CORPORATE CLIMATE PLEDGES PILE UP: So many major food and agribusiness companies have now made climate commitments, it's nearly impossible to keep up with them. These splashy corporate pledges might be barely registering in the news, amid a global pandemic and a presidential election, but there is still a surprising amount of momentum in this space. General Mills last week announced it plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent and halve its food waste over the next decade, as well as go fully carbon neutral by 2050. Big Food goes big: Consumer-facing food and beverage companies have been the most aggressive in making such commitments, but the elephant in the room is that many of them are going to have to extract substantial changes in practices from their supply chains, including a hard look at how all sorts of crops are grown. Keeping tabs: Field to Market, a nonprofit that works with many of the power players in the food and ag supply chain, last week released a compendium of many of the major commitments that have been made so far, from grower groups to retailers. About half of the group's members have publicly committed to specific, measurable targets on the reduction of greenhouse gases, from Cargill to Unilever. "We believe there is an important correlation between setting public targets, reporting on progress, and ultimately improving performance on key environmental indicators," said Rod Snyder, president of Field to Market. The group hosted a confab on Zoom to coincide with Climate Week, with a major focus on how to accelerate changes at scale so the flurry of corporate commitments can actually be met. Talk is cheap: As POLITICO's Catherine Boudreau wrote last week, "it's one thing to set a goal, and another to actually achieve it." Catherine (an MA alum who's now author of The Long Game) noted that Kraft Heinz recently acknowledged the company won't meet its 2020 environmental goals. Walmart, too, has said that eliminating emissions across its supply chains relies on innovations that aren't quite ready for prime time. But the pledges keep coming: The many challenges of actually achieving net-zero emissions have not dampened the appetite for public commitments. The UN last week said the number of net-zero pledges across various sectors have doubled in less than a year. FIGHT BREWING OVER OFFSHORE FISH FARMS: Environmentalists are taking aim at a new bipartisan Senate bill that would direct NOAA to set national standards for offshore aquaculture operations and to set up R&D grants for innovation in the sector. "Aquaculture is the fastest-growing food production sector, but the U.S. lacks a comprehensive, nationwide permitting system for federal waters," said Senate Commerce Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who filed the bill last week with Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). The lack of a federal framework is a significant obstacle for aquaculture farms, forcing the U.S. to import more seafood to meet domestic demand, Wicker said in a statement. — Across the Capitol: House Ag Chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) filed similar legislation earlier this year. But the environmental group Friends of the Earth is warning that allowing more "industrial finfish farming facilities" will threaten coastal ecosystems. "This form of aquaculture uses giant floating net pens and cages that allow pollution, like excess feed, fish waste and chemicals, to flow freely into open waters," the group said in a statement. The industry group Stronger America Through Seafood maintains that aquaculture is "one of the most resource-efficient methods of producing animal protein." Expanding the sector would complement wild-caught fish to meet the growing U.S. demand for seafood and would also benefit farmers who could sell more of their crops to make fish feed for aquaculture operations, according to SATS. BIOFUELS RULE BACK IN COURT: The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia hosted a challenge of the EPA's blending mandate under the Renewable Fuel Standard, this time focusing on the rule governing 2019 requirements. Biofuel producers say the annual rule should include a higher volume to account for the exemptions that the EPA has typically given to small oil refiners, while the refiners argue that the mandate itself is still too high, our Pro Energy friends tell MA. Chief Judge Merrick Garland and Judges Judith Rogers and Sri Srinivasan asked refiners few questions, but they pressed the biofuel producers and the government on whether EPA's decision not to reallocate gallons — made back in 2011 — could still be challenged. "EPA has an interpretation; an interpretation is regulation," Garland said, referring to the nearly decade-old ruling by the agency. Thought bubble: Next year might be different. In the rule governing 2020's blending requirements, the EPA for the first time mandated 770 million extra gallons of biofuel requirements to account for the refinery exemptions — part of a White House deal with biofuel producers. That makes challenges to this year's rule, which are already working their way through the system, timely. They could force the court to address the merits of the legality of reallocation. But, but, but: The 10th Circuit ruled in January that only refiners that had received exemptions continuously since 2011 could even ask for new ones, and the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol producers trade group, is already briefing that exact issue before a different panel of D.C. Circuit judges in an effort to make that ruling national. So it may all be moot. | 
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