Someone finally sues C.A.R.B

Do away with the federal laws then. They arent any good for nothing it sounds like.

 

Not exactly how the cattle business works... Most big outfits sell to a kill plant, the kill plant then decides where the meat is then sold to. Kill plants will sell to just about anyone willing to pay thier price.

 

I think what the lawsuit is getting at is that it’s nearly impossible for a corporation to account for the carbon footprint of every step of the process leading up to the point of them selling a finished product in CA, pretty much making it guaranteed that they would get fined every year for inaccurate reporting. In your beef plant example we could use JBS. JBS could easily report their own carbon emissions and all of that, but how on earth could they report anything at all in regards to the feedlot they purchased the fats from and also the ranch who sold the calves to the feedlot?

 

I get that, and I do think the law/rule is dumb as heck mainly because it's entirely ineffective at doing anything. But this is no different than any other arbitrary and capricious rule instituted by the processing plant to appease it's customers.

 

I agree, and if a fine showed up it would go straight to the shredder.

 

That's the surface argument, and I agree that it's a dumb idea to try and gather this data when there is no standard accounting practice, let alone measuring standards. There are a lot of great statistical models, but they're on the macro end and trying to apply them to a micro scenario is asinine. But to my knowledge CARB has yet to set a final rule on the reporting requirement practices, so there's ripeness issue with the lawsuit to begin with.

The pull quote that gets used in most articles is “to make costly, burdensome and politically fraught statements”. Had they said "costly and burdensome" I might buy it. Including "politically fraught statements" is a load of manure.

JBS can easily say "if you provide us with X data we will pay Y per pound, if you don't it's 95% of Y". The farm/ranch/supplier then has a choice - supply the data for a premium price or don't. Okay, there's a cost to compliance, but it's a choice a company has. If the cost is such that profit is impossible then the company is free to explore other options - raising prices, finding other markets, etc. Excessive regulatory cost is only illegal when it is selectively applied.

Further, as "Source 3" entities, the farms have no standing as "a reporting entity will not be subject to an administrative penalty for any misstatements with regard to scope 3 emissions disclosures made with a reasonable basis and disclosed in good faith. Moreover, until 2030, scope 3 reporting penalties will be assessed only for nonfiling."

The law requires disclosure, not limitations on emissions, thus CARB is not regulating outside of it's borders. This is where the "free speech" argument comes into play. It is a tenuous ploy to obtain standing to sue because making these disclosures MIGHT result in pressure from outside sources. It's been a long time, but I'm pretty sure Goodyear tried this ploy and lost in the 90s.

In legal sense, this lawsuit is akin to a 5 year old objecting to wearing a coat over his Halloween costume. From my perspective this lawsuit has three aims. First is to delay the creation and implantation of the final rule as long as possible. Secondly to influence the shape and form of the final rule. Finally, it's red meat designed to fire up 'the base' and give the impression that the Chamber of Commerce is fighting for the little guy.

 

It’s not as simple as you make it sound. I gave a real simple example of farm to feedlot to plant. What is the case when JBS has buyers at sale barns buying calves at market value through the auction ring that get hauled to one of their Five Rivers yards? The big players don’t just buy fats when it’s time to process them.

I’ve hauled 4 weight calves bought by Cargill out of New Mexico that went to CA to get run on grass that eventually got hauled off as 6 weights that went to CO to a feedlot to get finished before going to Ft Morgan to get processed. In your example then the original rancher in NM would get 95% of market value for selling their calves, the rancher in CA would get 95% of market rate on cash pasture rent, and the feedlot in CO would get 95% of the value all to have the privilege of selling cattle to Cargill. If it’s as simple as not dealing with them if they don’t want to take the 5% hit then please explain what livestock producers should do with their cattle to avoid dealing with the Big 4 who already control the market by decreasing their daily kill when they feel prices get to high.

Anyway, this isn’t just about livestock. It’s retarded to expect any business to account for everything across their entire supply chain and all the CARB rule is is an easy way for them to levy large fines every year for reporting errors in order to generate revenue because CA is mostly a bankrupt state at this point.

On a side note, CA has always been in the shakedown business. I ran out there a couple times a week pretty steady for a couple years hauling cattle. Two years after I stopped the guy who owned the authority I used got a letter from CA accusing him falsely omitting CA miles when it was renewal time. They gave him the option of paying a fine or facing an audit. He sent a letter from his lawyer saying they’re more than welcome to hop on a plane to SD and audit him because he hadn’t had a truck in CA in two years. He never heard a word back. They expected him to simply pay the fine I guess.

 

That is a completely different conversation. This CARB rule does nothing to increase the leverage that the big boys have over the market. I am all for busting apart the large corporations as I think they distort the 'free market' more than any governmental regulation ever has.

As the cattle are transferred from ranch to feed lot to processor, what paperwork is sent with them? This is just an extra form.

Farmers/ranchers all ready get a premium price for organic/non-hormone/whatever. The same system can be implemented for the carb paperwork. And again, the farms are source 3, against which no fines can be levied for bad information.

 

The point is there shouldn’t be any extra forms or hoops to jump through for any business owner just because whatever they’re producing might end up being sold to a company that does business in CA.

Where does the paperwork come in? How far back does CA expect corporations to try and track things? Why should my brother in law in South Dakota have to fill out “just another form” when he sells calves through the auction in Kimball just in case some hamburger from his calves ends up out in the communist state?

 

Why does every appliance come with a warning label that ONLY California requires?

And we don't know where the paperwork comes in, or what data actually needs to be tracked - the rules haven't been written yet.

I remember when I started driving 14 years ago there was a big stink about CARB's trailer skirt law and the added costs that trucking companies were going to incure for equipment that wasn't ever going west of I-35. Then the trucking companies 'discovered' a huge cost savings when they started complying. Until the plantiffs can show real, actionable harm this lawsuit is bogus.