Growing our Energy Independence: The 25 by '25 Vision
- By Read Smith of Earth Share organization Climate Solutions
American farmers are vulnerable to skyrocketing oil and gas prices caused by everything from hurricanes to Mideast instability. So it is poetic justice that American farmlands are now viewed by experts of all stripes as a crucial long-term solution to America’s energy supply challenges.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns recently noted how energy price volatility is eroding farmer bottom lines.
"Last year, farmers spent $3 billion more on fuel, and $1.4 billion more on fertilizer than they did in 2004. Natural gas, which is 90 percent of the cost of nitrogen fertilizer, is one of the reasons. Another is diesel, which has commanded a large per-gallon premium over regular gasoline as you know. When farmers and ranchers are hit with higher production costs from the increasing price of fuel, they really are unable to pass on that cost. So what happens? The bottom line, it shrinks."
Now, farmers are taking the lead to solve the problem in the form of the farmer-led 25x'25 movement, a bipartisan, grassroots effort that aims to grow America’s energy future and economic security literally from the ground up.
Here’s our vision for 25×25: By the year 2025 America's working lands will provide 25 percent of the total energy consumed in our country, while continuing to produce safe and affordable food, feed and fiber.
We will meet this goal by producing transportation fuels, harnessing wind energy, converting biogas emissions, capturing solar energy and providing biomass for generating heat and power.
From initial meetings among farm community leaders that began in 2003 and a blueprint for action released in August 2004, the 25x’25 movement now has grown to encompass a substantial portion of America’s governors and Congress, national and state farm groups, national security hawks, labor and environmental organizations, and some of America’s largest corporations.
25x'25's continually growing endorsement list includes over 275 organizations ranging from the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union to the Apollo Alliance, Climate Solutions, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Wildlife Federation and the National Defense Council Foundation to the National Association of Wheat Growers and the National Association of Corn Growers. The big three U.S. automakers and Deere & Company are also on board.
To gain a sense of the range of support for 25x'25, consider two figures who spent much of their lives engaged in political firefights with each other across Capitol Hill aisles. Now former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle have joined to advance 25x'25.
Gingrich, who continues as an active Republican leader, underscores why 25x'25 is so compelling a goal for so many: "25x’25 is one of the major building blocks of creating a national security environment where our balance of payments is dramatically better –Because the energy money is staying here at home. This is a very important intersection because it brings together national security, the environment, the future economic health of the US, the quality of life in rural America and incomes for American farmers. All five of those are captured in the 25x’25 goal."
"The chips are down for America when it comes to energy," Daschle emphasizes. “Right now more than half of the oil we consume, 58 percent, comes from foreign countries. If we continue on our current pace of energy usage, that number will grow to 68 percent by the year 2025. Over 20 percent of that oil is coming from the Persian Gulf. Are we ready to take on the formidable task required to redirect energy policy of the nation that consumes 25 percent of the world’s petroleum? America again is turning to rural America, to farmers and foresters, for the answer."
In Congress a resolution endorsing the 25x’25 goal is sponsored by a bipartisan group of 27 senators and 87 congressmen. Senate support ranges from Republicans Charles Grassley, Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel to Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Maria Cantwell.
"This is something we all can support," said Grassley, a working Iowa farmer and leader of the Senate 25x’25 effort. “It's in our economic and national-security interest to do so."
25x'25 is also individually endorsed by 10 Republican governors and eight Democratic governors. In August the 13 member Midwestern Governors Association came out in support, as have state legislatures in Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and Vermont.
America's working lands have long provided food, feed and fiber to the nation and world. Now they are called on to meet a new national and global challenge – to provide secure, abundant and economical supplies of biofuels, windpower and other clean energy sources. To reach this goal 25x'25 is rallying a broad cross-section of Americans who understand that the country’s energy future will grow from America’s lands and the people who work them.
