Need to update: After meeting with his party members on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he doesn't have the votes to pass a more comprehensive climate or energy bill this summer. Instead, the Senate would look at a narrow bill dealing largely with the issues surrounding the oil spill.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/…

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change released a new report on reasons why farmers should be engaged in the debate over climate and energy. The study, "U.S. Agriculture and Climate Legislation: Markets, Myths and Opportunities" looks at the large number of economic analyses, modeling exercises, and reports published in the past several months based on an array of climate policy assumptions. The report notes that "The results of these efforts have often been skewed or cherry-picked to support particular arguments."

The brief found resulting scenarios that ranged from realistic to doomsday and discusses some of the assumptions driving these different outcomes. The brief tries to objectively assess the impacts of climate legislation and identify ways that such legislation could be shaped to provide greater opportunities for the agricultural sector through mechanisms such as a robust offset market or other renewable energy market opportunities.

"If properly designed and implemented, costs of climate and energy legislation can be minimized and the potential benefits to the agricultural sector maximized. Benefits include the opportunities presented by a robust offsets market, increased demand for bio-based forms of transportation fuel and electricity, increased demand for on-farm wind generation, expanded methane capture and electricity sales to the grid, and participation in stacking of environmental conservation payments.”

The paper is available at http://www.pewclimate.org/….

Sara Hessenflow Harper, one of the report's authors, stated, “This briefing is intended to be an informative resource for the agricultural sector and policymakers representing ag interests. The stakes for agriculture in the climate and energy debate are high and this brief attempts to provide context and clarity to some of the key questions surrounding this important issue.”

The Pew Center study comes on the heels of a report released Tuesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council that one-third of the nation's counties face higher risks of water shortages by mid-century due to global warming. The NRDC report states "14 states face an extreme or high risk to water sustainability, or are likely to see limitations on water availability as demand exceeds supply by 2050. These areas include parts of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. In particular, in the Great Plains and Southwest United States, water sustainability is at extreme risk."

Looking at the NRDC map, Great Plains states including Texas, as well as large chunks of Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska would face extreme or high risk for water supply challenges.

http://www.nrdc.org/…

According to the Pew Center, some of the key takeaways include:

American farmers and industry will face greenhouse gas limitations regardless of what happens in the legislative process.

Costs to farmers from GHG legislation can be substantially mitigated by cost-containment mechanisms.

The opportunities for farmers to realize a net economic gain from climate legislation are significant.

Climate change and resulting weather patterns pose numerous risk management concerns for agriculture.

A key message of the report is that farmers have many reasons to be engaged participants in the climate and energy discussion. Laura Sands said, “This brief underscores that the many reasons why it is crucial for the agricultural sector to remain actively engaged in this issue.”

And to quote one of Laura's favorite sayings when it comes to policy debates on this topic: It's better to be at the table than on the menu.

For more information, also visit the Ag Carbon Market Working Group at www.agcarbonmarkets.com.

And I should note spoke in early July at a pair of forums in Minnesota and Ohio co-sponsored by the Ag Carbon Market Working Group.

I can be found on Twitter at ChrisClaytonDTN.