Don’t eat me – it’s bad for the environment (Image: Stephen Saks Photography/Alamy Stock Photo)

Early this year, the top nutrition advisory panel in the US offered some common-sense advice to the federal agencies writing the nation’s dietary guidelines: Americans, the panel said, should be urged to eat less meat for the sake of the environment.

On Tuesday, the Obama administration effectively responded “Thanks, but our hands are tied”.

Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack and health and human services secretary Sylvia Burwell, whose agencies are currently at work writing the final guidelines, . The statement paid lip service to the idea that “the environment and sustainability are critically important” but ultimately concluded that the nutritional guidelines are not “the appropriate vehicle for this important policy conversation about sustainability”.

What the appropriate vehicle is, the two did not say.

The timing of the announcement, though, tells us plenty about why Vilsack and Burwell decided to ignore an expert panel that their agencies have traditionally listened closely to when drafting their .

Washington climate wars

Yesterday, both secretaries were in front of the Republican-led House Committee on Agriculture. The panel’s chairman, K. Michael Conaway, , over the idea that the administration would dare to consider the sustainability of Americans diets – particularly when doing so would mean telling people to cut down on their meat intake.

Representative Robert Aderholt, the Alabama Republican who chairs the subcommittee in control of the Agriculture Department’s purse strings, if the department decided to follow the nutrition experts’ advice.

Given that, it appears the Obama administration is simply, albeit sadly, unwilling to open up another front in Washington’s climate wars at a time when Republicans are about global warming.

The political rationale for avoiding the fight, though, is much easier to justify than the scientific case for doing so. The eat-less-meat proposal had the backing of both , who argued that it could save the nation billions of dollars in healthcare costs, and climate scientists, who saw it as a way to curb US emissions.

Beefing up emissions

, the climate case for eating less meat is particularly powerful: livestock accounts for 14.5 per cent of the world’s human-caused emissions, nearly half of that coming from the resources needed to grow and ship the corn and soy that most of the animals eat, according to .

A typical meat-eater’s diet is responsible for almost twice as much global warming as your typical vegetarian’s and almost triple that of a vegan, according to a report published in the journal Climatic Change last year. That suggested that cutting your meat intake in half could cut your carbon footprint by more than 35 per cent.

Beef is particularly damaging to the planet. According to the , it results in five times more greenhouse gas emissions than pork or chicken, while requiring 28 times more land and 11 times more irrigation.

In the end, though, science never seemed to have much of a chance against the meat industry, which until policymakers in Washington submit to its will.

Sadly, the only question left now is whether the same familiar story will play out again in five years’ time, when the next administration gets the chance to draft another set of dietary guidelines.

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Last week the US’s top nutrition advisory panel unveiled of advice for the federal agencies tasked with writing the nation’s dietary guidelines. Tucked among the usual recommendations to eat more fruit, vegetables, and whole grains; eat less fat, salt, and sugar – were a few small and one giant green one. Americans, the panel said, should consider the environment when deciding what and what not to eat.

If that sounds like common-sense advice, that’s because it is. Climate scientists and nutrition advocates have been saying it for years. But the simple recommendation may end up sparking Washington’s next knock-down, drag-out climate fight between big business and the Obama administration.

“Current evidence shows that the average US diet has a larger environmental impact in terms of increased [greenhouse gas] emissions, land use, water use, and energy use,” reads the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report. “This is because the current US population intake of animal-based foods is higher and plant-based foods are lower.” The that Americans should eat a diet that “is higher in plant-based foods” and “lower in animal-based foods”. Translation: Eat less meat.

The climate case for such a suggestion has been well covered by now, but here is a quick refresher: livestock is responsible for 14.5 per cent of the world’s human-caused emissions, nearly half of that coming from the resources needed to grow and ship the corn and soya that most of the animals eat, according to .

Eat veg, not meat

A meat-eater’s typical diet, meanwhile, is responsible for almost twice as much global warming as your typical vegetarian’s and almost triple that of a vegan, according to a report published in the journal Climatic Change last summer. That suggested that cutting your meat intake in half could cut your carbon footprint by more than 35 per cent. Beef is particularly damaging to the planet. According to the , it results in five times the greenhouse gas emissions of pork or chicken, while requiring 28 times as much land and 11 times as much water for irrigation.

The president’s nutritional panel has never gone toe-to-toe with the meat industry quite like this before.

So what’s the problem with telling Americans to eat a little less meat? Historically, that type of advice can’t so much as be whispered in the nation’s capital without being swiftly beaten back by the livestock industry’s considerable muscle. By now the president’s nutritional advisory panel has largely learned not to pick this fight. Or at least that’s what everyone assumed before they unveiled the latest report. “This is a dramatic departure,” Marion Nestle, a nutrition expert who served on the advisory panel in the mid 1990s, . “They’re just telling it like it is.”

The question now becomes whether the White House is willing to listen.

The departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services don’t have to follow the panel’s advice when they finalise their updated nutritional guidelines later this year. While the agencies have traditionally stuck closely to the expert recommendations, the panel’s never gone toe-to-toe with the meat industry quite like this before, despite conversation about meat consumption dating back at least four decades.

If Obama does decide to press on, it will open up yet another front in Washington’s climate wars – with Republicans denying the science while decrying what they see as the nanny state run wild. That’s not to suggest Obama shouldn’t continue – as my colleague Alec MacGillis has explained, the president has come to terms with the fact that if – just that doing so will take political capital.

As expected, Big Beef and its conservative allies in Congress have already launched a pre-emptive strike. The North American Meat Institute blasted the report as “” and “nonsensical”, sentiments echoed by other industry groups. A spokesman for Robert Aderholt, the Alabama Republican who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that controls the Agriculture Department’s purse strings, likewise branded the report “politically motivated” and even suggested that the department could be if it follows the nutrition experts’ advice.

Chopping block

The panel knew that this would be the Republican reaction, and the fact that it wasn’t cowed (sorry) by Congress is remarkable in its own right. But if the green-themed advice ultimately makes it into the government’s final recommendations in its current incarnation, it’ll be an even bigger surprise. The industry has an excellent record of coming out on top when it feels as though its bottom line is on the chopping block (sorry again).

To get a sense of the power of the industry, consider how it has reacted to so-called Meatless Monday programmes, voluntary initiatives that encourage people to go vegetarian for one day a week. In 2012 it took the industry only a matter of days to . The industry notched an the year before when the US Department of Agriculture published an interoffice newsletter that read, in part: “One simple way to reduce your environmental impact while dining at our cafeterias is to participate in the ‘Meatless Monday’ initiative”. Almost immediately after the industry voiced its anger, farm-state lawmakers scrambled to fall in line, vowing, in Iowa senator, Chuck Grassley’s words, to “eat more meat on Monday to compensate for [this] stupid USDA recommendation”. Within 24 hours, the newsletter was taken offline, and the department issued a statement saying that it “does not endorse Meatless Monday”.

Americans aren’t obligated to follow the USDA’s nutrition guidelines, regardless of whether they come in the . But they still represent an exponentially bigger fight than small-scale Meatless Monday initiatives. The federal guidelines shape the health narratives that influence the diets of millions of consumers and, more directly, dictate school lunch menus and what foods are eligible for food assistance programmes.

Given the stakes for the industry, the president could choose to focus his climate change-fighting attention elsewhere. Then again, given the stakes for the environment, that’s probably why he shouldn’t.

Josh Voorhees is a Slate senior writer. He lives in Iowa City

The environment , but what happens next could be even more painful for green groups and their climate-conscious allies.

Republicans, who will control both chambers of the US Congress next year for the first time in nearly a decade, wasted little time this week making it clear that approving the Keystone XL pipeline is at . Green-lighting the 2700-kilometre pipeline has been a Republican priority for years. Now they finally have the votes to do it.

That’s a significant problem for President Barack Obama, who has gone to great lengths to avoid tipping his hand on whether he will approve the $8 billion project that would carry 830,000 barrels of carbon-heavy crude oil per day from Alberta’s tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries.

Obama has maintained that he cannot decide one way or the other until his administration is finished reviewing the proposal, a noncommittal answer that has frustrated nearly everyone involved in the debate, and one he repeated during Wednesday’s post-midterm election press conference. “There’s an independent process that’s moving forward. I’m going to let that process play out,” Obama said, referring to a federal review that has been going on for six years.

The White House maintains that the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) need more time to weigh the benefits of the pipeline against its environmental impacts. But the delay has also allowed Obama to avoid, albeit somewhat awkwardly, having to take a high-profile litmus test in the larger climate debate. The president won’t have the luxury of waiting any longer after Republicans take over Congress in January.

Piece of the action

Environmentalists and their climate-conscious allies argue that the pipeline would significantly accelerate the development of oil sands, one of the dirtiest fossil fuels on the planet. They want Obama to block the project to send a clear message that he’s serious about curbing US carbon emissions.

Industry groups and their more business-focused friends, meanwhile, cannot fathom putting concerns about the climate above the nation’s near-term economic and national security interests. They contend that Canada’s oil deposits will be exploited one way or the other, so the US would be silly not to get in on the action.

The pipeline’s approval, its backers contend, would boost US energy security while also creating thousands of construction jobs at home. Just how many remains in dispute: TransCanada, the company behind the project, claims it will create , but in New York pegs the number at fewer than 5000.

Depressing realities

In , the pipeline would have only a marginal impact. But it’s shaping up to be the opening climate skirmish in what will probably be a series of battles in the next Congress. Chief among the depressing realities facing climate-conscious Democrats is that a Republican Senate majority means that Senator Barbara Boxer, a California liberal, will to Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who has written a book called .

Senate Republicans won’t have the votes to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases, but they are expected to make life hell for the agency by hauling officials in front of Congress on a regular basis and taking aim at its budget. That could have major global repercussions at next year’s UN climate convention in Paris, where the president will have to convince other world leaders that the US government does not think that global warming is a hoax or a conspiracy.

The oil and gas industry, meanwhile, can hardly wait for 2015. The Republican party has already signalled that of production-friendly energy policies. “I think you’re going to see us bring up energy legislation right away and Keystone will be one of the first things we pass,” North Dakota senator John Hoeven as the electoral map turned more Republican red by the minute.

Filibuster-proof majority

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has already passed a number of Keystone bills in recent years, and won’t have a problem doing so again next year. In the past, such efforts would languish in the Senate, where Democrats had the votes to prevent a binding resolution from coming up on the floor. That firewall won’t exist once the incoming group of senators is sworn in early next year.

Even before the Republican mid-term election gains, showed the pro-pipeline crowd with 57 votes of a possible 100, a total that included all 45 Senate Republicans and a dozen moderate Democrats. Now, pipeline support should climb. The next Senate will include Iowa Republican Joni Ernst, who takes over from retiring, anti-pipeline Democrat Tom Harkin; West Virginia Republican Shelley Moore Capito, who will replace retiring Democrat senator Jay Rockefeller; and Colorado’s Cory Gardner, who ousted Senator Mark Udall. Meanwhile, South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds will take over for retiring Senator Tim Johnson, who was on the fence about the pipeline but appeared willing to leave the final decision to the Obama administration.

Add it all up, and “Team Keystone” appears likely to have a filibuster-proof majority with at least 61 votes, a number that could still grow if a handful of other Democrats break with the White House once it becomes clear the bill is heading for passage regardless of their opposition.

Lose-lose situation

Once a Keystone bill arrives at the White House, the president will have a very tough call to make. The most likely option would be for Obama to veto the bill, justifying such a move by pointing to the ongoing review. Republicans don’t have the 67 votes they would need to override a veto, but they could and likely would go on every talk show in the known universe to paint the president as obstructionist.

If there’s any hope at all that the White House and Congressional Republicans could play nice and work together during Obama’s final two years – and honestly, there probably shouldn’t be – then this early fight would crush those dreams.

The other option would be for Obama to relent and approve the pipeline – either by signing the Keystone bill or potentially even signing off on the project later this year before Republicans take control of the Senate. That, however, would enrage environmentalists, who are already sceptical of what they see as Obama’s lacklustre climate record. It would also make the president’s UN sales pitch that much more difficult.

The only people with nothing to lose politically are congressional Republicans, and they seem to know it. If Obama signs their bill, the Republican party can point to the pipeline as proof that they’re delivering on their campaign promises. If the president vetoes it, he allows the Republicans to argue ahead of 2016 that it’s the Democrats who are responsible for the gridlock in Washington DC. Pipeline or no pipeline, then, the new Republican-controlled Congress will be off to a running start.