The potential cost of regulation of methane and nitrous oxide emissions in U.S. agriculture

Authors

Tshepelayi Kabata, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Lilyan E. Fulginiti, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Richard K. Perrin, University of NebraskaFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

1-3-2022

Citation

Kabata et al. CABI Agriculture and Bioscience (2022) 3:2 https://doi.org/10.1186/s43170-021-00068-1

Comments

Open access.

Abstract

Background: Most studies on the environmental impacts of agriculture have attempted to measure environmental impacts but have not assessed the ability of the sector to reduce or mitigate such impacts. Only a few studies have examined greenhouse gas emissions from the sector. This paper assesses the ability of states in the U.S. to reduce agricultural emissions of methane and nitrous oxide, two major greenhouse gases (GHGs) with important global warming potential.

Methods: The analysis evaluates Färe’s PAC (pollution abatement cost) for each state and year, a measure of the potential opportunity costs of subjecting the sector to GHG emissions regulation. We use both hyperbolic and directional distance functions to specify agricultural technology with good and bad outputs

Results and conclusions: We find that such regulations might reduce output by an average of about 2%, although the results for individual states vary quite widely