The latest issue dividing Washington's lawmakers: Cow farts
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Before the milk gets to the creamery, the cows have to cut the cheese. A group of House Democrats in Washington have smelt this contribution to climate change, and have dealt a proposal to measure it.
"I'm doing this because I want to make sure we make good policy based on data," said Rep. Lisa Parshley, one of the sponsors of the proposal. "That's really what I'm doing here."
RELATED: Despite state law, Washington takes 3+ years to reveal its climate pollution
Parshley and her colleagues are pushing out House Bill 1630, which calls for Washington's dairy farmers and feed lots to start measuring the amount of methane that their cows emit on an annual basis. State Republicans, however, are arguing that the bill will result in such operations being taxed and included in the state's carbon auction.
"We're comparing emissions from cars and CO2 emissions to putting food on the table, and protein, that people need to survive — not even in the same category," said Republican state Rep. Joe Schmick. "So, I think it's the wrong direction.”
HB 1630 is currently in the Environment and Energy Committee.
Washington's cow farts
Methane is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. It's far more potent than carbon dioxide. One aspect of raising cattle, for food or dairy, is that they emit a considerable amount of methane, aka farting.
HB 1630 calls for dairy farmers and feed lots to start measuring the amount of methane their cows emit on an annual basis.
RELATED: Oil and gas companies emit more climate-warming methane than EPA reports
According to the bill, "each owner or operator of a dairy farm or feed lot in the state must submit an annual report to the department with the total metric tons of methane emitted from the dairy farm or feed lot in the preceding calendar year."
The bill's stated goal is to better understand the scale and scope of these emissions from dairies and feed lots.
Rep. Schmick argues that the bill is a first step toward including cow farmers in the state's carbon auction.
“Nothing ever happens around here without a reason," he said. "Why would you need to collect that [data]? We already know how many pounds of emissions that cow makes. You can look that up on Google. So there's something else going on here … I think that that if you have a large threshold, they will tax that, eventually. Yes, that is an easy connection.”
Washington's carbon auction spurred controversy after it led to increased prices in the state, especially for gasoline. Still, a GOP attempt to nix the carbon auction was thwarted in the 2024 election. Per the will of voters, the carbon auction continues to this day.
While speaking with KUOW, Rep. Parshley was hesitant to comment on any potential future legislation as a result of collecting data. She wants to know "if there's a problem, and how much of a problem, before we have that conversation."
"Is it the cows themselves, as people talk about burping and farting … but also they have the manure and the material they're fed, which is called silage. All of these are potential methane emitters. We don't know," she said. "Being a scientist, I don't like to predict 100% what the data is going to tell us and what policy is going to be driven out of it."
"Is there going to be legislation on regulation? Possibly, but I don't want to predict that right now, because we don't know," Parshley added.
Raising a stink
Representatives Parshley and Schmick come at the issue from different angles, and different sides of the state. Parshley is a veterinarian with a Ph.D. in biochemistry. She also describes herself as a longtime small business owner and represents District 22 (the Olympia area). Rep. Schmick is also a small business owner, and is described as a "former second-generation farmer." He represents District 9, covering a large portion of Eastern Washington (Asotin, Garfield, and Whitman counties).
HB 1630 doesn't state any next steps or what lawmakers intend to do with the cow-fart data, but that didn't stop House Republicans from making a stink once they caught wind of the bill.
Washington's GOP has attempted to connect the bill to the Climate Commitment Act, implying that Democrats want to bring cattle ranchers and dairy operations under the state's carbon auction. State Republicans also say that the bill would place a tax on cow farts.
While speaking on the House GOP's podcast channel, Rep. Schmick said that Democrats want to see if cow facilities produce a "sufficient methane equivalent to 25,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions" so in turn, "these facilities would likely come under the Climate Commitment Act as covered entities."
RELATED: Oil and gas companies emit more climate-warming methane than EPA reports
Neither the CCA, the carbon auction, a figure of "25,000 metric tons," or any tax is mentioned in HB 1630. Its scope is limited to measuring methane from the operations.
“There's always been talk about emissions, and [Democrats are] looking at every single emission," Schmick told KUOW. "Look at natural gas. They look at all these other things that really aren't super big, but they're all included. They all want to talk about them, they want to tax, they want to eliminate them all. I think this is a bridge too far.”
Parshley invites stakeholders to be in the room while this legislation, and its potential impacts, are discussed.
“I would answer those that are worried ... Isn't it better to make policy based on real data instead of assumptions?" she said, pointing to California as an example of a state that tried to make methane policy, but she says, "Their policy was inappropriate."
Parshley did speculate that cow emission data could be used to inform a "circular economy" so dairy farmers and feed lots can capture methane as a biogas and generate revenue. This has been done at landfills, wastewater treatment plants, and dairy operations in the United States.
"Because this is a marginal business in some areas, especially dairy farms," she said. "So could we build a circular economy on this? And circular economies are not only going to provide income for these farms, but it's also going to be removing the methane from the air and allowing us to reduce, in the long run, any extraction of new methane out of the ground, which is natural gas."
This is not the first time such methane measuring proposals have been made.
At the national level, U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier, who represents Washington's 8th Congressional District, proposed the Research to Reduce Agricultural Methane Act in 2020. The bill didn't make it far in Congress.
In 2024, the bipartisan Enteric Methane Innovation Tools for Lower Emissions and Sustainable Stock Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate. It also proposed to measure and study the effects of cows' methane emissions with the goal of reducing the emissions. That bill, nor its companion bill in the House, have made it out of committee.