WASHINGTON — For years, landowners have gotten paid for not farming. Now, they may get paid for not cutting down trees.
While U.S. families could see their annual energy bills rise hundreds of dollars under a massive climate bill that President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to push through the House, owners of large swaths of forestland — timber companies, large farms, even foreign countries — could reap billions of dollars.
The bill is aimed at curbing the gases, largely carbon dioxide from power plants and vehicles, blamed for global warming, but it would allow polluters to buy credits from owners of forestland as an alternative to switching to fuels other than coal and gas or installing expensive equipment to capture the greenhouse gases.
Landowners would get the credits because trees suck up greenhouse gases, preventing them from reaching the atmosphere and warming Earth.
The premise is that at some point, the sources of greenhouse gases will find it cheaper to switch to other fuels or install pollution controls than to keep paying for the credits.
