Legislators learn it doesn’t pay to tax gassy cows



The farm vote still counts in key states in the United States, as the government there has found out to its detriment.

The Environmental Protection Agency has abandoned a nascent plan to tax cattle producing methane. The American Farm Bureau Federation says the tax was to be included in a climate change law and would have cost producers about $175 for every dairy cow, $87.50 for a beef cow and $20 for each hog to purchase permits for emissions.

“Farmers and ranchers do not profit $87.50 per cow or $20 per hog. This tax is not reasonable,” the American Farm Bureau Federation wrote last December.

Better Farming - October 2009