By Grace Hussain for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Sentient/Public News Service Collaboration

A new feed additive intended to reduce methane emissions in dairy cows is now the first of its kind to be allowed for sale in the United States. Sold under the brand name Bovaer, the drug passed FDA review in just under twelve months, far shorter than industry standard. Now some lawmakers want to make this fast-tracked process standard for the entire feed industry - an industry that has billions of dollars riding on the so-called "climate-friendly" meat and milk market.

Bovaer's manufacturer, Elanco, may not be a household name, but the veterinary pharmaceutical maker is poised to play a critical role in marketing industrial meat and dairy as sustainable. If the proposed law were to pass, it would be a financial boon to an industry that is projected to be valued at nearly $100 billion by 2027.

Feed companies like Cargill and their trade associations back the policy change. Cargill spent over $1.3 million on lobbying in 2023, and the American Feed Industry Association employed four DC lobbyists last year to help push for the proposed legislation.

New Drug Touts Climate Benefits to Pass FDA Review

Bovaer, or 3-nitrooxypropanol or 3-NOP, is already being sold for use in both beef and dairy production in more than 50 countries. The drug's compound works by inhibiting the enzyme responsible for producing methane inside the cows' intestines. And according to Elanco's testing, the drug can cut methane emissions by 30 percent for dairy cattle. But the FDA did not independently test these claims and a metaanalysis of 3-NOP trials has found a wider range of results. Sentient has submitted a public records request to review what Elanco subitted to the FDA.

Now that Bovaer is available for use in the U.S., Elanco can allow the farmers who participate in the carbon credit market it funds, Athian, to feed the new drug to dairy cows and claim the carbon credits.

Athian is a different model of carbon market. Typical carbon markets work by allowing companies and groups to monetize various forms of climate action. Even though touted as an essential part of global climate action by the United Nations, many carbon markets have been criticized for high rates of fraud and worthless credits.

Earlier this year, Athian hosted its first sale of carbon credits, at the time generated by a dairy farm that fed its cows a different Elanco-owned feed additive. Called Rumensin, this drug is used to stimulate increased milk production in dairy cows.

Athian works differently, by selling what are called "carbon insets," which are different from the traditional model of "carbon offsets." Typical offsets allow companies to pay someone else, like a conservation group, to plant trees or rewild barren farmland as a way to offset their own pollution. Carbon insets, on the other hand, are a newer idea: these allow polluting companies the ability to trade on their own efforts to slash emissions in their supply chain.

Critics of insets say that many of these reductions should be taking place across polluting industries anyway, not giving the companies even more financial incentives to do what is necessary to reduce food sector emissions. Feed additives are a perfect example. The dairy industry is fueling 11 percent of methane emissions each year - with a single dairy cow able to emit up to 264 pounds of methane in that time. If feed additives work even a little, they should be industry standard, these critics say.

New Legislation Would Fast-Track Feed Additive Approval

For now, feed additives like Bovaer that "affect the structure or any function of the body of an animal" are regulated as drugs, which usually require manufacturers like Elanco to submit to a lengthy and expensive review by the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine. The typical review process for new animal drugs can take almost a decade and cost tens of millions of dollars.

The new law would drastically scale back the FDA's review. Called the Innovative FEED Act, the proposed legislation is supported by leading livestock industry groups, including the American Feed Industry Association. Congressman Greg Pence (R-IN) is among the bipartisan group of lawmakers who introduced the bill in December 2023. One of the lawmakers, Angie Craig (D-MN), has received $14,300 in funds associated with feed company Cargill this year. If passed, the FEED Act would allow fast-track review for all feed additives, by reclassifying them as "zootechnical animal food substances," not drugs.

The new law would make it easier to commercialize feed additives. Yet Jennifer Molidor, PhD who leads Center for Biological Diversity's sustainable food campaigns, says there is little evidence showing these additives are effective. "[Many] of the claims about feed additives are speculative (and largely overblown)," Molidor told Sentient in an email.

Earlier this year, 200 experts surveyed by Harvard University said they overwhelmingly agreed. The researchers called for a broader food system shift to truly address climate change, one that moves away from eating too much meat and dairy - with or without drugs like Bovaer - in favor of eating a more plant-forward diet.


Grace Hussain wrote this article for Sentient.


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Nine in ten people in Colorado and across the globe are worried about climate change and want governments to do something about it, according to a new survey, but they mistakenly assume that others do not share their view.

Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, called this a perception gap.

"The average person believes that other people in their own country tend not to worry about climate change that much when, in fact, the majority of people in most countries do worry about climate change," he said.

That gap in perception has real-world policy implications. In the U.S., almost 80% of congressional staffers underestimated their constituents' support for reducing climate pollution, sometimes by more than 50 percentage points. Leiserowitz said helping more people understand that they are not in the minority could unlock a social tipping point that moves leaders to act.

He pointed to one example where 96% of liberal Democrats and 78% of conservative Republicans supported helping farmers protect and restore soil to absorb more carbon dioxide. But he said progress is stymied by misperceptions.

"If your perception is that Republicans are absolutely against climate policy, then many people might then conclude - especially if you're a policy maker - that we shouldn't be taking action when, in fact there's overwhelming support, even among conservative Republicans," he continued.

Decades of misinformation campaigns, aiming to protect fossil-fuel company profits, play a big role in perception gaps. But Leiserowitz said gaps also persist because any two individuals, not knowing what the other thinks, are likely to avoid topics they believe are controversial, including climate change.

"So, that leads neither of us to talk about it. Well, now expand that to 300 million people, and you can see that we start slipping down this 'spiral of silence.' Nobody talks about it, so nobody talks about it. Which means nobody talks about it," he concluded.


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As Boulder and local governments across the U.S. turn to courts to pay for rebuilding after wildfires, floods and other extreme weather events linked to a changing climate, a new study shows it is now possible to pinpoint specific companies that could be held accountable.

Justin Mankin, associate professor of geography at Dartmouth College and study coauthor, said using advanced modeling, his team calculated a price tag for the impacts of extreme heat, just one climate hazard, linked to carbon dioxide and methane emissions from 111 companies over 30 years.

"The world would be $28 trillion more wealthy had those companies found ways to mitigate the extreme heat impacts of those emissions," Mankin reported.

Researchers found 10 fossil-fuel companies - including Chevron, ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco - were responsible for half of the total losses.

Oil and gas companies have argued in court it was not possible to assign blame to their company's carbon or methane molecules in the atmosphere compared with all the other molecules released. They have also noted oil and gas production has produced numerous public benefits and wealth.

Using emissions data and advanced climate models, Mankin pointed out it is now possible to see what the world would look like if any particular corporation had not produced emissions. He added other industries have not gotten off the hook, including "Big Pharma," just because they produced breakthrough medicines and vaccines.

"That doesn't absolve them for their role in, say, generating the opioid crisis," Mankin contended. "Courts have ruled that they had a role in generating the opioid crisis, and needed to compensate harmed individuals for that."

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed to hold corporations and trade associations accountable for climate damages. Colorado's Supreme Court has heard oral arguments but has not yet ruled on a case brought by San Miguel County and the city and county of Boulder seeking compensation from ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy.


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By Alyssa Burr for the Michigan Independent.
Broadcast version by Chrystal Blair for Michigan News Connection reporting for the Michigan Independent-Public News Service Collaboration

In recent years, Michigan has been aggressive in its approach to clean energy: It’s invested millions of dollars in renewable energy infrastructure, created training programs for jobs in the electric vehicle industry, and set a goal of moving the state to 100% carbon neutrality by 2050.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other state officials aim to make the Great Lakes State a leader in clean energy manufacturing by bringing jobs and investments to local communities while also tackling pollution, which continues to wreak havoc on the environment.

Now Michigan’s clean energy efforts have seemingly hit a wall of uncertainty as President Donald Trump’s administration takes ongoing actions to roll back federal climate regulations.

“We’ve seen nothing less than an unprecedented, all-out assault on our environment and our democracy,” said Bentley Johnson, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters’ federal government affairs director.

The clean energy sector has grown rapidly in the United States since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Congress appropriated $370 billion under the IRA, and White House officials at the time touted it as the country’s largest investment in clean energy.

According to Climate Power, a national public relations and advocacy organization dedicated to climate justice, Michigan was the No. 1 state in the nation in 2024 in its number of clean energy projects; from 2022-2024, the state announced 74 projects totalling over 26,000 jobs and roughly $27 billion in federal funding.

Trump has long been critical of the country’s climate initiatives and development of clean energy technology. He’s previously made false claims that climate change is a hoax and wind turbines cause cancer. Since taking office again in January, Trump has tried to pause IRA funding and signed an executive order to boost coal production.

Additionally, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in March that the agency had canceled more than 400 environmental justice grants to be used to improve air and water quality in disadvantaged communities. Senate Democrats, who released a full list of the canceled grants, accused the EPA of illegally terminating the contracts, through which funds were appropriated by Congress under the IRA. Of those 400 grants, 15 were allocated for projects in Michigan, including one to restore housing units in Kalamazoo and another to transform Detroit area food pantries and soup kitchens into emergency shelters for those in need.

Johnson said the federal government reversing course on the allotted funding has left community groups who were set to receive it in the lurch.

“That just seems wrong, to take away these public benefits that there was already an agreement — Congress has already appropriated or committed to spending this, to handing this money out, and the rug is being pulled out from under them,” Johnson said.

Climate Power has tracked clean energy projects across the country totaling $56.3 billion in projected funding and over 50,000 potential jobs that have been stalled or canceled since Trump was elected in November. Michigan accounts for seven of those projects, including Nel Hydrogen’s plans to build an electrolyzer manufacturing facility in Plymouth. 

Nel Hydrogen announced an indefinite delay in the construction of its Plymouth factory in February 2025. Wilhelm Flinder, the company’s head of investor relations, communications, and marketing, cited uncertainty regarding the IRA’s tax credits for clean hydrogen production as a factor in the company’s decision, according to reporting by Hometownlife.com. The facility was expected to invest $400 million in the local community and to create over 500 people when it started production.

“America is losing nearly a thousand jobs a day because of Trump’s war against cheaper, faster, and cleaner energy. Congressional Republicans have a choice: get in line with Trump’s job-killing energy agenda or take a stand to protect jobs and lower costs for American families,” Climate Power executive director Lori Lodes said in a March statement.

Opposition groups make misleading claims about the benefits of renewable energy, such as the reliability of wind or solar energy and the land used for clean energy projects, in order to stir up public distrust, Johnson said. 

In support of its clean energy goals, the state fronted some of its own taxpayer dollars for several projects to complement the federal IRA money. Johnson said the strategy was initially successful, but with sudden shifts in federal policies, it’s potentially become a risk, because the state would be unable to foot the bill entirely on its own.

The state still has its self-imposed clean energy goals to reach in 25 years, but whether it will meet that deadline is hard to predict, Johnson said. Michigan’s clean energy laws are still in place and, despite Trump’s efforts, the IRA remains intact for now.

“Thanks to the combination — I like to call it a one-two punch of the state-passed Clean Energy and Jobs Act … and the Inflation Reduction Act, with the two of those intact — as long as we don’t weaken it — and then the combination of the private sector and technological advancement, we can absolutely still make it,” Johnson said. “It is still going to be tough, even if there wasn’t a single rollback.”


Alyssa Burr wrote this article for the Michigan Independent.


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