Senate climate bill leaves out ag wishes

A climate bill introduced in the Senate today lacks many of the provisions sought by farm groups to ensure that growers could get paid for carbon-storing practices, such as reduced tillage. A bill that passed the House in June provided a specific list of farming practices for which producers earn credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The credits would be sold to utilities and other companies to offset their own emissions. The House bill also shielded the biofuels industry from carbon-reduction standards that Congress set in a 2007 energy bill. Those provisions are missing from legislation introduced in the Senate today by Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee...read more