Farm Bureau Pleased with Climate Bill Delay
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) is pleased with a decision by Senate leadership last week to delay consideration of climate change legislation until the spring of 2010.
During a recent interview before the delay was announced, AFBF president Bob Stallman said the agricultural organization opposed the climate change bill that was passed by the House, despite provisions included that were beneficial to agriculture. “That bill we believe will downsize American agriculture by at least 20 percent,” he said. “Long term it reduces our ability to produce food.”
Stallman says that AFBF is also opposed to the controversial concept of indirect land use change to determine the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of biofuels. “That issue is an attempt by the environmental community to remove the use of corn ethanol from the Renewable Fuel Standard,” Stallman said. “We’re opposed to that. Number one, there is no science, it’s pure speculation. And how you can say that an acre producing corn ethanol here is going to change a specific acre in a specific country is nonsense.”
Listen to an interview with Stallman here.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.3MB)
2 Comments »
DonEWG
“That bill we believe will downsize American agriculture by at least 20 percent,” he said. “Long term it reduces our ability to produce food.”
The projections for the impact on agriculture of declines of 30-60% from climate change will be the real downsizing.
In the long-term, climate change will reduce our ability to produce food much much more than any legislation.
Marie
Don, good call. The costs of climate change for farmers will far outweigh the costs of prevention, and research on carbon offsets that farmers can provide has shown that many farmers actually stand to raise their incomes with a cap on carbon. Perhaps the Farm Bureau should start representing the real interests of American farmers, not big agribusiness and oil like they do now. Sen. McCaskill, please listen to the needs of Missouri’s farmers and vote in favor of the clean energy bill. This state and country can’t afford the other path.
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