Comment Log Display

February 20, 2024


Dear Governor Newsom and Members of the California Air Resources
Board,

The Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment appreciates the
opportunity to comment on the Notice of Public Hearing to Consider
Proposed Low Carbon Fuel Standard Amendments. CFFE is a coalition
of state and national organizations, including Dakota Rural Action,
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Land Stewardship Project,
Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Food & Water Watch and Institute for
Agriculture and Trade Policy. Our organizations work together as
CFFE to change policies that promote consolidation in animal
agriculture at the expense of independent family farms, rural and
urban economies, workers and an open, fair and competitive food
system. 

Our members have witnessed the shift in the structure of the
livestock sector away from independent diversified farms to
industrialized animal feeding operations in their communities.
These factory farms concentrate animals and their waste, burdening
surrounding communities with air and water pollution. A report by
Food & Water Watch called Factory Farm Nation: 2020 Edition
provides many examples of what happens to communities when
livestock and their waste is concentrated in specific regions. Just
one example of FWW's findings illustrates the problem: hogs on
factory farms in Duplin County, North Carolina produce the same
weight in manure as residents of Boston. But unlike human sewage,
hog and other livestock waste is not treated before being released
into the environment. Around the country, neighbors of these
facilities report odors and other health impacts, and losing the
ability to spend time outdoors. Anaerobic digesters are touted by
the industry as a win-win solution that creates usable energy while
reducing the environmental impact from the management of massive
quantities of manure. But communities around the country know that
this technology is far from a real solution. Instead, digesters
allow factory farms to not only remain a burden on surrounding
communities, but often to grow even larger. 

Unfortunately, California's preference for manure-derived biogas in
the LCFS program is driving the expansion and entrenchment of
factory farms and dirty biogas projects farm beyond California,
including into our communities. The LCFS has become a lucrative
financing tool for factory farm biogas. It is driving the
construction of more factory farms and factory farm biogas projects
in states far from California, causing severe harm to air, water,
public health, rural economies, and overall quality of life. 

The current flaws in the LCFS, such as "avoided methane crediting"
and inaccurate life cycle assessments, not only enable pollution
but disproportionately harm low-income communities and communities
of color who live near factory farms and manure digesters. This is
in stark contrast to the environmental justice commitment set by
California.

CFFE believes that climate change is a serious challenge that
requires a dramatic response. This crisis demands more than highly
speculative market-based schemes that will allow polluters to keep
polluting and let agribusiness pay farmers less for their crops and
livestock. A serious plan to address agriculture and climate change
must address structural issues, not just attempt minor improvements
in environmental performance in a highly consolidated,
industrialized factory farm system. Factory farms require huge
quantities of feed, water, chemical inputs and energy and manage
manure in a way that drives greenhouse gas emissions. California's
climate programs must support a dramatic transition in how we raise
animals for food that is centered on independent family farms and
sustainably managed grazing systems. 

Using California's climate programs, including the LCFS, to support
expensive manure management projects on confinement operations
fails to make this necessary structural change, and instead props
up and expands the factory farm system. Prioritizing grazing over
factory farm manure management would increase the sequestration of
carbon in pastures, and also avoid the emissions from
industrialized animal operations' feed production and liquid manure
storage. Manure lagoons not only emit high amounts of methane and
nitrous oxide, but they are also highly vulnerable to natural
disasters such as hurricanes and floods. And confinement operations
decouple grazing animals from grasslands, requiring more synthetic
fertilizers for feed production, which drives further emissions. 

In addition to these overarching concerns about LCFS' support for
manure digesters, we urge you to prioritize the following changes
to the standard:

•	Eliminate "avoided methane crediting"

•	Address inaccuracies in the Life Cycle Assessment that ignore
associated up and downstream greenhouse gas emissions from factory
farm gas production

•	Remove the 10-year "grace period" for factory farm gas producers

•	Stop double counting by allowing factory farm gas projects paid
for and claimed by other programs to sell LCFS credits as well.

For practices related to manure management, including anaerobic
digesters, the LCFS calculation should evaluate not only the risks
of increased ammonia emissions and water pollution from disposal of
digestate, but also the potential that the contract will lead to an
increase in the total number or density of livestock raised on the
site. The potential for LCFS funding to lead to more animals being
raised on an operation with a digester, and the increase in enteric
emissions and carbon emissions from feed production related to the
increase, should be incorporated into a new LCFS scoring system for
manure-derived biogas. 

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has the opportunity to
adopt new rules that would realign the LCFS with California's
environmental justice commitments and stop rewarding factory farms
around the country for their pollution. CARB's Environmental
Justice Advisory Committee has presented a clear alternative that
CARB should incorporate to align the LCFS with California's
environmental justice commitments and end the state's support of
environmental harm in communities across the country. 

We appreciate the opportunity to comment on this critical subject.


Sincerely, 

Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment