impacts on animals,
and heat waves can have serious consequences on animals and can
create conditions in which there is increased death of animals
in feedlots or barns.
High temperature extremes will affect plants as well as
animals, and of particular concern is the probability of heat
waves or high temperature events at the pollination stage.
Exposure of pollen to high temperatures can destroy the pollen
and reduce the production of seed or fruit. Occurrences of heat
waves at pollen time can have significant and negative impacts
on plant production.
Plants differ in their reaction to temperature. Cool season
plants which are best suited to lower temperatures include many
of the vegetables, like peas or spinach. Warm season plants,
like watermelon, cotton, or cucumber, thrive when the
temperatures are warm. As temperature warms, this causes the
plants to progress to their stage of development at a rate
which does not allow for maximum expansion of leaves, stems, or
fruits.
One example of potential impacts of warming temperatures on
crop yield has been found for soybean. As temperatures
increase, soybean yields in the southern U.S. are predicted to
decrease by 3.5 percent, while in the Midwest they are
projected to increase by 2.5 percent. Rising temperatures will
exceed the optimum range for soybeans in the South while
bringing soybean into the optimum range in the Midwest.
Likewise, for many vegetables, warming temperatures will
cause a reduction in production even more quickly because these
are cool season crops. While many of the vegetables are grown
during the winter in temperate climates, the length of this
time in which this period is optimal will decrease. Increasing
winter temperatures does increase the length of the growing
season, and there are potential negative impacts on fruit
trees, which require a certain amount of cooling or chilling in
order to set fruit.
Climate models and observations indicate that nighttime
temperatures are rising faster than daytime temperatures. This
shift in temperature patterns during the day has significant
impacts on plants, particularly during the grain or fruit
development periods. Warm temperatures at night increase the
respiration rate, which reduces the amount of sugars and
starches which can be stored in grain or fruit. This causes the
fruit or grain size to be smaller and reduces the length of the
grain-filling period.
Quality of agriculture produce is not often thought of when
we discuss climate change. However, there are many impacts of
climate and weather on product quality. Variations in wine
quality among years are related to subtle changes in
weathersensitive periods in the growing season. And
there are direct and indirect effects of climate on
agriculture.
Agriculture has and can adapt to a changing climate. The
areas in which we grow certain plants demonstrates how we adapt
plant production systems to the climate. This adaptation has
been occurring in agriculture for centuries as farmers have
selected the best crops for their regions, changed their
cultural practices to cope with the risks from environmental
stresses, and modified their practices to reduce the impacts of
biological stresses caused by weeds, insects, or diseases.
Research has been able to help speed this process by providing
information to guide the decisions.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Hatfield follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Hatfield, very much.
Our next witness is Ms. Heather Cooley, senior researcher
at the Pacific Institute. Ms. Cooley works with the Pacific
Institute's water program, researching climate change, water
privatization, and California water issues. She has also
studied climate and land-use change at the Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory in California.
We welcome you.
STATEMENT OF HEATHER S. COOLEY
Ms. Cooley. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, thank you for
inviting me here today to offer testimony regarding the effects
of climate change on agriculture. As directed, I will limit my
discussion here to those impacts related to water resources.
Impacts on water resources will be especially problematic
for agriculture. Numerous national and regional assessments,
including the study released earlier this week, demonstrate
that climate change is already affecting U.S. freshwater
resources, and that these impacts will intensify in the future.
The U.S. Geological Survey regularly reports that
agriculture uses 70 percent of the Nation's freshwater
resources; thus, impacts on water resources will have major
consequences for agriculture.
Rain-fed agriculture is especially vulnerable to changing
precipitation patterns. In response to these changes, farmers
may shift to supplemental irrigation, which may increase
tensions over limited water resources. We are already seeing
this in some areas. For example, in Georgia's Flint River
Basin, farmers are rapidly shifting from rain-fed to irrigated
agriculture, and this shift is one of the factors fueling the
ongoing tensions between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.
Surface water supplies will be increasingly out of phase
with agricultural water demand. Surface runoff is expected to
decline during summer months at precisely the time when
agricultural water demand peaks. Floods and droughts will
become more common and more severe, and these extreme events
will have a greater effect on crop production than changes in
average conditions. Losses from droughts already total $6
billion to $8 billion annually, much of which is due to impacts
on agriculture, and these losses could rise in the future.
Many of the impacts of climate change are now unavoidable.
In fact, they are already occurring. The good news is that
adaptation can substantially reduce the risk of climate change
for the agricultural sector. But we cannot be complacent. The
time to act is now. In the time available, I will offer a set
of recommendations to reduce agriculture's vulnerability to
changes in water resources.
First, we must improve the management of surface resources.
Specifically, the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of
Engineers should adopt new rules for the operation of water
infrastructure in light of climate change. And based on these
experiences and the methodologies they develop, the Bureau and
Corps should provide guidance and oversight to local and state
agencies to do similar analyses.
We must also improve groundwater management. Our dependence
on groundwater may increase in the future in response to more
frequent and severe droughts. Throughout much of the United
States, however, groundwater basins are mismanaged and
overdrafted. In particular, the Federal Government should
require all States to design and implement comprehensive
groundwater monitoring and management programs.
We must also capture water conservation and efficiency
potential. Reducing agricultural water use reduces
vulnerability to drought. However, many conservation practices
require substantial investment. To help defray these initial
costs, the government should expand funding for water
conservation efficiency within the Federal Farm Bill. In
addition, we should provide tax exemptions or rebates for
efficient irrigation equipment and infrastructure.
We must also eliminate Federal policies that inadvertently
increase vulnerability to climate change. For example, the Farm
Bill provides substantial direct payments for water-intensive
crops that may not be appropriate under future climate
conditions and may ultimately increase vulnerability to climate
change.
In its place, we should support new policies that promote
climate change adaptation. Specifically, the Environmental
Quality Incentives Program provides cost shares for practices
that promote agricultural production and environmental quality.
EQIP, however, accounts for less than 1 percent of the overall
budget, and Congress has threatened to reduce funding further.
The Federal Government should expand funding for Farm Bill
conservation programs, especially EQIP.
We must also continue research and development. Although
climate change is a global problem, its impacts are local.
Accordingly, detailed assessments of climate change risks
require thorough analysis at the regional level. Without
significant investment to generate estimates of regional
impacts, climate change will remain a vague and unwieldy
threat.
The information must then be communicated to the
agricultural community. Farmers and local communities will
ultimately be responsible for implementing adaptation
strategies, and the information that is available has not been
adequately conveyed to farmers. Additional outreach is best
accomplished by building on existing relationships. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture in consultation with NRCS and
extension agents should develop training and provide guidance
about climate change impacts and adaptation strategies for the
agricultural sector.
We know that climate change is already occurring and that
our farms are on the front lines. The challenge is to quickly
equip the most vulnerable sectors and communities with tools to
plan for and adapt to unavoidable impacts. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Cooley follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Herseth Sandlin [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Cooley.
It is now a great pleasure of mine to be able to introduce
the next witness to members of the select committee. He is a
fellow South Dakotan and a friend, Mr. Tom Troxel.
Tom is the director of the Black Hills Forest Resource
Association. Mr. Troxel brings a deep understanding of forestry
and the forest industry, gleaned from over three decades of
experience as a forester, working with the forest product
companies in South Dakota and Wyoming for about 10 years, or
longer than that, but 10 years in the U.S. Forest Service
before then.
He has been an invaluable resource to my office on issues
related directly to the Black Hills National Forest and forest
practices and policies more generally. His expertise is well
known at home, but also recognized and respected nationally.
On a personal level, I would like to publicly thank Tom for
sharing his advice and counsel with me for many years now, and
I strongly commend his testimony to my colleagues today.
Mr. Troxel, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS A. TROXEL
Mr. Troxel. Thank you very much, Representative Herseth
Sandlin and members of this committee, for this opportunity to
discuss climate change and forests.
Many climate experts are predicting a warmer, drier climate
in the coniferous forests of the Western United States. If
correct, based on the last decade of drought conditions over
much of the West, our forests will be increasingly susceptible
to insect epidemics and forest fires, both of which have
significant effects on air quality, water quality, stream
flows, wildlife habitat, infrastructure, recreation, and rural
communities.
Sustainable management of forests can, to a substantial
degree, mitigate global climate change, and there appears to be
substantial overlap between climate change goals and proper
forest management. Forests are unique in that no other means of
sequestering or offsetting carbon has the added benefits of
providing clean air, clean water, biodiversity, wildlife
habitat, aesthetics, and wood products.
Federal policies that invite and encourage sustainable use
of our Nation's forests can help produce low carbon energy and
sequester carbon through management strategies for
sequestration, reducing fires and insect epidemics,
substitution of biomass for fossil fuels, and utilization of
wood products. Forests can either be a sink or a carbon source.
A carefully managed forest can both prevent and reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
Emphasis must be placed on maintaining forest health by
thinning overstocked stands to reduce the risk of insect
epidemics and wildfires. When catastrophic events do occur,
dead trees should be salvaged, the area regenerated to restore
forest cover and allow young trees to start absorbing carbon
dioxide through photosynthesis.
Emissions of greenhouse gases can be reduced through the
substitution of biomass for fossil fuels to produce heat,
electricity, and transportation fuels. The Congressional
definition of renewable biomass in the RES is critical for
cogeneration plants to be financially feasible. Forest biomass
from Federal lands must be eligible, and all sustainably
managed forests, public or private, should be equally eligible
to supply biomass.
I would like to show several slides, if we can have the
slides, please. I am going to go through these quickly in the
interest of time.
This is the result of a mountain pine beetle epidemic in
the Black Hills. These dead trees are a carbon source and a
fire risk.
This is a mountain pine beetle epidemic in Colorado. These
dead trees are also a carbon source and fire risk. All the
stands in this entire landscape are lodge pole pine. They are
the same age, and they are overstocked. This was a mountain
pine beetle epidemic waiting to happen, and increased
temperatures pulled the trigger.
This is the smoke column from the Jasper fire in the Black
Hills. Fires are a huge source of greenhouse gases and
particulates.
This is the Jasper fire area. It is now a carbon source as
the trees decay. There is a risk of reburn. And the burned area
needs reforestation to restart the sequestration cycle.
This is an unthinned stand of Ponderosa pine in the Black
Hills. A stand like this is very susceptible to fires and
forest insects.
This is a thin stand of Ponderosa pine in the Black Hills.
This is a healthy stand with low susceptibility to fires and
insects. This is a carbon sequestration factory. There is
strong public support for thinning like this in the Black
Hills, because residents understand the link between
overstocked forests and fires and mountain pine beetles.
This is a slash pile. The Forest Service burns thousands of
these each year. These are a source of greenhouse gases and
particulates. These should but do not meet the RES definition
of renewable biomass.
My last slide is a picture of the Case Number 1 area. This
is the site in the Black Hills National Forest where the first
timber sale from the entire national forest system was sold in
1899. This area has been thinned and harvested several times
since 1899. Since then, approximately 6 billion board feet have
been harvested from the Black Hills National Forest, and at the
same time, the standing volume has increased from about 1.5
billion board feet to almost 6 billion board feet. Sustainable
forest management really does work.
Including forestry in the climate change equation offers an
opportunity to have our cake and eat it, too. We can make our
forests healthier, reduce the risk of wildfires and insects,
better utilize slash in small trees, create new jobs in rural
communities, and produce renewable energy from American
resources.
In conclusion, thank you very much for allowing me to
testify today. I appreciate your time and attention, and I
offer my full assistance to the committee, to Chairman Markey,
and also to you, Representative Herseth Sandlin.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Troxel follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Thank you, Mr. Troxel.
Our next witness joining us today is Mr. Ford West. He is
president of The Fertilizer Institute. Mr. West brings 30 years
of experience with The Fertilizer Institute, representing the
association before Congress, Federal agencies, and the media.
We thank you for being here today, Mr. West. You are now
recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF FORD B. WEST
Mr. West. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here.
The fertilizer industry supplies nutrients, such as
nitrogen, phosphate, and potash, to farmers who grow food for
America's dinner table. Fertilizer is a strategic commodity in
food production, because 40 to 60 percent of the world's food
supply is tied to the use of fertilizers.
Now, all sectors of our industry will be impacted by
climate change policy, but I am going to focus on the nitrogen
sector this morning, which is most vulnerable to the impacts of
the cap-and-trade system. And it is our goal at the end of the
day, if Congress passes cap-and-trade, that it will not place
our industry in a serious competitive disadvantage compared to
our global fertilizer producers that we compete with, such as
China, Russia, Venezuela, and will not force the domestic
fertilizer industry overseas to countries with no carbon
reduction policies.
The nitrogen industry uses natural gas as a feedstock or an
input required to make nitrogen. We use natural gas as an
ingredient in a fixed chemical process that combines nitrogen
from the air and hydrogen from natural gas to produce nitrogen
fertilizer, ammonia, and we produce CO2. And outside
of changing the laws of chemistry, there is nothing we can do
to change this process, and 90 percent of the cost of producing
a ton of ammonia is tied directly to the price of natural gas.
And so this makes the nitrogen industry one of the most energy-
intensive, greenhouse-gas-intensive, and trade-intensive
sectors of our economy.
Now, the industry has worked hard to be as energy efficient
as we can. We have cut the amount of natural gas used to
produce a ton of ammonia by 11 percent. Not only does that save
energy, but it also reduces CO2 emissions, and the
U.S. EPA estimates that we have cut about 4.5 million tons of
CO2 equivalent per year out of our production
process. We want to be more efficient, but the chemical nature
of our process limits our ability to find much more efficiency
gains in our production process.
One of our big concerns here is fuel switching. We don't
have a very good history with fuel switching when Congress
repealed the Fuel Use Act in 1987 and allowed utilities to burn
natural gas to produce electricity. As the utilities began that
process and went from zero to about 20 percent of our
electricity produced by burning natural gas, the price of
natural gas went from like $2 to about $8, and we shut down 26
nitrogen plants in that process. We were the poster child of
leakage in that public policy, and it is a challenge we have.
Currently, we have 29 nitrogen plants operating in the
U.S.; we import about 55 percent of our nitrogen; and 82
percent of that nitrogen comes from countries that are not
necessarily eager to regulate carbon and reduce CO2
emissions.
So I would hope you can understand that we have some
concerns with our remaining domestic nitrogen production as the
utilities again will turn to natural gases and alternatives to
generate electricity. And I know that we are trying to go to
the solar and wind to produce electricity, but the backup, when
the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing, is natural
gas.
So it is important to understand that fertilizer is a gold
commodity traded in the world market. We are not only having to
compete against those countries that are not interested right
now in climate change policy, but we also have got to be
concerned with those governments who are signed on to Kyoto who
are looking for ways to protect their energy-intensive
industries. And we just hope that this American policy that we
develop on cap-and-trade doesn't cause us more plant closure
and raise the amount of imported nitrogen that we have.
The average nitrogen plant that we have today employs 150
to 200 people. These are good jobs. The average salary is about
$75,000. They are located in rural communities. They are good
jobs, good benefits, and these facilities give a great deal
back to the communities.
I think you can see that the price of energy is a major
concern in agriculture. We did ask the Doane Advisory Service
to do an analysis of energy costs and what that may mean to
farmers. It is somewhere around $6 billion to $12 billion
dollars based on the Lieberman-Warner bill. And that is why you
find agriculture so concerned about having an offset program
that they could participate in to help recover some of their
costs.
We are very supportive of that. We have been working with
fertilizer best management practices in Alberta, the province
of Alberta, to develop a protocol based on the 4R nutrient
stewardship system. And we think the best management practices
have a potential to not only increase ag yields, as we are
called on to increase agriculture production 50 percent by 2025
and double it by 2050, but we can also enhance fertilizer use,
significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gas, and improve
our water quality.
I thank you and look forward to your questions.
[The statement of Mr. West follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Thank you, Mr. West.
Our next witness is Dr. Johannes Lehmann, associate
professor of soil fertility management and soil biogeochemistry
at Cornell University, and the world's expert on biochar. Dr.
Lehmann has conducted research around the world, recently
studying nutrient and carbon management in the Central Amazon
for the Federal Research Institution of Forestry.
Dr. Lehmann, welcome to the select committee. You are now
recognized.
STATEMENT OF JOHANNES LEHMANN
Mr. Lehmann. Thank you, Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin and
members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
discuss biochar for sustainable climate change mitigation and
global soil.
Biochar is a fine grain light material that is produced
through heating of biomass under fire conditions. Upon such
heating to relatively low temperatures, the chemical properties
of biomass carbon changes to form structures that are much more
resistant to microbial degradation.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Sir, could you make sure your
microphone is on.
Mr. Lehmann. Through this so-called pyrolysis, biomass can
be transformed from materials that are subject to rapid
decomposition to material that decomposes much more slowly,
thereby creating a long-term carbon sink. Such thermally
altered material is about 1.5 to 2 orders of magnitude more
stable in soils than uncharred organic matter, thus creating
solar carbon pools with a mean resident time of several
hundreds to thousands of years.
Biochar production and its application to soil provides
several additional important value streams beyond direct
climate change mitigation. These include waste management,
energy production, and soil improvement. Biochar can be
produced from a variety of feedstocks that would otherwise
constitute a financial and environmental liability. Examples
include animal manures in agricultural regions with high
phosphorus and nitrogen loadings, green waste that might
generate nitrous oxide or methane during landfill, or biomass
from forest thinning for fire prevention.
The second value stream arises from the bioenergies
generated during biochar production. Between 2 and 7 units of
energy can be produced for each unit of energy invested during
the life cycle of various biochar systems.
The third value stream is the improvement of soil quality
upon biochar additions. Crop yields and many less productive
soils can be significantly increased, and losses of agro
chemicals, such as fertilizer nutrients, herbicides, and
pesticides, can be decreased.
Taken together, these three sources of value can enhance
food and energy security while also combating climate change.
Delivered biochar additions to soils have a number of
implications for carbon trading. Additionality can be
demonstrated because biochar is currently not added to soil to
any appreciable extent. Monitoring of biochar sequestration is
facilitated by the fact that we can easily record the carbon
that is added at any time, and its sequestration impact does
not need to develop over time. Verification of sequestration is
possible because biochars bear a chemical signature that can be
distinguished from other organic matter and soil.
The national and global potential of biochar to help
mitigate climate change is only theoretical at this point
because too few biochar systems exist at scale of
implementation. Conservative modeling of the technical
potential place biochar as an approach to contribute on the
order of 1 gigatron carbon removal annual by 2050.
Such widespread adoption of biochar systems will require
sustainability criteria. Biochar must therefore be integrated
into existing food production systems and not be an alternative
for food production; make use of already developed best
management practices such as conservation agriculture; and
build on residuecollection systems that are already in
place.
While few fully implemented modern biochar systems exist
worldwide, the necessary engineering and science capacity is
available to evaluate a diverse set of biochar systems at scale
of implementation in the near term. In fact, biochar has
rapidly evolved even over the past 12 months. Evaluation does
not rely on a fundamental advance in science, but on
application and adaptation of existing science. The underlying
technology is robust and sufficiently simple to make it
applicable to many regions globally.
Current hurdles to implementation are availability of
pyrolysis units at sufficient maturity to allow all necessary
research and development and as a direct consequence a lack of
demonstrated carbon trading activities, a sufficient
development of best biochar practices and of demonstration of
soil health benefits for the full spectrum of agro ecosystems.
The distributed nature of biochar systems and the potential
for variability between systems creates significant
opportunities for sustainability, but also hurdles to
widespread adoption, regulation, and financial viability.
Establishment of policies at national and international
levels is required to remove hurdles to implementation and
support full evaluation of biochar systems.
Mechanisms for carbon trading need to be put into place
that recognize biochar soil carbon sequestration. Methodologies
must include full lifecycle accounting of emission balances to
deliver net climate benefits.
The entire value chain of mitigation approaches must be
recognized to reward those activities that have multiple
environmental and societal benefits.
Biochar must not be an alternative to making dramatic
reductions in greenhouse gas emissions immediately, but it may
be an important tool in our arsenal for combating climate
change.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Lehmann follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Thank you, Dr. Lehmann.
I thank all of our witnesses for their testimony. I will go
ahead and start out the first set of questions.
And, Mr. Troxel, I want to spend a few minutes focusing on
your testimony regarding the substitution of biomass for fossil
fuels to produce heat, electricity, and transportation fuels.
If you could discuss what impact the Federal definition of
renewable biomass in the renewable electricity standard and the
renewable fuels standard has on developing wood-based sources
of energy; and, how would including woody biomass from Federal
lands in the RFS and RES impact Federal forest land management?
Mr. Troxel. Thank you, Representative Herseth Sandlin. The
definition of renewable biomass in both the RFS and RES would
make a great deal of difference in the financial feasibility of
plants that would either produce electricity or cellulosic
ethanol because of the financial incentives that are associated
with both of those pieces of legislation.
In the case of the RFS definition of renewable biomass,
woody biomass from the national forest was completely excluded.
Most of the forest in the Black Hills are Federal Black Hills
National Forest, and so that whole stream of biomass is taken
off the table.
In the current version of the RES, there are really three
components of woody biomass that would go into any of those
facilities. There are mill residues. There is slash from the
slash piles that we saw the picture of, and there are
precommercial thinnings.
In the RES definition, the mill residues would be included.
But the way I read and understand the definition is that the
precommercial thinnings and the slash piles would be excluded
from the renewable biomass because of a specific phrase that
excludes timber from mature forest stands. And that is a term,
it is a fairly generic term. There is not a definition for it.
I think it is open to debate or challenge, and especially when
we get into the Federal process of making decisions that could
be subject to appeal or litigation, and it just opens a lot of
uncertainty.
The other part of the current RES definition that is
problematic is the requirement that it be harvested in
environmentally sustainable quantities as determined by the
appropriate Federal land manager. As foresters, I am completely
supportive of sustainable quantities and management, but I
don't know, and this is open to speculation, about what the
process would be to make that determination and what kind of
analysis or decision would be required to get there.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Thank you, Mr. Troxel.
As you may know, we are deep in negotiations as it relates
to altering the definition that currently exists in the bill
that was marked up in the Energy and Commerce Committee, and we
hope to be able to make the changes that you suggest so that we
are able to utilize precommercial thinnings and other woody
biomass through current forest management practices on Federal
forests. But would you like to speak for a minute or two about
the importance of how this affects private forest owners as
well?
Mr. Troxel. Most of the timber lands in the Black Hills are
Federal. I think it is important, though, to include private
timber lands and make sure that those private landowners do
have a chance to contribute toward production of renewable
energy. And I would encourage you to continue your efforts to
make sure that that definition does adequately include both
private and Federal lands.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Thank you, Mr. Troxel.
I will reserve some of my other questions for the second
round of questioning and would now recognize the gentlewoman
from Tennessee, Mrs. Blackburn.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you to our witnesses for taking the time to be
with us today. We all appreciate it.
I am sorry I was late to the hearing, but as you have
learned probably from others, today we have three hearings;
Energy and Commerce has three hearings that are going on. And,
of course, trying to step into those and then be here is
tricky. But we have the opportunity to make them all and
appreciate it.
Agriculture is a very vital part of the economy in
Tennessee, which is where my district is found. And we are
hearing quite a bit about the Waxman-Markey bill and the effect
it is going to have on agriculture.
And, Madam Chairman, I have two pages that one of our
constituents sent over. These are just ag facts. I would love
to submit those into the record for this hearing if that is
possible.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Without objection, so entered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you. I appreciate it.
This is all about agriculture in Tennessee, and it is $44
billion of our state's economy. That is 11 percent of our
state's economy. And we have 79,000 farms that are employing
more than 300,000 people in our state, and over 40 percent of
our state is actually farmland. So the issues that we are
discussing today are of vital importance to us on so many
different levels. And, as I said, people are very concerned
about what Waxman-Markey is going to do to their livelihood,
their ability to earn a livelihood.
The estimate that has come out so far is that the farmers'
net income would decrease by $23 billion annually over the next
25 years. We have got a lot of farmers that live off that
income. And also, the increase in construction costs to farm
buildings and equipment is expected to be a 5 percent to 10
percent increase added to whatever the inflationary rate is. So
when you look at what the farmers are up against with the cost
of buildings and construction and equipment and maintenance,
and then you get into actually dealing with the crop itself--
and, Mr. West, fertilizer is a big part of that.
And when I am in West Tennessee, and we are talking about
not only the row crops but the soybeans and the cotton,
fertilizer is a huge component of that.
Mrs. Blackburn. And what I would like to hear from you,
what my constituents are asking from me, if cap-and-trade, if
Waxman-Markey is passed into law, what is it going to do to the
fertilizer industry? What is it going to do to your prices? And
equally as important, what is it going to do to the
availability of the product?
And you touched on nitrogen. And you touched on the
offshore competition. And I would like for you to drill down on
that just a little bit.
Mr. West. I think the issue for us is availability.
Mrs. Blackburn. Okay.
Mr. West. Because, we see the price of natural gas going
up, and that will affect our agriculture across the board.
Every $3 increase in natural gas is $1 billion to our industry.
That is how much gas we use in producing ammonia. And so the
question becomes are we going to produce a nitrogen fertilizer,
for example, in the United States? Are we going to import the
majority of our nitrogen fertilizer?
Now we import 55 percent today. So we don't set the price
of nitrogen fertilizer in the United States. It is set in the
world market. And a year ago, the demand for fertilizer around
the world as we had a food scare and as you know, we had a big
conference in Rome in June of last year about scarcity of food,
we had countries around the world hoarding food. We had
countries hoarding fertilizer, keeping it off the world market.
The price of fertilizer went off the charts. And, of course,
the worldwide drop in the economy has changed that and the
prices have come down. But if we raise our input costs, the
world price of fertilizer stays the same, we will shut down our
production facilities.
Mrs. Blackburn. I don't want to interrupt you, but I do
have one other question I want to go to before my time expires.
Dr. Hatfield, you mentioned that some of the studies show
that the optimum range of temperature for the crop harvest
actually increases as CO2 in the atmosphere
increases. So very quickly how do you see this affecting our
Southern States like Tennessee?
Mr. Hatfield. I don't know that we made a statement that
said that. Would you repeat that?
Mrs. Blackburn. That the optimum range of temperature for
crop and harvest increases as CO2 in the atmosphere
increases.
Mr. Hatfield. Actually, there are two different processes
that are going on. Temperature requirements for plants is
really not linked to the CO2. If we said that, that
is a misinterpretation. The temperature plays a real role and
CO2 is really that basic building block in terms of
taking CO2 through the atmosphere through the
process of photosynthesis, it grows that. It is temperature
mediated. And when one of the pieces of that occurs in this is
not the photosynthetic process but actually the respiration
process that is affected as well which is entered by
temperature.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you for that. And my time is expired.
I will yield back.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize
the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Salazar.
Mr. Salazar. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Troxel, about 50
years ago there was a severe insect infestation across the West
and some of the forests. We find that same problem here today.
It is significant in Colorado, we have seen many of forests,
the pictures you have shown today are quite telling.
Many people actually blame climate change for being the
sole factor. I mean, this thing has happened. It is kind of
cyclical. It has happened in the past. Could you comment on
that?
Mr. Troxel. Thank you, Representative Salazar. I believe
the underlying problem is the condition of the forests. And as
I described the picture in Colorado, it is a single species.
They are all the same age, and they are in overstocked stands.
And it seems like this is one of those cases that we have to
keep relearning the same lessons. And managing a forest is a
lot like managing a stock portfolio. Diversity is good. Our
forests in Colorado, our Lodgepole Pine Forests are roughly the
equivalent of having an entire stock portfolio in Enron several
years ago. And when it goes south, it all goes south. And that
is what has happened to our forests.
Looking ahead what we need to do is concentrate on
diversity of age classes, diversity of species and keeping
those stands thin and vigorous and healthy going forward so
that they are better able to resist and withstand stress and
not be as susceptible to fires and insect epidemics.
Mr. Salazar. Thank you very much.
Dr. Lehmann, to a layman like myself, explain biochar. I
don't understand it.
Mr. Lehmann. Thank you, Mr. Salazar. Biochar is very much
like charcoal in the sense that the organic structures change
entirely when you heat biomass. For instance, a wood log, you
cover it in modern pyrolysis units. This is achieved in so-
called reactors where air is excluded from the process. And the
biomass is heated to about 300 to 600-degrees Celsius.
At that temperature, the properties of the biomass change
and there forms so-called charcoal. Charcoal is a substance
that has been produced throughout the history of humanity at
all stages. It has been one of the earliest industrial
processes. So the process is very similar, identical almost, as
producing charcoal. What it differs is that biochar is produced
for the purpose of soil amendment. And that means, several
charcoals may make good biochars but there have been found to
be a lot of different biochars made from feedstocks that would
not make a very good fuel, which is what we usually produce
charcoal for.
And this biochar material has remarkable properties that
enhance soil fertility, soil quality. It is like a sponge. It
is like a substrate where nutrients can hold on to where micro
organisms can find a habitat. And it has also been dubbed as a
microbial reef in soil.
The chemical changes that happen through these so-called
thermodecomposition, this thermal treatment, is so profound
that the stability of the organic matter is dramatically
increased. What was a leaf or a grass that would have
decomposed within a few days or weeks or months, is now a
charred leaf that is stable for many decades, hundreds of
years, even thousands of years.
Mr. Salazar. So is it like a sponge, then, for example if
you apply nitrogen fertilizer to the soil, will that actually
hold the nutrient and release it as the plant needs it?
Mr. Lehmann. Yes, very similar to, we are all very familiar
with the value of soil organic matter. Every farmer, every
gardener will agree that when we increase soil organic matter,
we hold nutrients in the soil. We improve soil plant growth
ability.
And very much the same is happening with biochar. The
interesting aspect is that biochar is more effective in
providing these attributes, these desirable attributes of soil
organic matter than, for instance, other organic material
because it is more stable and it has a higher surface area, it
has a certain structure that provides this ability.
Mr. Salazar. Thank you. My time is expired.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Thank you. I thank the gentleman. The
Chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from California, Ms.
Speier.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Dr. Lehmann, let me ask you. There is great exciting news
coming from companies like yours that suggest that if we pursue
biofuels, we are going to see a reduction in greenhouse gases
of some 70 percent. A company in my district called Solazyme
that is using algae to produce aviation fuel right now and has
the potential of producing it for cars as well. Its big
problem, and I am wondering if it is yours, as well, is the
fact that it needs to gear up. It needs the resources to be
able to create a large facility so that it can, in fact,
produce the products in large volumes. I guess my question to
you is what do you recommend that Congress do to focus on the
technical and economic challenges that many of you are facing
in your efforts to scale up?
Mr. Lehmann. Thank you, Ms. Speier, for the question. Just
for the record, I am not a representative of a company, but I
am a university professor and have no company affiliations.
You are asking about the fuel production ability of bio in
the energy stream using pyrolysis. And that is correct,
pyrolysis is able to generate fuels and so are other bioenergy
streams that you mentioned, fermentation, even combustion.
Bioenergy, as a whole, needs to deliver net climate and net
environmental benefits. And we need to look at the full life
cycle impact both economically as well as from a carbon
footprint point of view, that I think we have learned the hard
lesson with the current ethanol debate.
Biomass in itself is a, in many instances, a commodity that
is distributed in the landscape, and that means that when they
need to be gathered, carbon needs to be invested to achieve
that. It is a handling issue. It is a storage issue. And so we
need to look hard at those opportunities where we can harness
the most environmental and climate benefits.
Colleague Troxel has already shown us a few examples where
biomass actually constitutes, or biomass burning, the
decomposition and die-back of forests constitute an
environmental and economic liability. These are opportunities
that can be harnessed first.
There needs to be very judicious discussion and very
judicious observation of biomass bioenergy to be sure to
develop net climate and net economic benefits. Thank you.
Ms. Speier. Let me further ask you. We make the mistake
from time to time of picking winners and losers, whether it is
in health or, in this case, choosing ethanol over other
potential alternative fuels, and finding out that, in fact,
there are huge repercussions.
Do you have any recommendations to us on how we go about
being somewhat more neutral in allowing those that are in the
area of producing new alternatives to be able to do so in a way
that don't create a winner or a loser and yet also gives the
opportunity for the entities that are out there to gear up?
Mr. Lehmann. That is a very good question. And it is indeed
important to not pick winners or losers because there will
likely be opportunities for many different avenues and they
need to be geared to the local conditions. And what is worse
probably they will change over time even during the course of
the year which biomass streams are viable. So we need to look
at integrated concepts of bioenergy.
And there are initiatives underway by companies as well as
by academic institutions and research organizations to look at
bioenergy as an integrated concept not as just a one side track
for dealing with biomass. And that is very important.
Ms. Speier. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. I thank the gentlewoman.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Washington, Mr.
Inslee.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
Mr. West, I have read your testimony. I am sorry I didn't
get to hear it. But I have read your testimony. And I want to
ask you a couple of questions about this important subject. In
the underlying text of the bill that has passed the Commerce
Committee, we have a provision that is called the Doyle-Inslee
amendment that has free allowances to trade-sensitive, energy-
intensive industries, and it is my understanding that the
fertilizer industry would qualify for that, both as trade
sensitive and energy intensive.
Is that your understanding?
Mr. West. That is my understanding, yes, and thank you for
doing that, putting it in there.
Mr. Inslee. I appreciate that.
How would you quantify the benefits to the industry in that
regard? Have you put a dollar figure on it or a percentage of
cost?
Mr. West. Well, we are subject to those free allowances. As
you know, 15 percent of the total allowance is set aside for
energy-intensive energies. We are probably one of what, 45, 50
sectors that would be eligible for that.
Right now I don't know exactly how many allowances we are
going to be able to receive from that because, as you know, we
have going to through the rulemaking and let EPA and everybody
report. My gut tells me that there is probably not enough in
there.
And I would love to see the nitrogenous sector with a set
amount so that we can plan a little bit more about what that
means to us and can we survive in the global economy over say
that 10 years that that is going to be available.
Mr. Inslee. When Mr. Doyle and I were doing this, we wanted
to be fairly aggressive in protecting these sectors. And I
think it is a pretty good slug of allowances that we have come
up with. But your concern is that your natural gas increases
would be larger than the value of those allowances? Is that
your concern?
Mr. West. That is correct. Your provision deals with as you
know direct and indirect costs. And then we have this big old
boogie man out here of what is the cost of natural gas, $3.5
today. We seem to have a lot of natural gas, but everybody
seems to be turning to natural gas and natural gas is the
environmental fuel of choice. And if we don't get this right,
our allowances will be eaten up by the price of natural gas.
And we won't be competitive in the world market.
Mr. Inslee. The EPA, I am told, and I haven't read this in
detail, but I am told that the EPA did an assessment of this
and found that there really, they didn't feel there would be
natural gas price spikes associated with this that you fear.
Have you looked at their assessment?
Mr. West. I don't know if I have looked at their
assessment. But natural gas has spiked above $10 three times
since 2000. So it is going to be very difficult not to put,
with the demand for natural gas, that natural gas prices will
not increase as everybody turns to it.
Mr. Inslee. I am told that their assessment suggested that,
and I am not saying there won't be spikes in natural gas and
they are not saying that either. It is spiked without this
bill. There have been big spikes in natural gas without this
legislation of course. The question is what this legislation
would do.
And my understanding of their conclusion is that the
combination of the free allowances, the fact that we have got
considerable natural gas supplies still subject to development,
the fact that we have got significant efficiencies we are all
still working on, the fact that there are other alternatives
besides natural gas, it is not the only one, they have
concluded that they didn't see a probability--we are all
dealing, you describe it as the boogie man, maybe that is the
right way to look at it, we deal with possibilities and
probabilities here. But they felt that the probability was that
we wouldn't experience that. And if you have any critiques of
that assessment, send it by. We would love to see it. And thank
you for your testimony.
Mr. West. Thank you.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. We have less than 5 minutes remaining
in a very long series of votes. If this were normal series of
votes, we would recess for a period of time and come back for
additional questions that I and others have. But there are at
least 28 votes in this series. And so I would encourage my
colleagues to submit any additional questions that they have
for the record. I have a series as it relates to incentives and
tools for agriculture to employ to adapt and what H.R. 2454,
how it addresses those incentives or tools as well as
sufficiently robust offsets program that Mr. West explained.
But I want to emphasize to our panelists today the
importance of your testimony. As I stated previously,
negotiations are intense and ongoing as it relates to possible
changes to the draft that was marked up in the Energy and
Commerce Committee. And the upcoming days and possibly few
extra weeks are immensely important. And the issue of
agriculture and forestry is a primary focus of those
negotiations.
So we appreciate your testimony.
We will submit our questions to you in writing and hope
that you will have time to get back to us as quickly as
possible based on the impact that your responses could have for
those negotiations that are ongoing. So I want to thank all of
our witnesses today.
I thank my colleagues for their participation.
And the hearing now stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:50 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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