From Poop To Power: Sen. Booker Tells Feds To Rethink ‘Biogas’ Plans

NEW JERSEY — They call it “biogas,” and depending on who you ask, it’s either a pragmatic way of turning potentially hazardous animal waste into fuel, or a money pit that will do nothing to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s factory farms.

And it’s pretty easy to tell which side of the great poop debate that U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey supports.

Last week, Booker – a Newark resident – joined several of his colleagues in the Senate, urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to rethink their plans to roll out new incentives for the production of biogas. The letter to the two federal agencies was co-signed by Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Edward Markey (D-MA).

Read the full letter to the EPA here, and the letter to the USDA here.

In the case of the EPA, that involves new electrification pathways under the Renewable Fuel Standard, the senators said. And the lawmakers are equally as worried about plans at the USDA to pump “significant resources” into methane digestors in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the nation's agriculture sector.

The debate revolves around an increasingly urgent question: What should be done with the hundreds of billions of pounds of manure that are produced every year raising farm animals destined for the dinner table?

‘TARPS OVER MANURE LAGOONS’

In their letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, the senators asked for more information about the agency’s Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan for livestock emissions, which they said “relies heavily” on expanding the use of methane digestors on factory farms.

What is a methane digestor? In a nutshell, it’s machinery that turns poop gas into power.

According to a 2011 economic brief from the USA:

“When manure is kept in oxygen-free (i.e., anaerobic) environments like lagoons, ponds, tanks, or pits, it decomposes to produce a biogas containing about 60 percent methane … A biogas recovery system—known variously as an anaerobic digester, methane digester, biodigester or methane recovery system—captures methane from anaerobic manure storage facilities. Such systems collect manure, optimize it for the production of methane by adjusting temperature and water content, capture the biogas, and burn it for heat or electricity generation.”

Advocates have expressed split opinions about the technology’s growing popularity.

Bar 20 Dairy, a dairy farm in Kerman, California, uses methane from cow manure to produce clean electricity with almost zero carbon emissions, according to a recent report in The Daily Beast.

“We used to joke about how funny it would be if we could make more money off the poop than the milk – and now we’re essentially here,” one of its owners said.

According to nonprofit Project Drawdown, the use of methane digesters has “positive financial and environmental impacts for farmers, industries, municipalities and governments alike.” The nonprofit states on its website:

“Biodigesters enable the capture and use of methane while also addressing waste management and nutrient recovery needs. They can also realize several revenue streams and cost savings for owners. Feedstock for electricity-generating biogas plants is available in adequate quantities across the world, from sewage sludge and agriculture systems … The use of large methane digesters can grow to 376.11–395.55 terawatt-hours by 2050. This would avoid 6.02 to 7.05 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions at a net first cost of $138.13 to $182.09 billion.”

However, there is “significant uncertainty” associated with the future adoption of the technology, the group adds, a possible roadblock that critics hope to exploit – including the Animal Legal Defense Fund and Academy Award-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix.

In August, the nonprofit teamed with Phoenix to create a video that blasted the use of factory farm biogas, as well as rising support for technology such as biodigesters on the state and federal level. Watch it here.

According to the Phoenix and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, making biogas is a dirty business:

“On [factory farms], thousands of animals produce billions of pounds of waste. The feces and urine are flushed from the floors using hundreds of gallons of water multiple times a day. The runoff is driven into manure lagoons — typically the size of multiple football fields. As the waste decomposes, it emits methane and other greenhouse gases and pollutants. Factory farm gas producers use methane digesters — often just large tarps stretched over manure lagoons — to capture and prepare the gas. The gas is then transported via a pipeline to a facility to be processed.”

“The portrayal of the pollution and methane gas that emit from manure lagoons as naturally occurring and renewable are unequivocally false,” Phoenix alleged. “There is nothing natural about artificially inseminating cows and pigs and housing thousands of animals in windowless warehouses. Incentivizing unregulated polluters to expand operations and telling the public it is environmental-friendly policy is deplorable.”

‘OVERBURDENED WITH POLLUTION’

In their letter to the EPA, Booker and the other senators also said they’re worried about an upcoming decision about the implementation of electrification pathways under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).

The senators wrote:

“One of the potential RFS electrification pathways could allow methane biogas from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations [factory farms] to serve as a qualified feedstock and generate electric renewable identification numbers under the RFS’ cellulosic mandate. While we appreciate this administration’s support for electric vehicles and transportation electrification, we also urge the EPA to ensure that this federal support does not come at the expense of environmental justice communities that are already overburdened with pollution.”

The lawmakers continued:

“Factory farms produce immense quantities of waste and pollutants that fuel climate change and pollute the surrounding soil, air, and water—simply living in proximity to a factory farm can decrease life expectancy. A 2021 study found that air pollution from CAFOs is responsible for approximately 12,700 deaths per year.”

“We are concerned that a decision by EPA to provide a pathway for electricity produced from factory farm biogas will further entrench an industry that is disproportionately harming low-income and Black and Brown communities located near these facilities,” the senators charged.

People living near factory farms aren’t the only ones who have skin in the game. The increasing use of methane digesters will also make it easier for big agriculture to maintain its death grip on the U.S. economy, the lawmakers added.

According to the senators:

“Methane digesters are expensive and would not be economically viable without significant public subsidies and incentives. A single manure digester system costs anywhere between $400,000 and $5 million. Every taxpayer dollar spent subsidizing methane digesters is a dollar that cannot be spent on alternative manure management strategies or regenerative agriculture practices. If digesters are prioritized, farmers using regenerative management practices would be further undercut by multinational dairy and hog firms benefiting from public subsidies for methane digesters and the growing market for biogas. This is especially troublesome since USDA’s commitment to invest in small and mid-sized producers through its Food System Transformation framework may very well be nullified by the agency’s dedication to methane digesters.”

For his part, Booker – one of the most recognizable vegans in New Jersey and a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry – has insisted that major fixes are urgently needed when it comes to America’s “broken” food system. And that includes factory farms and the power they have in the U.S., he says.

“Economic concentration in agriculture has been hurting our country, especially rural America, for decades,” Booker said last year, while pitching a bill that would place an immediate moratorium on new and expanding factory farms.

“The top four beef packing companies control nearly 85% of the market,” Booker said. “The top four pork packers control 71% of the market. These companies have too much market power, and it comes at the expense of independent family farmers, who earn just 14.3 cents of every dollar spent on food.”

Agricultural concentration hurts consumers too, who see higher prices, poorer quality, less innovation, and reduced access to food, the senator said.

“This broken system is not the result of inevitable market forces, but rather flows directly from the influence multinational meatpackers – who continued to make record profits during the pandemic – have over federal farm policy,” the senator charged.

• See related article: Time To Fix A 'Broken' U.S. Farm System, Sen. Cory Booker Says
• See related article: Sen. Cory Booker Continues His Beef With The Beef Industry

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