{"id":5124,"date":"2024-09-24T19:50:18","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T23:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/?p=5124"},"modified":"2024-09-24T19:50:19","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T23:50:19","slug":"press-release-so-called-low-carbon-fuel-standard-bill-will-make-michigans-environment-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/press-release-so-called-low-carbon-fuel-standard-bill-will-make-michigans-environment-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Release: So-Called \u201cLow Carbon Fuel Standard\u201d Bill Will Make Michigan\u2019s Environment Worse\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

This press release was originally sent out on September 18th, 2024. <\/em><\/p>\n

So-Called \u201cLow Carbon Fuel Standard\u201d Bill Will Make Michigan\u2019s Environment Worse<\/h3>\n

Coalition of environmental and animal-protection groups gather to urge legislature to kill proposal<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

LANSING \u2014 A coalition of environmental and animal protection organizations from around the state are meeting legislators in the capitol today to urge them to reject Michigan Senate Bill 275 (SB 275), the so-called \u201cLow Carbon Fuel Standard\u201d bill.<\/p>\n

The Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) bill is ostensibly part of efforts to encourage the use of cleaner fuels for cars and trucks that will do less damage to air quality and the climate in Michigan. However, the bill was created by and for massive oil and gas companies, huge agricultural producers, and large utilities (such as DTE and Consumers Energy). The bill will essentially create a pollution trading scheme through the buying and selling of carbon \u201coffset\u201d credits.<\/p>\n

By incentivizing Big Oil and Big Ag to collaborate on massive biogas facilities, the bill will encourage these corporations to increase the number of massive dairy farms in the state (CAFOs) and their use of \u201canaerobic digesters\u201d \u2014 huge lakes of cow manure<\/strong> that will pollute Michigan\u2019s air and water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impact of this bill is likely to be devastating for communities, the environment and animal welfare.\u201d<\/strong> said Valerie Schey, spokesperson with Michiganders for a Just Farming System (MJFS). \u201cIt represents a huge corporate giveaway, masquerading as a piece of climate legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michiganders for a Just Farming System has learned that the primary influence on the text of the bill was a group called \u201cClean Fuels Michigan\u201d whose members are big biogas companies, oil companies like British Petroleum<\/strong>, utilities like DTE and Consumers Energy<\/strong>, and other big companies like Amazon<\/strong> and Delta Airlines<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The coalition opposing the bill includes:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • The Anishinaabek Caucus of the Michigan Democratic Party<\/li>\n
  • Attorneys for Animals<\/li>\n
  • Barn Sanctuary<\/li>\n
  • Clean Water Action<\/li>\n
  • Farm Forward<\/li>\n
  • Food and Water Watch<\/li>\n
  • Humane Society of Huron Valley<\/li>\n
  • Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action<\/li>\n
  • Michiganders for A Just Farming System<\/li>\n
  • Student Animal Legal Defense Fund Chapter of Michigan State University College of Law<\/li>\n
  • Washtenaw 350<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    SB 275 would establish Michigan\u2019s first LCFS. Used in other states, a LCFS creates a market for buying and selling carbon credits (a.k.a. carbon offsets) for transportation fuels. Carbon offset programs have received an abundance of criticism from environmental policy experts for enabling companies to use shoddy and opaque accounting of their \u201coffset credits\u201d to greenwash their appearance to the public while doing little to nothing to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

    As written, the bill instead incentivizes the production of energy sources that are not really clean, such as biogas derived from animal manure produced on factory farms. The amount of greenhouse gasses emitted from industrial animal agriculture will likely be more than the greenhouse gas emissions reduced by replacing fossil fuels with biogas<\/strong>. In the end, Michigan will end up with more animal waste, which pollutes the air, land, and groundwater.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe pollution caused by burning fossil fuels is a real problem, and there are feasible solutions already out there,\u201d Schey said. \u201cBut the carbon credit system that SB 275 would establish is a false solution for reducing these greenhouse gas emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Earlier this year, a survey exploring the policies proposed by SB 275 was conducted of 832 likely Michigan voters. The survey found that while there is strong support for climate legislation, the support is conditional. Voters across party lines said they would not trust climate legislation that was influenced by fossil fuel companies or utilities.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The coalition assembled today plans to communicate broadly with legislators throughout the session.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-and-environment","category-food-policy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}