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Antimonopoly News Round Up

USDA Announces Climate-Smart Commodities Partners, Including Big Ag

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture promised to invest $1 billion in projects to encourage farmers to use more climate-friendly practices and expand markets for so-called “climate-smart commodities.” Yesterday, the USDA announced that they will spend $2.8 billion to fund 70 large projects, plus the agency will distribute more funds in a second round of funding for smaller, yet-to-be selected projects.

While many non-profits, foundations, and universities will receive grants to provide financial and technical assistance to promote or pilot new farming methods, large sums will also go to projects sponsored by Big Ag corporations. For instance, USDA will give Tyson Foods $60 million for a project to promote carbon sequestration in its beef and livestock feed supply chains. Global grain giant Archer Daniels Midland also got $90 million for a project to incentivize grain producers to implement climate-smart practices.

After decades of minimizing their contribution to climate change and lobbying against climate action, Big Ag companies are increasingly launching initiatives and campaigns to claim that they can be part of the solution. But critics contend that many of these efforts do not address the root sources of Big Ag’s pollution and only end up delaying more effective climate regulation.

Republicans Aim to Block Livestock Methane Monitoring

Senators Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and John Thune (R-S.D.) introduced a bill to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from monitoring methane emissions from livestock.

The Inflation Reduction Act gave the EPA $20 million to increase methane monitoring. Current rates of methane emissions contribute to a quarter of all global warming and reducing methane is particularly important to avoid near-term warming, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Even though cows and manure lagoons produced by large, confined animal-feeding operations are significant producers of methane in the U.S., livestock farms have evaded air pollution regulations.

Ethanol Plants Pollute Twice as Much as Oil Refiners: Reuters Analysis Finds

A recent analysis of federal data by Reuters found that “the nation’s ethanol plants produce more than double the climate-damaging pollution, per gallon of fuel production capacity, than the nation’s oil refineries.”

Originally touted as better for the planet, ethanol’s environmental impact is increasingly questioned. While ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline, a recent study found that the emissions generated from growing corn and refining ethanol over its life cycle release 24% more carbon than over the life cycle of refining and burning gasoline.

Reuters also found that the EPA exempted plants representing 80% of all ethanol production from certain environmental rules, contributing to higher emissions from ethanol plants than from oil refineries. The EPA maintains that ethanol produces less carbon over its life cycle than gasoline, but academics contacted by Reuters argue that EPA’s model underestimates corn production pollution.

Restaurant Trade Associations File for Referendum Against CA Fast Food Worker Council Bill

The National Restaurant Association and the International Franchise Association have launched a campaign to put a new California bill protecting fast food workers up for a vote. On Labor Day, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act, which will create a 10-member council of fast food workers, employer representatives, and two state officials to set minimum labor standards for California fast food restaurants. These industrywide standards could include new minimum wages and benefits, safety standards, and scheduling protocols.

The law also makes fast food brands liable for labor violations at all their independently owned franchises. Strict franchising contracts can push franchisees to make their profits by squeezing workers’ wages, benefits, hours, and safety since many other business decisions are out of their control. Setting new labor standards across the industry and holding corporate headquarters responsible for the working conditions they in part create will remove franchisees’ ability to compete by depressing labor standards.

Last Wednesday, a campaign led by two of the largest restaurant trade associations filed a referendum request that, if successful, would allow Californians to vote on whether or not to repeal the law. The groups need 600,000 signatures to get the referendum on the ballot in November 2024.

Bonus, What We’re Reading: What Chicken Farmers, Uber Drivers, and McDonald’s Franchisees Have in Common

Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan and Chief Economist Brian Callaci wrote for Slate about the ways corporations such as Tyson Foods, McDonald’s, and Uber tightly control the independent contractors that make their empires run, saddling contractors with the risky parts of their business while denying them the protections and rights of employees.

These business models show up in many forms today, but as Vaheesan and Callaci explain, their growth was not inevitable. In the 1960s and 1970s, corporations successfully lobbied to gut antitrust laws that once prohibited corporate domination of independent businesses. Today, the Biden administration has an opportunity to end this corporate control without responsibility. More in Slate.

RSVP for the ILSR and Open Markets’ Midwest Forum on Fair Competition Next Week

Join us on Thursday, September 22nd, from 10 am to 2 pm (CDT) streaming online or in-person at Open Book in Minneapolis for a forum that will explore how reinvigorating antitrust policies can support small businesses, family farms, working people, and communities.

Co-hosted by the Open Markets Institute and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, the forum will feature keynotes by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, along with panel discussions by people on the frontlines fighting corporate power in Minnesota and nationally. Panels will cover retail buyer power, food systems, and healthcare.

About the Open Markets Institute

The Open Markets Institute promotes political, industrial, economic, and environmental resilience. We do so by documenting and clarifying the dangers of extreme consolidation, and by fostering discussions of ways to reestablish America’s political economy on a more stable and fair foundation.

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