cap and trade
Minnesota Farmers Union to hold listening session
ST. PAUL (January 6, 2010) - Minnesota Farmers Union (MFU) will be holding a listening session and issues forum on Monday, January 25, at 10:00 a.m. at the Sandhill Supper Club in Fertile. Everyone is invited to attend.
"This is a great opportunity for the people in Northwest, Minnesota to have a chance to air their concerns and speak about what is happening in rural Minnesota," said Doug Peterson, Minnesota Farmers Union President. "Not only will we take what we heard at this forum to the members of the state legislature, but we have also invited area legislators to hear from our members first hand."
Some of the issues to be covered are wind energy and easements; cap and trade; interpretation of the Minnesota electrical codes; estate tax; and property tax concerns. People should feel free to bring up for discussion issues concerning them. Thom Peterson, MFU Government Relations Director will be in attendance, and area legislators are invited.
A soup and sandwich luncheon will be provided by MFU. You do not have to be a member of MFU to attend.
Show me the money
(August 2, 2009) - One of the basic rules of my incredibly successful one-dog, two-ink pen operation is that if the government wants to give some of my tax money back I take it.
Depreciation? Thank you. Double declining balance, three-backflips depreciation? Thank you very much.
That simple principle, however, was trampled July 22 when a Senate Ag Committee hearing took a look at the recently passed, farmer-friendly, House climate change legislation.
While the House plan is complex, everyone-Dems and Repubs, cowboys and plowboys, geniuses and (ahem) journalists alike-agree: the ag side of the House plan will net farmers and rural communities billions in the coming decades.
Indeed, recent studies from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and Iowa State University all point to how juicy carbon trading will be for American farmers and landowners.
But that clear message was muddied at the Senate hearing. Several Repub aggies complained that farmers would be big losers under cap-and-trade. Leading the charge was Mike Johanns, this year the junior senator from Nebraska, last year the secretary of agriculture.
Ag’s two faces in global warming debate
(July 5, 2009) - Once, during a friendly debate over global warming, I asked a well-informed acquaintance what the consequences were if he was wrong in his insistence that global warming was simply Al Gore's revenge for the 2000 presidential election.
"Well," he replied after a long pause to, I guess, stare 40 years into the future, "if I'm wrong my grandchildren will curse my name."
That introspective reply come to mind after the narrow, 219 to 212 U.S. House of Representative's vote June 26 to approve sweeping climate change legislation that, the New York Times noted, will "transform the way the nation produces and uses energy."
A funny thing happened on the way to that sausage-making, though: Big ag was big-time opposed to any climate legislation unless it got a piece of the pork pie during the transformation. The initial bill, pushed by Californian Henry Waxman, contained not one morsel for agriculture.
So House Ag Committee boss Collin Peterson marshaled farm and commodity groups to help him wring major concessions from Waxman and his sky-is-(ahem)-warming allies. In the end, most of ag's biggest wishes were granted and the Peterson amendment-with its rock solid aggie vote-became part of the Waxman package.
NFU President: Current Climate Change Bill Inadequate
WASHINGTON (June 15, 2009) - National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson last week told the House Agriculture Committee NFU could not support climate change legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, as passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Johnson made the following statement.
"If the legislation approved by the Energy and Commerce Committee is not improved with regard to agricultural offsets, National Farmers Union will urge members of Congress to vote against the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.
"NFU has been proactive and constructive throughout the legislative process and would very much like to support climate change legislation. However, the Energy and Commerce Committee failed to adequately address any of our priorities.
"NFU policy supports a national, mandatory carbon emission cap and trade system to reduce non-farm greenhouse gas emissions if the U.S. Department of Agriculture is granted control and administration of the agriculture offset program, early actors are recognized, no artificial cap is placed on domestic offsets, carbon sequestration rates are based upon science and producers are permitted to stack environmental benefit credits.
Energy cost: Pay now or pay later
(March 31, 2009) - No matter what one thinks about the proposal of the Obama administration to eliminate direct payments to farms with gross sales in excess of $500,000, it is becoming clear that they want to put their own imprint on farm policy. That can be seen in the argument that farmers could make up their loss of direct payments with payments for environmental benefits and carbon sequestration.
The issue of improving the environment through carbon sequestration fits in with the emphasis Obama has given to green energy investments, the reduction of atmospheric emissions of fossil-fuel-based carbon dioxide, and reducing the dependence of the US on imported oil.
Farmers have made significant investments in biofuels as a means of both increasing farm income and reducing the number of barrels of oil that are imported by the US every day. Public support is conditioned on the ongoing acceptance of these goals as important elements of public policy.