Groups petition CARB to remove farm-derived methane from LCFS

In California, a petition delivered to the California Air Resources Board by a coalition of environmental justice, animal rights and community organizations says that the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard is dramatically overstating the climate benefits of using methane gas sourced from factory farms as a transportation fuel, while illegally disregarding the disproportionate environmental and health impacts that dairy digesters inflict on low-income communities and communities of color.

The petition (signed by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Food & Water Watch, Association of Irritated Residents, Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability, Vermont Law School Environmental Justice Clinic, and Public Justice) calls on CARB to exclude polluting factory farm-derived methane from the LCFS or amend the credit system to better account for the actual climate impact of using factory farm-generated methane as a transportation fuel and exclude those projects that entrench and exacerbate local air and water pollution. As currently formulated, the credit system overstates the emission reduction benefits of factory farm gas by failing to account for the fuel’s life-cycle emissions — from crop production, intestinal emissions and animal feed to the disposal of manure and pipeline leaks. In the petition, groups also emphasize that factory farms have been able to exploit the credit systems to “double dip” — using public dollars to subsidize the construction of dairy digesters, while also receiving millions for the credits sold through the LCFS.