Community groups in the Midwest are worried a change in California carbon emissions policy could hurt quality of life in the nation's heartland.
Later this month, the California Air Resources Board will consider an amendment to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Oil and gas companies would be allowed to offset their emissions by purchasing credits from producers of "greener" fuel around the country, specifically, methane captured from cow and hog manure.
Tim Gibbons, communications director of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, said it could spur large dairy farms to expand.
"If Californians knew that their policy in their state was actually creating, incentivizing, fueling more corporate factory farms in the Midwest, I would like to think that they would be opposed to that," Gibbons contended.
Supporters of the amendment said their goal is to reduce carbon emissions on a national scale.
Many big dairy farms, known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, use anaerobic digesters to capture natural gas from manure, and then market it as a clean fuel. But a 2020 report by Food and Water Watch found, unlike human sewage, hog and cattle waste is not treated, so it can pollute groundwater and blanket downwind communities with a terrible odor.
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Categories: Kentucky, Livestock, Hogs, Dairy Cattle