Misguided Bill to Force Farm Methane Reporting Skips Half of the Equation, Potentially Worsening Greenhouse Gases
Ben Tindall, Executive Director of Save Family Farming, issued the following statement on Washington State House Bill 1630:
“State legislators’ are once again taking aim at Washington’s family farms with a reckless and one-sided mandate to force farms to report methane emissions while completely missing a crucial element of farming’s carbon cycle, and threatening to put the future of Washington’s family farms in jeopardy.
“Rep. Parshley’s bill would wrongly blame farmers for carbon impacts they don’t cause by accounting only for carbon they emit and ignoring the essential role they play in removing carbon from the atmosphere. This blatant omission makes it clear that this bill isn’t about science–it’s a political attack and it could deal a devastating blow to the future of Washington agriculture.
“Washington’s family farmers are leading the nation in pursuing strategies that could actually make them carbon negative in many cases, actively reducing greenhouse gases, not adding to them.
“Yet, instead of recognizing their contributions, under this misguided bill, farms that are actively working to capture carbon and fight climate change would be unjustly labeled as polluters, putting them at risk of future surcharges that could force them out of state or out of existence.
“If Rep. Parshley and her allies were truly interested in fighting climate change, they wouldn’t be targeting the very people who are part of the solution. If they want to estimate cows’ methane emissions, it’s already easily possible via available data. This bill isn’t about new information–it’s about setting up farmers as political targets.
“Instead of undermining Washington’s cattle farmers, legislators should be working with them. If this bill moves forward, it won’t just threaten the livelihood of farm families—it will also make climate change worse by undercutting the people actively working to combat it: Washington’s cattle farmers.”