State-Level Commercial Forest and Agricultural Resource Management

MCLI Recommendation: “In the absence of a federal cap-and-trade regime, states (or groups of states on a regional basis) should consider integrating offset programs that preserve forests and meet additional criteria into climate-related policies they develop.”

LPDD Recommendation: “States could adopt programs to provide economic payments to bioenergy feedstock producers to reforest/replant cultivated acreage, to engage in management methods that sequester more carbon during the cultivation process, and to ensure that other “competing” land values are also protected.”

LPDD Recommendation: “States should adopt or expand programs aimed at GHG emissions mitigation or sequestration from the forestry or agricultural sectors.”

LPDD Recommendation: “States should adopt policies to keep forests from being converted to cropland, keep natural and biodiverse forests from being converted to biofuel forests, increase carbon sink potential of agricultural soils by forestalling conversion to more carbon-intensive uses, and protect watersheds and biodiversity from natural resource conversion related to residential, industrial, and commercial development.”

LPDD Recommendation: “States should consider implementing policies aimed at more stringently regulating, preserving, and expanding forest lands.”

LPDD Recommendation: “States that are more inclined to regulate land uses should work together on a regional basis to preserve natural carbon sinks and to alleviate concerns of pushing economic growth into other jurisdictions.”

LPDD Recommendation: “State legislatures could adjust commercial forest management programs to more directly integrate deep decarbonization objectives, particularly related to regeneration, regulation (or prevention) of conversion of feedstock forests to other, non-forested uses, and regulation of GHG-emitting technology utilized during the feedstock cultivation process.”