The State of California is going after cattle flatulence…..cow farts! It’s part of a climate change bill signed into law this week by Gov. Jerry Brown.
While the bill targets methane gas and soot, it includes provisions requiring dairy farms to reduce methane gas emissions from cattle and manure by 40% by 2030.
“When Noah wanted to build his ark, most of the people laughed at him,” said Gov. Brown during a signing ceremony. “We’ve got to build our ark too, by stopping climate change, by stopping dangerous pollutants.”
Senate bill 1383, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, creates new state goals to cut the so-called “shot lived” climate pollution. The dairy farms fall under the new law but not until 2024.
The law provides money for some of the effort from the state’s sale of greenhouse gas pollution credits, or the cap-and-trade program.
CBS Sacramento headlined the story this way: Gov. Jerry Brown Signs Law Regulating Cow Farts, Landfills.
Republicans opposed the measure, claiming it will hurt agricultural businesses. Farmers will have to make the reductions of methane gas 40 percent below their 2013 levels. Money from the cap-and-trade will be used to help some of the dairy operators buy dairy digesters which use methane from manure to generate energy that’s sold to electrical utilities.
But the new law goes so far as allowing the Air Resources Board in California to regulate cow flatulence if there’s viable technology to reduce it.
