Tag: Carbon sequestration

AB 125 Amended Upwards

$180 million added to bill

Yesterday AB 125, a multi-billion dollar bond proposal creating an entirely new agriculture-related division in California’s Public Resources Code, was amended in the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee, increasing it by $180 million to a new total of $3,302,000,000.

What next?

Making it out of the Agriculture Committee where it was introduced by committee chair Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) is the first step in a long slog through both the Assembly and the Senate, which, if successful, will culminate in a vote of the California citizenry in the general election of November, 2022.

What’s the new money for?

Thirty million dollars of the new money is earmarked for prescribed grazing (a method of grazing animals that promotes soil health and the sequestration of carbon), $100 million to upgrade food processing plants, and $50 million for fire-related improvements.

Agriculture Resilience Act

This bill, introduced by Chellie Pingree, is dead this session, but bills that fail aren’t necessarily gone. They can be reintroduced, sometimes modified in ways that make them more passable. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition considers the bill one of the good things that happened in agriculture in 2020, so it’s something I’d like to look into when I’ve recovered from the holidays. Consider this post a tip or a placeholder. Here are a few links…

Nuts and bolts info from GovTrak

RFD TV did a story on the bill, in which they mention a white paper by the Rodale Institute. The paper says regenerative agriculture could sequester ALL of our annual carbon emissions.