Building a Bipartisan Agenda for Farm and Forest Carbon Solutions: Launch of a New BPC Initiative
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Video Transcript
00;00;06;28 [Sasha Mackler]: Hi, good afternoon and welcome to the Bipartisan Policy Center online. Uh, and thanks for joining our discussion today, which will be focused on the important role that our farms and our forests can play as part of a national climate solution. I'm Sasha Mackler. I'm the director of the Bipartisan Policy Centers Energy Project. And on behalf of, uh, Jason Grumet, who is, who is the Bipartisan Policy Center president and myself, we'd like to thank everyone for joining us today, uh,
00;00;37;04 for well, more than a decade. The BPC has been working on the development of pragmatic, durable, federal policies that can accelerate the transition to a low carbon future in the United States. And among other things, BPCs Energy Project is focused on a broad range of issues that relate directly to carbon management. We need to be reducing emissions through the deployment of technologies, such as renewables, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage, but it's also important to keep in mind that we will need the
00;01;07;08 full set of options, both natural and technological to remove carbon dioxide that's already in the atmosphere because it won't be possible to eliminate all human caused sources of greenhouse gases over the next few decades. And carbon removal will be an important tool as we look to achieve net zero emissions by mid century today, we're really excited to talk about one important element of this net zero agenda, and to announce the launch of our new farm and forest carbon solutions initiative over the coming months,
00;01;41;09 BPC will be working with current and former members of Congress to build out the technical and the political agenda around a comprehensive set of climate policy options for American farms and forests. Uh, we're really excited to bring on Robert Bonnie to lead this initiative. And we'll be hearing from him, um, in a, in, in a few moments, uh, and in our second panel today, we will start to talk about some of the key elements of the
00;02;07;11 emerging policy landscape for natural climate solutions. But before we do that, we're really excited to turn to Representative Greg Walden for some prepared remarks.
00;02;18;06 [Sasha Mackler]: Congressman Walden is the ranking member of the house energy and commerce committee. And we're very glad to have his reflections today on some of the policy proposals introduced this Congress that support natural carbon solutions, along with his views on future opportunities, the Congressman representing and being, and he has focused for a number of years on bipartisan legislation to expedite the treatment
00;02;52;09 of fire prone forests. And he continues to work across the aisle to find natural resource solutions. In 2014, Congressman Walden was elected by his, his colleagues to lead the national Republican congressional committee. Um, and we are really grateful to have his, uh, his comments today. Unfortunately, he was called to another meeting unexpectedly before this event, but we are grateful that he took the time to record a video. Uh, and
00;03;21;00 we'll, we'll turn to that now. Thank you.
00;03;24;11 [Rep. Greg Walden]: Good afternoon. I want to thank Jason for allowing me the opportunity to share a few words with you all today. As the Republican leader of the energy and commerce committee, I've been leading congressional Republican efforts to combat climate change risks. Last Congress, we held numerous hearings and passed legislation to protect clean air, clean water, clean land, and to boost nuclear energy and clean up nuclear waste. This Congress I've led efforts to provide innovative and thoughtful climate solutions, including 12 bipartisan bills that would pass
00;03;57;20 right now, if we could get them up for a vote to ensure the United States remains a global leader in emissions reduction, economic productivity and clean energy production. We also have an opportunity to utilize our natural resources to tackle this challenge. We know from the 2007 United Nations IPCC report that properly managed forests provide the best opportunities for carbon mitigation while also generating a sustainable supply of wood
00;04;26;06 products and jobs, you know, in Oregon, we've led the nation in sustainable forest practices with the Oregon forest practices act.
00;04;34;24 [Rep. Greg Walden]: This law prescribed certain practices, including the two trees be replanted for every tree that is harvested. The results are substantially managed private forest that will be here for generations to come. They're sustainably managed. And that's good news for carbon sequestration. Compare that with the forest service, that estimates more than 65 million acres of national federal forest lands are in need of management and restoration. These poorly managed federal forests are frankly at tinderbox millions of acres of forest burned nationwide every
00;05;08;17 year, spewing out smoke and carbon into the atmosphere. The forest service estimates that in 2015 summer wildfires in Oregon burned nearly 700,000 acres and contributed 14.2 million tons of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. According to the environmental protection agency, that's roughly the equivalent to the emissions of 3 million cars in one year or three and a half coal fired plants operating for a year and to make matters
00;05;39;23 worse. We almost never go in and clean up after these fires and replant healthy green forest for the next generation. That's troubling when you consider that as much as 70% of carbon released comes from a fire as the dead trees decompose, good news is we know what to be done study by the forest service and the nature Conservancy and in the Sierra Nevada has found that thinning our forests through fuels reduction projects would reduce emissions by as
00;06;09;07 much as 75% cleaning up and replanting after the fires is needed as well. So we end up with young, healthy trees that are sequestering carbon rather than a sea of dead carbon emitting tree skeletons. There's been and continues to be a lot of bipartisan agreement, abundant forest management efforts in 2018, Congress passed the most significant reforms of federal
00;06;32;12 forest policy in more than a decade, but our work is not done here.
00;06;37;13 [Rep. Greg Walden]: And in recent years, a bipartisan group of members have proposed the resilient federal forest act to expand on our past efforts. Now, as chairman of the energy and commerce committee, I held two hearings on wildfires and their impact on air quality engagement from both sides of the aisle, frankly, was quite high with plenty of common ground from our witnesses to the underlying issues of thinning and fuels reduction. I was glad to see chairman Frank Pallone continue this effort with a hearing earlier this year on wildfires and the electricity grid. It
00;07;09;12 shows the increasing interest from both sides of the aisle on this issue. Congress has also passed into law incentives like the timber innovation act to encourage the development of new engineered wood products and facilitate the design and permitting of structures that utilize them finally from Woody biomass fuel power plants to advance biofuels. America's innovators continued to find ways to maximize wood products, to develop carbon neutral energy opportunities. Opportunities in agriculture
00;07;39;05 should not be overlooked. Either farmers and ranchers have long pursued the envelope on techniques and have a vested interest in being good stewards of the land. They want to be productive for years and generations to come dry land wheat farmers in Eastern Oregon in my district have long adopted the no till farming practices that prevents erosion and maximizes water retention. Recently, some of them have been working with the USDA and the Oregon State University school of agriculture to implement a dry land
00;08;10;10 resilience research project, to develop techniques that mitigate climate impacts and bolster soil carbon management. I was glad to partner with my colleagues, Senator Jeff Merkley, to advance funding for that kind of research. This year. This all gets us back to policies that drive innovation to find solutions to climate change risks that work and empower our local economies rather than some top down policies of regulation and
00;08;38;21 high taxation that we know frankly, lead economic stagnation. Bottom line is this climate change is real and combating. It requires solutions that are grounded in innovation, conservation and preparedness. This doesn't have to be a partisan issue, frankly. It shouldn't be, there are plenty of bipartisan solutions to be had if we can come together and work together to get them done. Thank you all for agreeing to let me share a few words with you. I wish it could have been in person, uh, but unfortunately that wasn't
00;09;10;22 allowed right now. Thanks for what you do. I look forward to continuing our work together
00;09;18;27 [Sasha Mackler]: Well, that's great. And we certainly appreciate those comments from the Congressman. Um, we won't be able to have a question and answer with the Congressman right now, but we are looking forward to a robust dialogue in the next panel. So I think we'll just transition to that right now. And what I'll do is introduce my, my colleague, Leslie, who will be moderating the panel. She is the associate director for energy and climate here at BPC, and has played a key role in helping to put not only this panel together, but also the larger pharma
00;09;51;19 forest initiative. And so I'll turn things over to Leslie now. Thanks.
00;10;02;27 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Thanks Sasha. I'm Leslie, Jantarasami and wanted to thank everyone today for tuning in, from all over, feel free to put where you're from in the chat feature on YouTube. Um, and you know, we're really excited to have you here at the launch of our farm and forest carbons women's initiative. The report we're releasing today, uh, is the culmination of work we did with a number of technical experts to examine the federal policy landscape for enhanced carbon sequestration and US agriculture and forests. And we wanted to recognize and thank, uh, Alex
00;10;36;15 Rudy and James Mulligan at the World Resources Institute, Fred Iutzi and Timothy Crews at the Land Institute, Debbie Reed of the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium, and Eric Washburn of Windward Strategies. Uh, this report is a great resource for anyone looking for an overview of the policy science and economic context for new efforts to promote soil and forest carbon sequestration.
00;11;00;17 [Lesley Jantarasami]: And it can be downloaded from the Bipartisan Policy Center website at the address we've posted in the YouTube chat and which you might be able to see on the screen here on our website. You can also find a set of near term economic stimulus policy proposals for supporting rural economies and job creation in the U S agriculture and forest sectors. And over the coming months, BPC will continue working to build out a comprehensive federal policy agenda. That includes both near term and
00;11;33;07 longer term strategies for agriculture and forestry that provide climate environmental and local economic benefits. And so now it is my great pleasure to introduce three panelists that are joining me today for a discussion of working lands and climate and opportunities for bipartisan support for natural carbon solutions and their full bios are provided on the BPC website for this event. But briefly first we have my colleague Robert Bonnie, who has joined us to direct the farm and forest initiative
00;12;05;05 at BBC, and also is affiliated with the Nicholas Institute for environmental policy solutions at Duke university, and has served at the us department of agriculture under secretary for natural resources and environment and a senior advisor to us, secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack. And next we welcome Karen Ross, who is the secretary of ag for the California department of food and agriculture. She has served in this
00;12;30;22 capacity under two governors and as chief of staff for the US agricultural secretary, Tom Vilsack and a past president of the California association of wine, grape growers. And finally, we welcome Dave Tenny, the founding president and CEO of the National Alliance of Forest Owners, whose member companies own and manage more than 46 million acres of private working for us and 30 state and national associations that represent tens of millions of additional acres. And Dave previously served as a vice
00;13;01;23 president for forestry products at the American Forest and Paper Association, and as USDA under deputy undersecretary for natural resources and the environment. I'm really looking forward to this conversation today. And I'll start out with just a few questions. I'm kicking it off with Robert. So could you tell us a little bit more about your polling of rural America on the environment and climate change and what have you found and how does it inform climate policy for farms,
00;13;30;06 ranches and forests?
00;13;30;23 [Robert Bonnie]: Yeah, so thanks, Leslie. I want to thank mr. Walden for his remarks. as well as sec ross, my old boss at usda and Dave Tenny for joining us today. So when I left the Dept of Agriculture and headed to Duke I was interested, having worked with rural constituencies my whole career, to learn more about the urban rural divide around the environment. Is there one? How does it influence the way people think about the environment? So spent a couple of years working with colleagues at Duke, doing polling, focus group work, interviews with farmers, ranchers, forest landowners, government officials across the country from rural America. And so we released our findings earlier this year and I think it has a lot of implications for the topic we’re talking about today. So, um, when we ask when you ask rural Americans and their urban and
00;14;33;16 suburban counterparts, how much they care about the environment you find,
00;14;36;06 there's very little difference between urban and rural America. And if you ask about economic tradeoffs, you would think, well, maybe folks in rural America see a tradeoffs, economic tradeoffs with, uh, protecting the climate or protecting environment. And really they don't. In fact, we found in focus groups that folks recognize the importance of a clean environment for rural prosperity, whether it be recreation, agriculture, forestry, what really, um, what really did different differ between urban and rural folks
00;15;05;28 was their attitudes towards the government. And I know if everybody looks at a political map, they know obviously higher concentration of Republicans in rural America, but it actually, this attitude kind of cuts across, uh, partisan lines. And so, you know, we found that those attitudes towards government and government oversight, particularly on the environment, um, are different across all parties in rural.
00;15;28;16 [Robert Bonnie]: There's more skepticism towards the government, more concerned about particularly federal government oversight. And when you ask about climate change, you find out that a lot of the attitudes of rural Americans on climate are actually influenced by those, uh, attitudes towards the government. The people's attitudes on the governor is a very good predictor of what they think about climate change. But even though there is some skepticism about the science around climate in and in parts of rural America, um, there's actually a lot of interest in a range of
00;16;01;21 solutions to the challenge and particularly around natural climate solutions. So we found that when we asked rural voters, if they were willing to support, uh, uh, investments to deal with climate change, there were much more, uh, positive when you added, for example, helping farmers. And so the opportunity here to actually tap into a strong conservation ethic in rural America to figure out win-win solutions, which appear, which
00;16;29;09 appeal to rural voters, and to really build some bridges with the farming community, with, with agriculture, generally ranching and with, uh, forest landowners, I think is really important. And so I think, um, our research suggests that there's tremendous opportunity to, to build some bipartisan bridges around, uh, around climate change.
00;16;52;23 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Thanks, Robert, that is really interesting. I think that polling work really speaks a lot to some of these issues. So Karen, as California, secretary of agriculture, and with your previous federal experience, what opportunities do you use the, to work with agriculture on climate change?
00;17;10;25 [Karen Ross]: Well, first of all, thanks for having me today. And I really looking forward to reading the report. Um, and Robert, the polling is fascinating. Um, I just want to touch on what we did to start our climate smart agricultural programs here in California, uh, over 10 years ago. Um, and the first thing we did was we can being specialty crop, welders around an ongoing conversation about how they were thinking about climate change, um, the language of climate change, um, what their biggest concerns were and what they felt their needs were, which will they identify
00;17;44;01 things in that area of research, more demonstration projects to prove out some of the practices. Um, and it was at that time, it was the first of its kind, kind of real convening of people who live and work on the land to understand what their needs were, um, rebuild our program, basically. Um, the great work that USDA did with secretary Vilsack and Robert Bonnie, and many others to really do these building blocks of climate smart agriculture. Um, we took
00;18;14;25 that work and the work that they did on comment planner, which is a tool for the natural resources conservation service for, um, using the conservation programs that they have. Uh, we invested in having greenhouse gas, emission reductions, um, calculated for all of those NRCS practices, so that we were marrying what we wanted to do with incentive dollars here in California, to existing NRCS practices that people are familiar with,
00;18;44;18 but we'd never put it in the context of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
00;18;49;17 [Karen Ross]: Um, so continuing that kind of work using a program that farmers across this country are very familiar with and really focusing on the farm bill dollars and the conservation title is one of several really important opportunities right now, the policy opportunities are front and center. I'm excited that the U S Senate at committee had a hearing on healthy soils, that the house has released a big plan and a big document about climate, the report that you're doing here today, it's
00;19;21;01 coming at exactly the right time because we know that climate change is real. And we know that how agriculture is impacted by climate is definitely going to impact our ability to meet the food security future of this country and the world. Um, and that the conservation title is one great tool, but we're also seeing this renewed interest from the marketplace and the private sector, really thinking about their sourcing and having
00;19;50;27 sustainable sourcing and making investments in partnering with agriculture and, and incentives through the marketplace recognition in the marketplace. And we can't take the marketplace out. I think where there's some additional work that we could do is a better quantification of economics, because at the end of the day, these practices make a business case for why there should be widespread adoption, early time. That's where you need more
00;20;20;14 incentives. And the policy signals to say you're on the right path. But once we start to get enough in place that can be scaled up in a marketplace, um, and, and thinking about offsets and the credit markets, um, green bonds is an area that I think can come to this space, but we can't do it without the great work and the awesome research that has been done historically at the United States department of agriculture and its partners through the climate smart local Alliance and other places. So I'm
00;20;51;13 excited about all the ways that we can build on the work that has started and the sense of urgency that we all have to feel. And being able to scale this up, looking at the policy, looking at the next farm bill, looking at partnerships with environmental organizations and marketplaces and consumers, that's the only way we're going to be able to do this. There's never been a better time to do this work, and we invest in it with new enthusiasm and a new generation of people who are thinking about this and
00;21;24;07 understand what we can do working with our landowners and partnership to really address the climate challenge that has never been more important and more exciting. Thanks.
00;21;40;13 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Thanks, Karen. There was a lot in there and so I definitely want to come back to you because there's, but before we do that, I do want to turn over to Dave and talk more on the forest side and in privately owned forest, working for us in particular. Um, we see as a critical part of any effort to address climate change. So in your experience, how do forest landowners look at their role in these opportunities? And, you know, are there any differences between small landowners and large landowners?
00;22;13;20 [Dave Tenny]: Well, thank you, Leslie. And, uh, I want to thank the Bipartisan Policy Center for inviting me to participate today. And in the introductions I was doing a little bit of, uh, calculating, um, uh, secretary Ross was Robert's boss at USDA. If I had been at USDA at the same time, Robert would have been my boss. So I think that does set the pecking order pretty well for everybody. Uh, but let me talk for a moment about, uh, private land owners, uh, private forest owners, private forestry is one
00;22;44;21 of the best carbon stories in America today, and it has been historically, uh, Leslie mentioned, uh, working for us. So let me explain that for a moment. If you look at all the forests in America, uh, that are both privately and publicly owned, 70% of the working force. In other words, the forest that actually provide a fiber and wood for mills are on private land.
00;23;08;21 [Dave Tenny]: 90% of all the material that goes into our mills comes from private forests. And those are the, the forest that are working are the ones that are providing that material. Uh, the question Leslie was, uh, what are, what is the perspective of the private forest owner and how do large and small owners relate to each other? Probably the best thing I can say to describe that relationship is that we have far more in common than we have different. Uh, if you think about, uh, the principles that
00;23;42;27 bind us together, probably the first and foremost is that markets And private forests have an intrinsically valuable, uh, relationship think about, uh, what's happening in our country since the 1950s post world war two, we had a boom in, uh, in our economy. We had an expansion in housing and consumerism. Uh, we had basically from that time to the present, the
00;24;08;23 greatest expansion in consumption, enforced products in the history of mankind, uh, it's been unlike anything we've ever experienced or could even have imagined that back in the 1950s, but what's happened to our force in the United States. During this time has been quite remarkable. Our forest extent, the amount of force we have in our country has been re steady it's, uh, it's a stable land base, but the amount of Woodward growing in those forests, the volume of trees were growing. This forest has increased 60%.
00;24;40;00 Now that's come during the time when we are asking more of our force than we ever have in the history of the world.
00;24;46;24 [Dave Tenny]: So why is that? Uh, it's because markets and forest work together, and that's probably the most important thing that I can say to you is that it's the relationship between forest and markets. When markets for forest products are strong, forests are there and they continue to contribute and they continue to grow it's economics. The second thing that binds us together as landowners is that when it comes to climate change, uh, we agree on a very simple formula markets, as I just said, plus
00;25;20;09 trees plus wood and wood products equals mitigation at scaling. You need the combination of those three things in order to get the cotton, the, uh, the outcomes that you want at scale. If you think about what happens in our country each year of just on the, uh, just, just when it comes to tree planting, uh, we plant somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 billion trees a
00;25;48;09 year in our country. That's a lot of trees. Uh, we, uh, grow about 40% more than we harvest every year. And we build a lot of things out of wood. When you combine the carbon benefits of the carbon sequestered in those trees and the carbon that's stored in that wood today, we are offsetting about 15% of our industrial emissions nationwide from the net carbon that comes from tree
00;26;21;02 growth and, uh, carbon that's stored in wood products. That's a pretty significant contribution. And I might add that contribution at the moment, uh, is not compensated. That is a competence. That's a contribution that, uh, our forest, our products, our PR are providing to the country more or less free of charge. Uh, the third thing that binds us together is this combination of what I would call the three S's it's, the sea quest
00;26;48;20 striation in forests, the storage of carbon in wood products in the substitution of those products were more carbon intensive alternatives.
00;26;59;03 [Dave Tenny]: That's something that we understand very well and this contribution that we want to continue to make. And it's something that will underlie policy going forward. As we'll discuss later on, if we differ in anything it's scale, a large private landowner that operates at scale already will continue to operate at scale and can do things at scale, small landowners need to aggregate in order to produce scale. And so, as we're thinking about working with landowners of all shapes and sizes, uh, especially for the smaller lender, we need to think about how to enable
00;27;30;05 them to aggregate their contributions so that they can produce outcomes at scale.
00;27;40;03 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Thanks, Dave. Um, so going back for a second to Karen, so you talked a lot about, or you mentioned at least, um, some, some areas of economic opportunity within the carbon sequestration, uh, area. And let's put that into context though, of what's happening right now and the concerns about the economy and, uh, the pandemic and, and many agricultural producers were even hurting before this time. So are there ways that, uh, to structure policies, to help producers, you know, maybe an
00;28;14;05 access, um, to these markets, um, or in benefits to resilience, uh, to on, on their farms that can help make, uh, progress and encouraged carbon sequestration?
00;28;28;29 [Karen Ross]: Um, sure enough, I had all the answers. I'd probably be doing something else right now, but it's so important to think that through right now, because I love what day's said at the end, especially on scale, because we're working with such a diversity of sizes of land owners in farming and in forest.
00;28;45;13 [Karen Ross]: But with the soil health partnership is doing, which has, you know, large scale buyers, um, commodity organizations and others at the table, um, to see what this is because at the end of the day, um, how we manage our land creates tremendous public benefit. That has always been challenging, trying to quantify this nature's capital and how our stewardship produces if we manage our lands. Well, we're not only ensuring food security, which is a very significant issue, but also, um, preventing
00;29;19;27 runoff and, um, nitrates getting into groundwater. So we're improving our groundwater quality, our air quality habitat for species, uh, preventing invasive species from getting a hold. So this, this opportunity to really think through there's the price for your commodity. And then there's all these ecosystem services that are creating public benefit for every one of
00;29;42;29 us because of how those land owners are choosing to manage. Um, some of them may have some capital outlay, and that's why the cost sharing programs, NRCS are critically important, but some of it is just recognizing, helping to pay for that should be our partnership as eaters and wares of natural fibers. We should want to partner with that to ensure that that source of sustainability, um, and reliability and security will continue to be there. But I think it's appropriate to have this discussion
00;30;17;13 around public dollars and public programs, but that's also why it's exciting to see buyers and folks in the marketplace come into this conversation and help understand that equation and those multiple benefits that are being produced. When we think about carbon seek restoration and water holding capacity for a farmer that's resilience to drought, and that's important for the long term planning on their farm. Um, so it's, it's
00;30;47;18 really about it's collaboration with new partners, um, of which many are from the environmental community.
00;30;54;01 [Karen Ross]: It's partnerships with buyers and environmental organizations and are consuming public, um, to make sure that we're putting together the right public policy, that's giving the right signals to help the marketplace come through with that and making investments for incentive dollars to get early actions on the ground demonstration projects to help prove out the concepts and technical assistance. Those would be the ways that I would look, those will all support the longterm viability of
00;31;24;11 farmers, um, that we can overlook that the hurt that there right now. Um, but that's also, I'm very hopeful that these are a set of practices and programs that can also support that long term viability.
00;31;41;09 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Yeah. Dave, same, same reflection. Um, you know, what, what are you thinking in terms of, um, the slowing economy and impact on markets for would, what would it look like, uh, for the forest industry and for forest landowners coming out on the other side of, uh, all the challenges that we're facing now?
00;32;02;28 [Dave Tenny]: Well, let's talk about what happened and what's happened and continues to happen during the pandemic. The first thing that comes to people's minds, uh, at the beginning of the pandemic was toilet paper, but how do I get enough? And, and, uh, w do I need to stock up, will, will there be a shortage, uh, forestry, the forest products industry, our whole supply chain has been critical infrastructure for in the beginning of the pandemic and continues to be. So if you think of toilet paper, surgical masks, or even the, the, what you buy at home Depot or Lowe's to you, those do it yourself projects that you're doing at home now,
00;32;35;04 um, during this, this time of containment of an isolation, we're providing all of that. And so, uh, we're proud of the fact that we've been able to be part of the critical infrastructure that's helping.
00;32;49;18 [Dave Tenny]: Uh, but what does it look like on the other side, probably the most important factor on the other side of this is housing. We know that, uh, we still suffer from housing shortage in our country. We're about 3 million units short of what we need for individual, uh, single family homes, multiple multifamily homes, fordable housing, uh, building construction, and especially the use of wood and building construction is the bread and butter of private forests and innovations that are coming our
00;33;20;11 way through, uh, advanced construction, uh, processes and engineering materials, like, uh, mass timber that enable us to grow our, to, to build bigger and stronger buildings that are taller, uh, that are both, uh, safe from fire and safe from earthquakes and, and, uh, have structural properties that are, uh, better than they've ever been. And the, by the way, store, a lot of carbon are a great opportunity for us. And so, as we're looking on the other side of, we are really concerned
00;33;51;11 about, uh, maintaining a strong built environment and using wood in that built environment. Now, I might add that when the sawmills that produced the wood for that built environment, um, are up and running. They are also producing chips and sawdust and other materials that are used by paper manufacturing and the, the container manufacturing industry that provide, um, uh, the, the container board, uh, for the Amazon products that you're getting at your doorstep today. It's a very integrated, a very
00;34;22;12 interdependent supply chain. And so, as we're thinking about going forward, and we're looking at wood in construction is a, a locomotive that drives the whole, the whole train, and that's going to be a key indicator for us going forward.
00;34;40;07 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Thanks, Dave. Uh, so Robert, maybe we take a step back for a second. Um, and, and you've talked in the past about this alignment or potential alignment between natural carbon solutions and agriculture and forestry. Can you say more about what this looks like to you?
00;34;57;23 [Robert Bonnie]: Yeah. So when I, uh, I came out of graduate school in the mid-nineties and I went to work for environmental defense fund. The first thing I worked on was endangered species conservation on private lands. And what you realize with a bunch of endangered species is that sometimes they can be expensive and therefore they'd be conflict between what you want private land owners to do to protect a species and timber harvesting or agriculture or other things. And so the challenge in the policy context there is that there's a, there's a conflict. And how do you
00;35;30;00 develop tools to incentivize conservation? Um, and so that, that, that conflict you see in a lot of in environmental policy and in this, you actually see much more alignment. So Dave talked for example about the linkage between wood markets and maintaining privately owned forests. We've got people that are, that are investing in forests that are planting trees that are, that are growing for us to produce wood. And that alignment is
00;36;00;06 not only benefiting their bottom line and the ability to manage those lands in a way that are as profitable or that if you're a small family, a forest owner that allows you to, to maintain your land, but it also is increasing carbon sequestration. And then as a result, it's helping mitigate climate change. And so there is a there's alignment between many of the things we want done and in our working for us and, and, uh, what we want to see done for climate,
00;36;27;26 [Robert Bonnie]: A representative Walden talked about public lands and the threat of fire there, again, large scale restoration providing, uh, wood products from those lands to support mills in the West, but even have, but doing it in a way that, that produces ecologically, a healthier forest there's alignment. There there's alignment between what we want to see done for climate and what we, uh, what, what can be beneficial to rural communities, to the force industry and others in
00;36;58;06 agriculture. This is, this is true as well. Soil conservation not only sequesters carbon from the atmosphere, but it also improves the productivity and the health of soils. Um, it responds to some of the things that Karen talked about, where you've got consumer companies and others that are interested in their supply chain and sustainability issues. The dairy industry has stepped out in a, in a major way and taking a, uh, and taking commitments around climate change there too. There is some alignment, the ability to capture methane to turn it into
00;37;29;25 energy, to create new revenue sources for dairy farmers, um, and for them to respond to their customer demands as well. And so unlike a lot of places that we've seen in environmental policy, there is a lot of alignment between the types of practices we want to see in agriculture and in ranching and in forestry. Um, and what's good for the climate. That doesn't mean that they're free. It doesn't mean that we don't need to, to provide the research that Karen talked about, the incentives, uh, uh, knowledge,
00;38;00;28 uh, you know, thinking about things, how do we bolster, uh, uh, markets for, for wood products and other things? And so it's not that there's not a government role there is, but it's about incentives and markets and knowledge. And, and if there's one thing we've learned about, uh, private landowners in particular in the United States is they will respond to incentives. And so the question is what's the menu of incentives that takes advantage of that alignment, and that not only puts some government
00;38;30;25 resources on the table, but does it in a way that brings in private investment, the type that that Karen was talking about in
00;38;37;00 [Robert Bonnie]: California. Can I just add to that that's so right on point, the importance of really seeing where those alignments are and the difference between creating policy that signals carrot and stick, you shall do this or else, which can never recognize the vast diversity of scale of farming or forestry or the business model that each person has. Um, what we seen in this disruption
00;39;08;21 from COVID is that the distribution channels got disrupted. If you built your business model, primarily selling directly to a chef and restaurant shut down, or most of your products going into food service for over 50% of our food dollars are set. You have a very different scenario that you're trying to deal with. Then if your business model is selling primarily chicken resale setting, where all of a sudden, even the inner shelves, all that toilet paper and all those canned products were flying off shelves. So that doesn't, that can never recognize the vast diversity
00;39;40;21 of business models, scales of farming and the place where we farm place is so unique to farming. And so I just wanted to be able to tell him about Robert pointed out there. That's why it's so important to think about voluntary incentives, but giving the right policy signal, that this is the way we want to go.
00;40;00;14 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Fantastic. And I actually do have one last set of questions at all about policy mechanisms, but before I do that, I want to remind our audience that we have a Q and a feature that will be coming up in just a few minutes. So please type your questions into the chat feature. Um, and we will get to as many as we can before the time ends. So Karen, based on your extensive experience in climate and policy, or both state and federal levels, um, what do you see as some of the key attributes of
00;40;32;23 policies that draw broad based support across different constituencies?
00;40;38;28 [Karen Ross]: So in California, we chose early on under governor short sneaker to use a more market based approach to climate and our, our, uh, decision to go with a cap and trade program, which generated revenues on the cap sector. That's being reinvested in the transition of our economy to being carbon neutral agriculture itself with all of the programs that we have throughout California, um, cap and trade investment in those programs
00;41;09;06 has over $600 million in the last seven years, healthy soils, water use efficiency, um, dirty engine replacement programs, food processor, energy efficiency, and of course our dirty digester program. I always love the fact that we can turn that waste from cows into renewable energy and the low carbon fuel standard has been another way of rewarding our farmers. So, you know, chose to go that way as a way of money's going
00;41;39;12 to be reinvested in our economy to make this transition. Now, of course, in California, our last auction was not very successful because of COVID. Thank you very much, but how do we do that in the early days to prove out some of these concepts so that then the private sector will play, I think, a more important role, but I don't think we're ever going to lose the importance of our farm bill and especially that conservation title. And I have to marry that to our research title to make sure that the new
00;42;09;09 knowledge is being generated. And then that we have that cooperative extension and technical assistance to help extend it in a pragmatic way to our end users. I don't know how it is in forestry, Dave, but for agriculture, that's still going to be just the way that we continually improve our practices and our management strategies.
00;42;30;10 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Well, then let's hear from Dave, what do you think, what does the solution set look like?
00;42;37;28 [Dave Tenny]: There's, there is a lot of similarity between the agriculture and the forestry sectors, um, and, and to Karen's point, and to Robert's point both the importance of incentive-based market-based approaches just can't be overstated. Uh, it has been a success story for a long time in our country, and it will continue to be a success story. And, uh, to Robert's point earlier about rural attitudes, uh, folks in rural communities wanting to make a contribution and they want to make a living,
00;43;08;28 they want to take care of their families and their communities. And there's a great deal of, of culture involved in there. We can't understate the importance of culture because culture drives as much as anything else, the behavior of, of rural communities. Um, and when we think of policy, uh, I mentioned the three S's before, uh, when you're thinking about forestry, if you want the full mitigation benefit, and I'm sort of quoting the IPCC here, if you want the full mitigation benefit, you have sustainably managed
00;43;40;08 forests that are sequestering carbon. You have a strong forest products market that is storing carbon. And then thirdly, you have the substitution of those products for other more carbon intensive, um, alternatives. When you have all three of those, you are hitting on all cylinders. And so a policy that is going to be complete will contemplate and incorporate all three of those concepts. Now, there are few other things that are important to landowners in order to make it work. Uh,
00;44;10;23 we need to be able to encourage broad based participation. There was a question that Leslie asked earlier, the difference between large and small land owners, um, we need policies that will set a playing field so that everybody can participate. And that means that they have to be simple enough so that people can have, uh, have a point of entry and no barriers to entry. So a complexity in this case, there will be some we're talking about carbon after all, but we can overcome that and we should be
00;44;38;27 encouraging rather than discouraging the participation.
00;44;41;29 [Dave Tenny]: The second is focusing on outcomes. We need to be able to show and produce real carbon outcomes. We can measure our carbon outcomes. We're fortunate in the forestry sector to have some of the, uh, the best, uh, measuring tools in the world, uh, through the department of agriculture's forest and image forest inventory analysis program that helps us measure carbon, um, and a lot of other attributes in our forest. Uh, but those outcomes are critical need to be able to focus on the outcomes.
00;45;12;23 Outcome focused. Uh, policy also enables a lot of flexibility and innovation. The third thing is integrity, and this goes back to the research that Karen was talking about. We have to be able to prove it. If it's going to survive in a marketplace with, with confidence, you need to be able to prove the carbon. And so we want to be able to measure it with integrity and show everyone who makes claim, everybody who is worried about that claim, that that carbon is real. And then finally, uh, we want to encourage that private sector investment.
00;45;45;00 There are companies that are making commitments today, big commitments to carbon neutral footprints. So as a, as a company like Amazon or Microsoft, or, or, um, uh, pick a thing company, uh, and, or a lot of other big national or international brands are making their commitments. They're putting resources on the table and they're looking to natural solutions to, to accomplish, um, a big part of their commitment. That's going to invite
00;46;15;16 innovation. We want that capital to come to the table and we want to encourage it. If, and if there are, there are companies or organizations that are early actors, early adopters, we want to reward that and make sure that they can have confidence in those innovations. They're bringing to the table.
00;46;34;04 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Alright, Robert, you get one last final word before the Q and a portion. Um, so can you talk about where the policy community should be focused and where you're seeing real opportunity for harnessing the growing bipartisan interest in these topics?
00;46;50;08 [Robert Bonnie]: Sure. And, you know, it's interesting because I think for 20 years in this space, we've largely assumed that we were going to have some sort of a market-based approach. Um, and that largely we were going to finance agricultural activities, forestry activities through an offsets program where, uh, you know, private businesses were going to purchase offsets from, uh, farmers, ranchers, forest owners. And that may be part of the policy, but frankly, just as there's been a lot of growth
00;47;24;17 and interest in natural climate solutions and climate policy, more generally, there's probably more uncertainty and then exists Around exactly what the mechanisms look like. And so it's clear that, um, we need to, uh, have policies that support market based approaches, uh, along the lines that, uh, Karen talked about, uh, along the lines that Dave talked about with accountability and measurement and all those things. But
00;47;52;05 I think we're looking at, uh, a larger solution set. Then maybe we were looking at, uh, 10 years or more ago where we're sort of not in offsets world anymore. Maybe offsets are going to be an important, uh, tool in both the voluntary market, maybe the compliance market. But I think we have to look at a broader set of, uh, of incentives. Are there ways is as Karen alluded to, to tweak a farm bill programs in a way that can provide more value for, uh, climate change, are there other things we could think about?
00;48;25;14 Could we think about new finance mechanisms that USDA a bank or another financial institution that actually helps, um, uh, incentivize puts liquidity into the market for these types of, of, of activities?
00;48;39;06 [Robert Bonnie]: Um, the research side is going to be clearly important, both the measurement that, that, uh, about Dave and Karen alluded to FIA, uh, other measurement at USDA, the models that Karen talked about, common models and other things. And then we're also going to have to think a lot about outreach and, uh, outreach to large and small landowners in particularly, um, uh, tribes, uh, uh, beginning farmers, minority farmers, and other folks. We're going to have to think about specific
00;49;09;25 resources to make sure everybody, uh, can play here. And just to, to underline what, what I've said before, and others have said regulation, isn't going to work well in this, in this area. Uh, there's too much diversity in agriculture. Um, there's too much diversity in, in forestry. Uh, this is going to be about incentives. It's going to be about the design of incentives. It's going to be about how we deliver those. Can we take advantage of existing networks of conservation groups and
00;49;43;07 States and, and commodity groups and other folks on the ground that are working directly with, with landowners and producers. Um, and so that outreach piece is going to be, uh, is going to be critically important. We don't need a huge, uh, addition to the federal bureaucracy to do that. We can figure out ways to partner and collaborate to work with States like California and others to, uh, to deliver these things. And then we need to
00;50;11;12 think broadly about, uh, about, um, uh, investments in, in things that actually support these, for example, rural broadband is going to matter for, for precision agriculture, for other things that that can help advance climate policy markets for wood products are going to be important on the forestry side. So, um, you know, I would say a decade ago, we were fairly focused on a narrow set of policy today. I think we're looking at, um,
00;50;39;14 [Robert Bonnie]: And we need to think about This, not just as climate policy, but it's actually rural development in a way to, um, uh, to think about, uh, um, working with rural communities, um, to keep agriculture and forestry viable and to do so in a way that creates climate benefits.
00;50;58;20 [Karen Ross]: Can I just Say, thank you, Robert, for mentioning the equity issue here, because it's extremely important, um, impacted communities of color, um, some of our pockets of poverty that are in rural communities, um, and having this equity lens is absolutely crucial for us going forward. As we go through economic recovery, we don't want to just recreate what we've had. We want to be better, and we want to be more inclusive and recognize that diversity. Um, we do socially disadvantage, farm set asides for all of our climate smart programs, because we want to make sure everyone has an
00;51;30;20 opportunity to participate. So thanks for saying that.
00;51;35;15 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Karen you've really anticipated some of the Q and a that's coming in here in my feed wanting to make sure that we're thinking about policy solutions that can help all types of farmers rather than primarily the large scale industrial operations. Um, and you know, it's, it's, you know, we talked a little bit about the differences between small and large forest landowners, but we didn't really talk about that on the act side.
00;52;00;03 [Karen Ross]: Yeah. One of the things we've had a lot of success with the last three years, it was started as a pilot program when we fell in love with it is we worked with our strategic growth council, um, for some technical assistance dollars. So we partnered with our UC cooperative extension that created 10 positions called climate smart ag community educators. So they're, they're postgraduates. Um, they are people, many of them have worked overseas and agriculture and the peace Corps, other kinds
00;52;31;01 of programs. And they are multi linguistic skills, which I'm definitely not. I can barely spit out English sometimes and they have done such terrific work and the communities where we have the largest percentage of socially disadvantaged farmers to really provide that technical assistance, help them with the applications extra. They know about our programs, find the ones that work best for them. And then if they get those grants and those incentive dollars, making sure that they can help with the verification and the paperwork that comes, if you're going to get public
00;53;01;24 dollars, there's always going to be a trail of paperwork to follow it. So that's just one example. That's really, for us had big payoff.
00;53;11;19 [Lesley Jantarasami]: There are a couple of questions coming in. I think that relate to some of the research topics that, that were, um, uh, introduced in our discussion. And so, um, on the side of, uh, of tree planting Jessica Zionts had a question about what, where might additional trees occurs such that there's no competition with food production?
00;53;38;11 [Dave Tenny]: Well, I could probably take a stab at that. Uh, when we think about tree planting, it's important to note that the footprint where we're planting trees now can actually grow more trees. Uh, there are market signals that actually tell landowners how many trees to grow. They've been doing it for a long time and they'll respond to those signals. If there are more signals or stronger signals to plant and grow more trees than they will. And they're very good at it. Now, if you move off of that
00;54;09;05 footprint, and I think that's the heart of the question, where else would we go? Um, there are places where we can grow more trees, and if we do it carefully and thoughtfully, uh, we not only provide a, uh, a benefit in the, to the environment, but we're also not interfering with the present marketplace because we gotta be careful that if you grow of just a bunch of more trees in the enter the marketplace, well, what that does, it drives down the value of the trees that are there and puts pressure economic
00;54;38;29 pressure on land owners, uh, to convert that land to other more economically productive uses.
00;54;43;23 [Dave Tenny]: So we don't want to do that. We have to be careful there, uh, but there are places like riparian areas. We use trees to clean water. If there are places to grow trees in riparian areas, and there are plenty of them, there are plenty of places in this country where we can control, uh, and better manage nutrients, for example, that under the water through trees, that would be a place where we could grow trees, uh, that would benefit water quality. And it wouldn't interfere with the marketplace. And that would have a variety of, of environmental benefits,
00;55;15;08 including, uh, sequestered carbon.
00;55;19;13 [Robert Bonnie]: Yeah. And I, I would just, uh, add to Dave's point that there's a he's exactly right. This market question is important. If we plant a bunch of trees and drive down timber prices, we could have some perverse incentives thinking about places where we can plant trees that don't add substantially to a timber supply are going to be important. There's a lot of interesting work we could do about longleaf pine restoration in the South protecting bottom land hardwoods in, in the, in the Mississippi Delta they're places where trees are going to have, we can
00;55;52;22 have an enormous ecological and wildlife impact, then maybe we don't contribute quite as much, uh, to supply. And, uh, and to Dave's point about in right period areas, that's a critically important point. And we are to look to those places to drive incentives because we can maximize the types of ecosystem service benefits that Karen talked about earlier. And, and at the same time drive some really interesting climate solutions.
00;56;18;21 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Karen, uh, it seems like California had just done some really cutting edge research and quantification carbon sequestration, Um, from specific agricultural best management practices that you mentioned early on. This is the question from Tim Maloney on, can you elaborate on, on how y'all did that?
00;56;38;08 [Karen Ross]: I would love to take credit for that, but I have to give credit to USDA who started working on these kinds of projects a number of years ago, but they really came to fruition during the Obama administration. There was a lot of effort put into that. And I think that's because of the leadership of secretary, then Secretary Joel Sacks, and people like Robert Bonnie that were there. And what we did was asked USTA, um, scientists to help us, um, calculate the greenhouse gas emissions and
00;57;10;27 reduction potential of every conservation practice. That is a standard under natural resource conservation programs. So equip the environmental quality incentives program is the first one that we started with. And it was the first time we really married. Um, these practices that we knew would have so health or water quality benefits, or wildlife benefits with what is the greenhouse gas emissions reduction that can be realized and accounted for this past year, we asked
00;57;41;28 them to also, um, help make this an easy tool for the farmers making applications to calculate what the incentive dollars they would get back from that. So they can see which practices might fit best for their particular farming method as well. So we love comment planner and all the work and investment that's been going into that, but that's been a work in progress for over 10 years now.
00;58;09;04 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Fantastic. So we have a couple of comments from Rae Schnapp and Kathy Pollard related to, um, you know, there, there are some proposals out there on streamlining the farm bill conservation programs that have been mentioned here. Um, and some thoughts on the growing climate solutions act, um, and trying to reduce barriers for small, um, producers and small landowners to participate in these programs.
00;58;35;04 [Robert Bonnie]: I'll, I'll chime in, I think, yeah, I think there's clearly a case for, uh, you know, our, our farm bill programs were designed to do some different things. They're wonderful. Everybody who knows me, knows I love those incentive programs, but as we think about adapting them to climate change, we're going to need to think about changes to how those programs operate and this issue of how we do outreach to, uh, producers. How can we work with partners on the ground to make the paperwork, uh,
00;59;06;25 less, uh, difficult to streamline those, uh, programs is going to be really, really important. And we've already talked about the importance of outreach to beginning farmers, minority, uh, landowners, tribes, and others. That is going to be critical as well. Thinking about how We integrate our work with local partners is going to be really, really important. The other thing I'd say is, you know, we, we've gotta be able to work with big landowners as well. And, um, we've got to be able to think
00;59;35;23 about how we deliver incentives to, uh, you know, some of Dave's members, for example, some of them own millions of acres, our ability to access those acres and to, and to think about incentives, there are going to be important. So we've got to figure out how to balance both our interests in, in some of the large landscapes, large land owners, as well as making sure we are able to deliver programs to, uh, small land owners.
01;00;01;14 [Dave Tenny]: To Robert's point. It may sound counterintuitive, but one of the biggest barriers that we've seen have been AGI limitations. And here's, here's why I use an example, longleaf pine restoration, Robert talked about only pine restoration. Well, forest owners are neighbors and they are not monolithic. And so you'll have a mixture of owners, large, small in between, in a, an area of a watershed or an area that might be a perfect place to do some kind of a
01;00;32;22 restoration project like, like longleaf. Well, what happens if a conservation program enables only the, uh, the smaller land owner participate, they might not be able to participate because they can't produce the scale necessary, but if they can work with alongside the larger land owners and you have a scalable landscape to work with, then everybody can participate and you actually achieve the outcome. You're looking for. That's one of the reasons why we focus on outcome based because at the end
01;01;02;21 of the day, we're here to save the planet, uh, is, is one of the primary objectives here. And carbon is a big piece of that right now. And so we're talking about scale. We need to think about scalable solutions and those scalable solutions can and should include everybody who can contribute. And I think if we fashioned the policy in a way that enables that happen, I think that we'll find that we don't really have a lot of conflict between large and small or in between that there's actually through the scale of
01;01;33;01 the solutions of an opportunity for everyone to participate in everyone to benefit and, uh, for the, the world of benefit and the process,
01;01;42;25 [Karen Ross]: Is there time to add one thing to that AGI for sure. But I think about the regional conservation partnership program, which is still new and there had some adjustments to it, but for us, you know, thinking about place, and we think about water a lot in California, cause we'd never have enough and obviously climate change and water go hand in hand, but we think about our watersheds from mountain top to beach. And if we were to think about how we can use that kind of a concept, so there could be forest owners and farmers thinking about soil health and tree
01;02;13;24 health, but we're thinking in a more place-based, but maybe even a larger scale watershed approach, we could find a way sure of it to include Farmers and foresters of all sizes to really think about the biggest outcome possible from that particular place. And I think those kinds of programs are things that we should continue to invest in and do some more pilots with.
01;02;38;03 [Lesley Jantarasami]: Well, thank you all. Um, I think we are definitely out of time at this point, and it's really clear to me that we could talk, you know, all day, you know, continuously about, you know, I'm trying to unpack all of the issues here. And I think there's some really, really interesting opportunities to delve in further. And luckily Bipartisan Policy Center is going to be putting on monthly webinars to really delve in technical and policy questions on the various topics, some of which we've heard today. Um, so please go to our farm and forest carbon initiatives,
01;03;12;22 uh, our carbon solutions initiative website, and scroll to the bottom. And then there's, um, there's a form where you can sign up to, uh, to get updates and stay involved, um, in what we are up to. And, you know, again, Robert Bonnie secretary Ross and Dave Tenny, thank you so much for joining us today, um, on this panel discussion and thanks everybody on the, on the, uh, the webinar. Um, we really hope to see you during our next webinar and,
01;03;41;17 uh, take care. Thank you.
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Natural carbon removal by farm and forest lands is emerging as a critical component of legislative efforts to address climate change. Action is needed to develop long-term revenue streams for soil and forest carbon practices that create economic opportunities in rural America, store and reduce carbon emissions, and achieve other significant environmental co-benefits.
Join the Bipartisan Policy Center for the launch of the BPC Energy Project’s Farm and Forest Carbon Solutions Initiative and release of our new policy options synthesis report. We are also pleased to announce that Robert Bonnie, former Department of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, is joining the Energy Project to lead the initiative. We will discuss promising areas of common ground and opportunities to build a shared, bipartisan agenda that can unite stakeholders from agriculture, forestry, conservation groups, rural communities, and other related interests.
Featured Participants:
Keynote remarks by:
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR)
House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member
Panel discussion with:
Robert Bonnie
Farm and Forest Initiative Director, BPC
Karen Ross
Secretary of Agriculture, California Department of Food and Agriculture
Dave Tenny
President and CEO, National Alliance of Forest Owners
Moderated by:
Lesley Jantarasami
Associate Director of Energy and Climate, BPC
Sasha Mackler
Director of the Energy Project, BPC
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