A Democrat running for Congress in Colorado's ranch country co-authored a paper proposing carbon offset schemes to push farmers off livestock and onto crop farming — and now he's scrambling to convince the very constituents whose livelihoods he targeted that he's on their side.
Manny Rutinel is seeking the seat in Colorado's 8th Congressional District, where 75% of its 2.5 million acres are devoted to farming and raising livestock and which accounts for 26% of the state's beef and cattle output. That makes his 2022 paper, co-authored with Sebastian Quaade, a direct hit on his would-be constituents' way of life.
The paper, "Reducing Animal Agriculture Emissions: The Viability of a Farm Transition Carbon Offset Protocol," argues that the Paris Agreement's focus on fossil fuels doesn't go far enough. It calls for "ambitious policies that reform our food system" and lays out a methodology for carbon offset registries and government agencies to credit farms that transition from raising livestock to growing crops. In plain English: create financial incentives — or pressures — to run ranchers out of the cattle business.
"Animal agriculture is one of the leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions," the paper states, proposing that "carbon offset registries, legislative bodies, and administrative agencies may implement these findings to help address the environmental and social harms associated with our current food system."
The social harms of ranching, as defined by a climate activist running to represent ranchers. Follow the money on carbon offset markets and you'll find the usual ecosystem of brokers, registries, and connected insiders who profit from creating and trading these credits — not the working people whose operations get restructured out of existence.
Rutinel now insists he's had a change of heart. "Like all industry, there are bad apples, and I've spoken out against those bad apples that cause extreme and unnecessary animal cruelty in parts of the food industry and against the environmental cost of unsustainable food practices," he told Fox News. He added: "They're good stewards of the land, they care for their animals, and they are the backbone of our economy and our communities. Colorado ranchers are my friends and neighbors."
But the paper isn't his only problem. The Colorado Sun reported that in since-deleted Reddit posts from roughly a decade ago, Rutinel voiced support for granting animals the same legal standing as humans — which would effectively prohibit slaughtering them for food. His animal rights activism continued up until his appointment to the state legislature in 2023.
Rutinel, a former vegan, now dismisses his own record as youthful indiscretion. "The views that I put in those posts when I was 22 are not my views today," he said. "Those are the views of a 22-year-old kid. I've grown a lot, and I'm glad that I have."
He was 22, not 12. And the paper was published in 2022 — not a decade ago, but during his professional career. The timeline matters. The Reddit posts may have been old; the policy paper was not.
This is the green agenda stripped to its core: politicians who write academic papers proposing to restructure working Americans' livelihoods in the name of emissions targets, then show up at election time calling those same people "friends and neighbors." The carbon offset scheme Rutinel championed wouldn't cost him a paycheck — it would cost a rancher his operation.
The question for voters in the 8th District is straightforward: which version of Manny Rutinel would show up in Congress?
