Climate change in the heartland
Rep. Bustos urges rural broadband, improved river transportation, insists farmers play key role
U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos takes part in a webinar Tuesday with the Environmental Law & Policy Center focusing on rural responses to the climate crisis. (Zoom)
By Ted Cox
Farmers play a key but often overlooked role in combating climate change, according to a congresswoman representing almost 1,000 family farms in western Illinois.
U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos of Moline joined Tuesday in a webinar on the recent report on climate change, “Solving the Climate Crisis,” delivered by a House Select Committee. Sponsored by the Environmental Law & Policy Center, the webinar focused on “climate-change solutions when it comes to rural America,” according to Executive Director Howard Learner.
Bustos said the new congressional report sets out to place “agriculture at the forefront of combating climate change,” and she praised how it incorporates many of the concepts from the Rural Green Partnership she proposed a year ago. She lauded how the plan generally calls for the economy to grow by putting people back to work “in clean-energy jobs,” along with provisions for protecting public health and land and water.
But she focused on the implications for farmers in Tuesday’s webinar, pointing out they’re “on the front lines of this climate-change war,” dealing with “devastating” flooding and “just the unpredictability of the weather.”
Bustos’s congressional district covers 7,000 square miles comprising 9,600 family farms, and she said, “These farmers have never seen anything like what they’re living through right now.”
She pointed to the Mississippi River as a potential source of relief, as improved locks and dams could expand river traffic for agricultural goods being shipped overseas and thus remove trucks from the nation’s roadways. Bustos pointed out that much of that river infrastructure was built in the Depression era, so it’s “crumbling and needs major investment.”
Bustos also repeated calls for rural broadband, saying it’s “going to be critical” and pointing to the way telehealth has come to the fore in the COVID-19 pandemic. Rural areas continue to lose hospitals and health centers, making telehealth “critical to rural America.”
According to Bustos, the new report accommodates some of the key elements of the Rural Green Partnership, including improving climate stewardship, reducing agricultural emissions, expanding assistance to farmers, especially in technology and soil-carbon sequestration, and supporting renewable energy and general energy efficiency on farms.
Bustos said it’s critical to provide more conservation funding, as well as incentives for farmers to act on environmental reforms, such as loans and grants for energy generation and efficiency. She called for increasing the number of environmental experts offering advice to farmers.
She had harsh words for President Trump, charging, “The Trump administration has been devastating to agriculture research,” and that it has basically squandered the largest agricultural research center in the nation in Peoria. Bustos said farmers are in a “constant unpredictable place,” with Trump’s tariffs with China and other recent attacks on the relationship between the two countries. “Rather than opening new markets, so many have been shut off,” Bustos said.
Bustos also called for a continuing commitment to high-speed rail, and gave an update on Amtrak rail service set to be renewed between Chicago and the Quad Cities. She said “ongoing negotiations” continue to resume the service, and she blamed former Gov. Rauner for delays in that he was “not willing to accept the federal money” allocated to renew the service. Under Gov. Pritzker, she added, Amtrak was now also working to renew service between Chicago and Rockford, although that’s “much further down the line.”
The congresswoman said Amtrak service to Moline might not resume this year or even next year, “but it will happen.”