Saturday, December 20, 2008

What's This About--Enviros and USDA?

Beats me why Secretary Schafer would announce creation of a new USDA office about 32 days before he leaves office. Actually, it's the "intention to establish a new USDA Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets and the creation of a federal government-wide Conservation and Land Management Environmental Services Board to assist the Secretary of Agriculture in the development of new technical guidelines and science-based methods to assess environmental service benefits which will in turn promote markets for ecosystem services including carbon trading to mitigate climate change."

I guess my senility is advancing--I used to be good in deciphering bureaucratese. I think what it's saying is USDA is going to try to figure out when farmers can claim they created a carbon offset that can be traded. I wonder if Vilsack was consulted?

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