Ag Policy Blog

OMAHA (DTN) -- Two announcements landed within hours of each other on Thursday that together say more about the country's direction than either one did alone.

The Texas state agriculture commissioner said the state needs to better prepare for agricultural disasters. Meanwhile, the Trump administration moved ahead with the president's desire to end EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

The two announcements might not seem directly related, and yet they are two sides of the same reality.

TEXAS AG DISASTERS AN ESCALATING THREAT

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller on Thursday announced a new Texas Agriculture Disaster Task Force to more rapidly respond to agricultural crises and biosecurity risks.

In a news release, Miller cited the rising stakes Texas faces from disasters and biosecurity challenges. "As the nation's leader in natural disasters due to its scale and terrain, Texas puts farmers, ranchers, and rural areas on the frontline of escalating threats."

The Texas Department of Agriculture's news release added, "Beyond drought, extreme heat, wildfires, floods, freezes, hurricanes, and storms, Texas ag faces invasive foes like New World screwworm, cotton jassid, rice delphacid, and pasture mealybug -- endangering crops, livestock, rangeland, and food supplies. National perils, including unsolicited seeds and smuggled biohazards, add urgency."

There's a lot going on in Texas when it comes to natural disasters, and it is apparently costly to both farmers and livestock producers. Congress quietly acknowledged that reality last summer in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act when a provision was included to add a new subsidy paid directly to crop insurance companies to encourage them to keep selling policies in high-risk regions where losses regularly exceed premiums. The new subsidy targets areas with frequent 1.2 loss ratios -- basically means indemnities paid out are 20% higher than the total premiums paid. The only place that actually happens on a recurring basis is West Texas.

EPA ENDS ENDANGERMENT FINDING

That brings us to the EPA's decision Thursday to end the endangerment finding -- in which the agency had determined greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare -- and the agency in 2009 went beyond the authority of the Clean Air Act. Instead, EPA stated that retracting the endangerment finding will eliminate more than $1.3 trillion in regulatory costs and "restore the American dream."

President Donald Trump called the decision, "the single largest deregulatory action in American history."

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said he was getting rid of the "Holy Grail of the climate change religion."

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled greenhouse gases (GHGs) are "air pollutants" and EPA did have authority to regulate them if they endangered public health or welfare. The High Court has repeatedly declined to review that case since then.

EPA already had studies going back decades examining the impacts of climate change. EPA had issued a report drafted nearly 20 years earlier during the Reagan administration warning about the long-term risks of rising GHG emissions. The agency ruled in 2009 that six greenhouse gases pose a risk to public health: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

EPA's reversal will eventually end up before the Supreme Court again. The driving basis behind EPA's decision is to get the new conservative 6-3 majority to once again reverse a precedent.

CO2 IS A POLLUTANT

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in an interview on Fox Business on Wednesday that carbon dioxide isn't harmful. "CO2 was never a pollutant. When we breathe, we emit CO2. Plants need CO2 to survive and grow. They thrive on more CO2."

That's somewhat accurate, but people wouldn't survive very long in a room filled with nothing but CO2. That's one reason why CO2 is measured in parts per million. Plants need water as well, and they thrive on water, but the vast majority of them don't survive when they are underwater either.

REMEMBER SOUND SCIENCE?

The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) sought to curb this deregulatory decision last September with a 112-page report highlighting the consequences of climate change.

When it comes to human health, higher greenhouse gases have exposed people to more extreme heat, ground-level ozone, more wildfire smoke and higher particulate matter and allergens. The wildfire smoke issue stands out, given the Midwest and Plains states now either face constant summer smoke from wildfires in Canada or the Southern Plains.

"Groups such as older adults, people with preexisting health conditions or multiple chronic diseases, and outdoor workers are disproportionately susceptible to climate-associated health effects," NAS cited.

Further, rising temperatures increase risks for workers in a range of fields, including agriculture. That may be one factor behind why more workers in agriculture, construction and outdoor jobs now come from warmer climates in Central America despite the country's mass deportation push.

Americans are watching disasters pile up with increasing regularity. Droughts, hurricanes and floods are increasingly more costly and affecting livelihood.

Then there are vector-borne diseases such alpha-gal syndrome -- an allergy to meat -- caused by the migration of the lone star tick. A decade ago, it was almost incomprehensible that people were becoming allergic to meat because of a tick bite.

NAS highlights a number of other health issues, some of which were not addressed when EPA made its finding in 2009. Nutrition wasn't addressed by EPA back then. Increased temperatures elevate foodborne pathogens in the soil, water and food supplies.

DIRECT AGRICULTURAL IMPACTS

The NAS report included an entire chapter on agriculture.

NAS noted that elevated carbon dioxide concentrations and lengthening growing seasons offer some positive "carbon fertilization" effects on plants. At the same time, "these beneficial impacts will not likely fully mitigate losses associated with climate factors including heat stress, increased water demand, decreased water or nitrogen availability, or enhanced transfer of carbon below ground as plants respond to the need for additional nitrogen."

Excessive heat and precipitation extremes have negatively affected crop yields in the southeastern parts of the country while the western U.S. has become hotter and drier. The nutritional values of crops also decline under elevated CO2 conditions. "These nutritional changes affect dietary needs for both human food crops and livestock forage," NAS stated.

The northward shift of pests both affects crop yields and livestock. Warmer winters don't kill the pests, which then also leads to farmers applying more chemicals as a result. It's difficult to rattle off all the different fungicides and applications that are being applied, but farmers were spending $40 an acre last summer to prevent southern rust from affecting their corn crops.

Livestock also suffer under acute heat stress, with increasing diseases, slower weight gains, declines in milk production and greater death loss. Livestock production is also constrained by lower forage quality and drought stress. All of that helps explain why the U.S. has its smallest beef herd since the 1950s. Now we are ramping up imports to support the country's beef demand.

Climate change and the debate over greenhouse gas emissions is one more political football, but it's almost impossible to argue EPA's decision is based on science.

National Academies report: https://www.nationalacademies.org/…

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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