By Ryan McCrimmon
POLITICO
May 31, 2021
President Joe Biden is not going to ban red meat. In fact, his administration isn’t doing much to confront the flow of harmful greenhouse gases from the very big business of animal agriculture.
The Agriculture Department’s newly published “climate-smart agriculture and forestry” outline says almost nothing about how Biden aims to curb methane emissions from livestock operations. But environmentalists argue that any effort to shrink the farm industry’s climate footprint is half-baked if it relies on voluntary efforts and doesn’t address America’s system of meat production.
“USDA is setting itself up to fail on its climate and environmental justice goals,” says Chloe Waterman, senior program manager at Friends of the Earth U.S., a nonprofit environmental advocacy group.