As Director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for Governor John R. Kasich, and now as Executive Director of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, the largest in Ohio, I have dedicated my career to protecting, conserving and improve the environment.
I am also a sportsman and conservationist and while I have seen general improvement and a push to embrace and address the larger issue of global climate change, I remain concerned about the life threatening impacts our future. Changing weather patterns, more frequent and extreme storms and temperature changes and other impacts are affecting our natural resources, wildlife and waterways. We all need to recognize that these are existential threats and redouble our efforts to mitigate the most serious impacts.
Recently the world came together at the Global Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, where climate scientists and experts continue to warn that we are seeing and facing even greater and irreversible changes unless we focus all aggressively on implementing more impactful solutions in every country and every sector. Surely the debate will continue about what Ohio, the United States and the world should do. One important action that I support is the passage of the Growing Climate Solutions Act that Congress is currently debating.
The Growing Climate Solutions Act — a bipartisan bill that passed an overwhelming 92-8 vote in the U.S. Senate and is currently before the House of Representatives — recognizes the potential for partnering with landowners to slow climate change. climate change. This market-based legislation will allow the USDA to launch programs to help farmers, ranchers, and foresters understand private carbon markets and provide technical assistance in the use of marginal farmland to permanently block carbon in the soil. Removing these “barriers to entry” can pave the way for widespread implementation of such programs and be a powerful tool in the fight against climate change.
Ohio Senators Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown, both Ohio Farm and Rancher Families Champions, co-sponsored the Growing Climate Solutions Act in the Senate. The bill has won support from the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and more than 75 agriculture, food, forestry and environmental groups. This kind of broad, bipartisan support is rare, and it is clearly good policy.
Ohio is a leading agricultural state, supporting more than 400,000 jobs. And with agriculture nationwide contributing about 10 percent of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, Ohio agriculture must be part of solving the climate change puzzle. Sequestering or “locking” carbon in the soil is one way farmers and landowners can reduce carbon in the atmosphere. And by using otherwise marginal agricultural, livestock or forest land to store carbon, it can also produce other positive benefits like reduced fertilizer use and reduced runoff. Another benefit of this market-based legislation would be the generation of carbon credits that can be sold, thus generating a stable source of income for the landowner.
This bill is now before the Agriculture Committee of the House of Representatives. I urge the entire Ohio congressional delegation to work with their colleagues on both sides of the aisle to move this bill forward without delay. It will give Ohio farmers and ranchers the tools to make a positive impact in the fight against global climate change.
Craig Butler is currently superintendent of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District. Previously, he worked as director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for Governor John R. Kasich.
