Tell Congress: Taxpayers Shouldn’t Pay for Polluters’ Carbon Offsets

President Biden’s Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack wants to use $30 billion in tax dollars to create a Carbon Bank where companies that don’t want to stop polluting can buy credits generated from soil carbon sequestration to “offset” their greenhouse gas emissions. 

Leave it to “Mr. Monsanto” to give carbon farming a bad name by linking it to a market in hot air! If Vilsack wants to spend $30 billion on climate, he should support regenerative organic agriculture directly, not a false solution in the form of a cap-and-trade corporate ponzi scheme.

Tell Congress: Taxpayers Shouldn’t Pay for Polluters’ Carbon Offsets

Tom Vilsack against a landscape of air pollution and smoke stacks

Good news! President Biden’s new climate plan says, “America’s farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners have an important role to play in combating the climate crisis and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by sequestering carbon.” 

Even better news! The Agriculture Department has a $30 billion fund through the Commodity Credit Corporation that Secretary Vilsack can use to help farmers fix the climate.

This could be amazing! Regenerative organic agriculture is a climate solution with so many other benefits: clean water, more biodiversity, happy animals, nutritious food & healthy people.

Unfortunately… Vilsack says he wants to use the $30 billion to set up a Carbon Bank that would pave the way for a federal cap-and-trade program.

Helping farmers and ranchers do their part to solve the climate crisis is a great idea, but Vilsack’s market in hot air is not.

The only way to fix the climate is to phase out fossil fuels. Selling carbon offsets to polluters isn’t going to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

And, if the polluters are going to buy the offsets, why does Vilsack need $30 billion to create a Carbon Bank anyway?

If Vilsack wants to spend $30 billion helping farmers save the climate he should fully fund the Conservation Stewardship Program. An estimated 70 percent of farmers who want to join this innovative regenerative agriculture program are shut out because there isn’t enough funding. Cory Booker and Deb Halaand tried to fix this with their Climate Stewardship Act, but it hasn’t passed Congress. Vilsack could use his $30 billion to fully fund the Conservation Stewardship Program--and more--without giving the fossil fuel companies an excuse to keep polluting. 

Take Action! Tell Congress: Taxpayers Shouldn’t Pay for Polluters’ Carbon Offsets

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