Title: Research to Reduce Agricultural Methane Act
Policy area: Agriculture and Food

Summary:
Research to Reduce Agricultural Methane Act
This bill revises the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative to include agricultural climate adaptation and mitigation as a priority research area under the initiative, including for methods to reduce methane emissions from livestock production and new technologies to measure and verify environmentally beneficial outcomes of emission mitigation efforts.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 9034 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 9034

To amend the Competitive, Special, and Facilities Grant Act to include 
   agricultural climate adaptation and mitigation as a priority area 
  addressed by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, and for 
                            other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           December 18, 2020

  Ms. Schrier (for herself and Mr. Huffman) introduced the following 
        bill; which was referred to the Committee on Agriculture

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Competitive, Special, and Facilities Grant Act to include 
   agricultural climate adaptation and mitigation as a priority area 
  addressed by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, and for 
                            other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Research to Reduce Agricultural 
Methane Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) Greenhouse gasses, including carbon dioxide, methane, 
        nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gasses, are gasses that trap 
        heat in the atmosphere.
            (2) Global climate change is widely attributed to 
        increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses in our 
        atmosphere.
            (3) According to the Global Carbon Project, methane (CH4) 
        is the second highest greenhouse gas contributing to human-
        induced climate change. Methane has a significantly larger 
        global warming potential than carbon dioxide.
            (4) According to EPA's 2018 Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse 
        Gas Emissions and Sinks, enteric fermentation was the largest 
        anthropogenic source of methane in the United States 
        representing 28 percent of domestic methane emissions.
            (5) Ruminants, hooved, four legged mammals that possess 
        stomachs with four compartments, such as cattle, buffaloes, 
        sheep and goats, produce methane through enteric fermentation, 
        their normal digestive process, and manure management and have 
        the highest methane emissions per unit of body mass among all 
        animal types.
            (6) Many factors influence methane emissions from livestock 
        including, level of feed intake, type of carbohydrate in the 
        diet, feed processing, and changes in the animal's microbiome.
            (7) Multiple peer review studies have indicated enormous 
        methane mitigation potential of feed additives, including 
        seaweed.
            (8) Farming practices, including methods to reduce methane 
        emissions from livestock, hold enormous potential to address 
        climate change.
            (9) Farmers and growers are leading stewards of the land 
        and are on the front lines experiencing the immediate impacts 
        of climate change.

SEC. 3. AGRICULTURAL CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION THROUGH THE 
              AGRICULTURE AND FOOD RESEARCH INITIATIVE.

    Subsection (b)(2) of the Competitive, Special, and Facilities Grant 
Act (7 U.S.C. 3157(b)(2)) is amended by adding at the end the 
following:
                    ``(G) Agricultural emissions mitigation.--
                Agricultural climate adaptation and mitigation, 
                including--
                            ``(i) methods to reduce methane emissions 
                        from livestock production, including--
                                    ``(I) feeds, feed additives, and 
                                feeding regimes, such as adding seaweed 
                                to diet;
                                    ``(II) changes in grain-to-forage 
                                ratio;
                                    ``(III) grinding and pelleting of 
                                feed;
                                    ``(IV) the use of enzymes; and
                                    ``(V) other methods and products; 
                                and
                            ``(ii) new technologies to measure and 
                        verify environmentally beneficial outcomes of 
                        emission mitigation efforts.''.
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