Last month, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) introduced the Converting Our Waste Sustainably Act (COWS Act) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through sustainable alternative and pasture-based management practices. The House version of the bill was introduced by Representatives Jim Costa (D-Calif.-21), David Valadao (R-Calif.-22), and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine-01).
The COWS Act establishes a new manure management conservation program, modeled after California’s extremely successful Alternative Manure Management Program, that will provide more resources for our livestock industry to help achieve three goals:
Modernize technologies for manure management that help boost profitability
Improve water quality
Reduce methane and nitrogen oxide emissions by fostering climate-smart farming.
The legislation also directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to prioritize awards for underserved communities.
“The COWS Act will provide crucial nutrient management resources to dairy farmers, who are currently struggling because milk prices fall well below their production costs. Passage of the COWS Act will enable dairy farmers to adopt practical climate-smart nutrient management methods that improve air and water quality and achieve their environmental sustainability goals,” said Lynne McBride, Executive Director at the California Dairy Campaign.
This legislation is based on California’s Alternative Manure Management Program (AMMP), which was established in 2017 to support non-digester manure management practices on dairy and livestock operations that will result in reduced emissions of methane and are less expensive to construct and operate.
Since then, the California Department of Food and Agriculture has awarded 147 dairies a total of $88 million for equipment that reduces methane emissions. Two to three times more farmers have applied than there has been funding available. Grants have covered the costs of various types of equipment to scrape manure from barns and into compost piles instead of flushing it into lagoons, separate and dry out or compost manure solids, build compost pack barns or other infrastructure to aerate manure, and increase the amount of time cows spend on pasture — all of which reduce methane emissions.
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