ENERGY/CLIMATE BILL – IT’S GOOD FOR THE FARMERS

Climate Change Far Greater Threat to Farmers Than Climate Legislation; Cost of House ACES Bill is Pocket Change Per Acre for Most Crops
October 7, 2009 (Environmental Working Group)

"Farm industry leaders and their supporters in Congress are trying to derail climate change legislation by insisting that the House-passed bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), will cause ruinous increases in the costs of production for farmers. They claim this threat is so potentially devastating that climate change legislation should be shelved or loaded up with concessions that send more money to their agricultural constituents."

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"But [Crying Wolf: Climate Change Far Greater Threat to Farmers Than Climate Legislation; Cost of House ACES Bill is Pocket Change Per Acre for Most Crops] by the Environmental Working Group of US Department of Agriculture cost estimates finds that the projected increased costs of production due to the climate bill will be so small - $0.45 per acre for soybeans, $0.66 per acre for wheat, and $1.19 per acre for corn, for example - that they amount to well under one half of one percent of current production costs."

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"…[The report] concludes that a fertilizer spreader or chemical sprayer that is a bit out of adjustment would cost farmers more. Moreover, the added costs pale compared to the federal government's taxpayer-funded, multi-billion-dollar commodity subsidies...[The paper is] the inaugural report on EWG's new agriculture- and environment-themed web property, AgMag..."