EXCLUSIVE: Trump USDA Faces Calls to Exit Climate Initiative Critics Call ‘Private Regulation’

FIRST ON DAILY SIGNAL—The Trump administration’s Agriculture Department remains publicly listed as a participant in a Biden-era climate initiative that critics say could drive up costs for American dairy farmers, accelerate consolidation in the industry, and ultimately make milk and other food staples less affordable for consumers.

The initiative, Pathways to Dairy Net Zero, was backed by then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during U.N. Climate Week in September 2021, saying it would “position U.S. farmers, ranchers and forest landowners as leaders in addressing climate change.”

In a letter Thursday to Trump administration Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, leaders of two conservative-leaning groups ask the department to “disclose the current nature and scope of USDA’s affiliation with P2DNZ, including any funding, staff participation, grants, contracts, data sharing, technical assistance, or other support”; and to “immediately withdraw USDA from P2DNZ.”

“American food policy should be determined by farmers, consumers, and their elected representatives, not by private, unelected, or foreign organizations able to dictate terms through concentrated market power,” says the letter to Rollins signed by Sal Nuzzo, executive director of Consumers Defense, and Cameron Sholty, executive director of Heartland Impact, and first shared with the Daily Signal.

It accompanied a 39-page report titled “The War on Dairy: Foreign Influence Subverting America’s Dairy Sector,” about the potential economic harm of Pathways to Dairy Net Zero.

In a stark warning, the report says: “What begins as ‘guidance’ quickly becomes obligation. In the end, American small farmers are left decimated.”

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The net-zero emissions program for the dairy industry is marketed as a “voluntary, science-based” sustainability effort. But the report’s authors contend the initiative can function as a form of private regulation because net-zero commitments can become embedded in lending standards, procurement requirements, processor and purchaser contracts, and supply chain reporting.

“In practice, a dairy farmer may be told that compliance is voluntary while still facing the loss of credit, market access, a processor, or a purchaser for refusing to adopt standards regulators did not write and voters did not approve,” the report says.

“For small- and mid-sized dairy operations, the burdens are especially severe. Monitoring systems, data collection, reporting, audits, third-party verification, consultant fees, and capital improvements impose fixed costs that large producers can spread across greater volume, but smaller farms cannot,” the report adds. “As margins tighten, more independent producers may be forced to sell or leave the industry, accelerating consolidation and making the domestic food supply more fragile.”

For its part, the dairy net-zero movement characterizes itself as “dedicated to reducing dairy’s greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 years.” A major focus is methane reduction when cows digest their food, sometimes simply referred to as “cow farts.” Pathways to Dairy Net Zero says farmers can reduce those emissions through measures such as improved feed and manure management, greater production efficiency, changes in energy use, carbon sequestration and other measures.

“First comes uncertain and often contested climate modeling. That modeling is then translated into rigid and arbitrary accounting targets,” the report says. “Those targets evolve into ESG frameworks. And those frameworks, in turn, are enforced, not by voters or legislators, but by multinational banks, corporations, boardrooms, and contract terms buried deep in supply chains.”

The groups say “the cost of feed, fuel, financing, equipment, processing, and compliance, those expenses are ultimately reflected in the price families pay for milk and other staple foods.”

Its scale analysis concludes that eliminating all emissions from U.S. dairy production would reduce global emissions by only a few tenths of a percent, the report says, which would not justify the burden.

The groups note that the structure of Pathways to Dairy Net Zero is similar to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ. The report says GFANZ used coordinated pressure from financial institutions and corporations to advance ESG standards.

The report also raises concerns about the effect of climate-related agricultural policies on America’s dependence on foreign suppliers, including China, and describes food production as a national security issue.

The report identifies other organizations that Pathways to Dairy Net Zero lists as participants or supporters in North America, including Cargill, Coca-Cola, Dairy Farmers of America, Dairy Management Inc., Environmental Defense Fund, Land O’Lakes, the National Milk Producers Federation, Starbucks, and the U.S. Dairy Export Council, along with the USDA.

The letter notes that Rollins herself has previously criticized climate policies that could hurt American dairy producers and pointed to actions the Trump Agriculture Department has already taken, including canceling Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities and ending taxpayer support for solar projects that take productive farmland out of agricultural use.