The American Soybean Association (ASA) today expressed strong support for provisions included by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) in the House climate change bill (H.R. 2454), while stating that it believes that further improvements are needed in the underlying legislation scheduled for consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives.

"Chairman Peterson has succeeded in making tremendous improvements to the climate change bill by solidifying the exemption of production agriculture from emissions reduction requirements, and by ensuring that farmers can participate in an offsets market administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture," said ASA President Johnny Dodson, a soybean producer from Halls, Tennessee. "ASA is also extremely pleased that the Chairman included provisions that suspend the Environmental Protection Agency’s very flawed approach on international indirect land use change, which unnecessarily and erroneously disqualified soy biodiesel from the Renewable Fuels Standard. We greatly appreciate Chairman Peterson’s efforts to address the problems with EPA’s Proposed Rule, and his diligent work to reverse this flawed approach." Dodson concluded that," ASA strongly supports the Peterson provisions as significant improvements to the underlying House climate change bill."

Dodson’s statement came as the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to take up the "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009," which would establish a cap and trade system requiring U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

"Soybean producers have continuing concerns with the House climate change bill," Dodson continued. "The limited analysis available indicates that soybean processors and manufacturers, as well as U.S. farmers, will experience increased production costs under the proposed greenhouse gas emissions caps." The ASA President added that "concerns also remain on the impacts on the international competitiveness of soy and livestock product exports. Because ASA believes further improvements must be made to address these concerns, ASA is unable to support the House climate change bill in it’s present form. ASA will work to address these concerns when the Senate takes up its version of climate change legislation."