11.03.09
Farmers fight climate change bill even as climate change causes trouble for them
Farm state senators and others soon will get a taste of what their colleagues from Missouri already have piled high on their desks: thousands of letters from farmers urging them to vote against the climate and energy bill.
The Missouri Farm Bureau started the letter campaign early, weeks before the bill was fully written and made public. It was followed in October with a pitch from the American Farm Bureau, the nation’s largest agriculture lobby, to get farmers to take farm caps, sign their bills and send them to senators with notes that say, "Don’t cap our future."
Agriculture is likely to have a central place in the debate on the bill later this year about the short-term costs of acting to curb climate change — and the costs of failing to address the long-term risks.
Farm lobby groups and senators who agree with them argue that imposing limits on the nation’s emissions of heat-trapping gases from coal, oil and natural gas would raise the cost of farming necessities such as fuel, electricity and natural gas-based fertilizer. A government report, however, warns of a dire outlook for farms if rising emissions drive more rapid climate shifts in the decades ahead.
The Senate bill includes provisions that would hold down energy costs for consumers, and some senators are working to add sections that would help farmers…
Continue reading. What is the name for people who work hard against their own interests?
