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Mary-Thomas Hart with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association joined Emily Beal on AgweekTV to discuss regulatory burden on ranchers, including the possibility of greenhouse gas emission reporting.
One of the notable speakers at the Northern AG Expo was Mary Thomas Hart with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. So Mary, what are some of the obstacles that cattlemen are currently facing?
Mary-Thomas: There are a variety of obstacles. I think, you know, every year is a little different. But I think certainly rising input costs have a huge impact on farmers and ranchers across the country. Also, you know, regulatory burden, we see, you know, increasing interest and regulation from agencies like the EPA.
Emily: So a big topic to discuss was greenhouse gas emissions reporting.
Mary-Thomas: So earlier this year, we saw a proposed rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission to mandate greenhouse gas emissions reporting from publicly traded companies. Now, that proposed rule includes scope three or supply chain emissions. So that means that any beef cattle producer whose final product is being sold by a publicly traded entity could be subject to greenhouse gas emissions reporting requirements. There's currently no accurate way to calculate and report greenhouse gas emissions, especially at an on farm level. So this subjects farmers and ranchers potentially to a pretty burdensome and unachievable regulatory mandate.
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Emily: So how did NCBA respond to their proposal?
Mary-Thomas: NCBA and ten other national ag associations filed some pretty substantive comments to the FCC. I think it was pretty clear with this proposal that they failed to consider the impact of this rule and this mandate to agricultural producers, in part because agriculture has never been regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. And as far as a resolution, I think that we will expect to see a final rule from the FCC in the next six months. Less clarification on whether that final rule is going to include scope three emissions. I think that they received a lot of pushback and so there will be likely some scaling down of the scope three reporting requirement.
Thanks for joining us today for some insight. Mary Thomas Heart, NCBA.
