Keith Good over at www.farmpolicy.com shared with myself and some other reporters an article published Friday in the Harvard Law & Policy Review, "Forty Years After NEPA's Enactment, It Is Time for a Comprehensive Farm Bill Environmental Impact Statement." NEPA is the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. The article is written natural condemnation of farm programs and policies with 200 individual citations to back up its points that there are winners and losers in the farm bill. "Winners include industrial agricultural giants, such as Cargill, that reap record profits on the strength of government-subsidized cheap inputs." (That citation is a Cargill earnings press release from 2008, though I'm thinking the news release didn't exactly have that kind of wording.) Adding to that, the history of the farm bill, "Initiated to assist recovery from the agricultural depression following World War I and the Dust Bowl that followed, the Farm bills have gradually taken on the nature of an entitlement that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost $289 billion from 2008 through 2012." Of course, a CBO budget estimate doesn't translate into the actual spending by USDA, but of the $134 billion fiscal 2010 budget, the article omits that $90 billion of that spending goes to food aid, or the amounts that go to rural economic development or housing assistance. Still, the point of the point of the article is critical. NEPA requires that federal agencies conduct environmental impact statements before enacting any legislation that could significantly impact the environment. Citing subsidies for commodity crops that aid to increase production, and subsidies for ethanol in the farm bill that have the same effect, the article maintains there is a strong legal case to be made in federal court against USDA on the 2008 farm bill because USDA does not conduct environmental impact statements on rules coming out of the farm bill. USDA actually did get into trouble in 2008 by attempting to loosen the rules on haying and grazing Conservation Reserve Program land without conducting an environmental impact statement. Wildlife groups took USDA to federal court in Seattle and won an injunction stopping USDA from continuing the program. The Harvard L&PR article makes the case that an environmental impact statement should have been conducted because of a reduction in CRP acreage in the farm bill and the environmental impact because, according to the article, most of that acreage goes into corn, which then turns into ethanol. Such changes, the article states, lead to more hypoxia and soil erosion, as well as impacts on increased greenhouse gas emissions. The argument is made that NEPA requires a comprehensive review of the 2008 farm bill. Further, the article states who could be potential litigants in a case against USDA over the farm bill. While such a court case likely would not translate into significant changes of policy for the 2008 farm bill, the article states that such legal action could shape the outcomes of the 2012 farm bill. http://hlpronline.com/… Keith basically drew a map for me because he also points out a Los Angeles Times article last week highlighting a new Obama administration policy to use the cause and effect of climate change when conducting environmental analysis and issuing new rules. The administration wants agencies to "consider opportunities to reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions caused by proposed federal actions" and "use the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] process to reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts." http://www.latimes.com/…

I can be found on Twitter at chrisclaytonDTN.