Panetta’s Dirty Donors: High Emissions, Low Accountability
Image: Cattle feed lot. Billy Hathorn, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Agriculture accounts for 14.5% of all global emissions and the biggest polluters within the industry (meat, dairy, and rice) have lobbied extensively to prevent real regulations—including by donating at least $170,000 to Jimmy Panetta.
Cop28 recently ended without any real climate action. This is not surprising given the unprecedented presence at the conference of lobbyists from high emissions industries such as fossil fuels and transportation. Of the hundreds of corporate lobbyists at COP28, less than 10% were from companies whose corporate policies reflect a commitment to staying below 1.5 degrees of warming.
One of the industries particularly present at this COP, was agribusiness. According to the UN, the agricultural sector accounts for 14.5% of all global warming. A recent publication in Nature Climate Change calculated that the rice, meat and dairy industries are particularly harmful for the environment and collectively account for 84% of agricultural emissions globally. It went on to conclude that if these industries continue on their current trajectory, they will contribute a full degree of warming by 2100.
Companies and lobbying groups in the rice, dairy, and meat industries have repeatedly denied this reality. At COP28, industry representatives were promoting meat as a “sustainable” form of nutrition. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association claims that cows in the US “may not be contributing at all to global warming” and in 2022 successfully lobbied against mandatory methane emissions reduction targets.
FEC data shows that Jimmy Panetta has received at least $170,000 from the rice, dairy, and meat industries combined, including $26,000 from National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
Dairy, Meat, & Rice Industry Donors to Panetta
National Cattlemen's Beef Association: $26,000
Association of Kentucky Fried Chicken: $25,000
Land O’ Lakes: $23,500
National Chicken Farmers Association: $21,000
United Egg Association: $16,000
California Rice Industry: $14,500
Dairy Farmers of America: $11,000
National Pork Producers Council: $11,000
USA Rice Federation: $10,000
Tyson Foods: $5,000
Gallo Cattle Company: $3,700
International Dairy Foods Association: $3,500
Cargill Incorporated: $1,000
North American Meat Institute: $1,000
Farmers’ Rice Coorperative: $1,000
Total: $173,200
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