Legislators learn it doesn't pay to tax gassy cows

Monday, October 5, 2009

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.

In March, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York and Republican John Thune of South Dakota introduced a bill aimed at preventing the environmental agency from regulating farms under the Clean Air Act.

It gained immediate support from the American Farm Bureau Federation, which includes many Missouri and Illinois producers.

A Nebraska state representative introduced a similar bill. That state is home to about six million cattle.

Cattle emissions are reported to produce about two per cent of all climate-altering pollution in the United States.

Several years ago, the government of New Zealand found to its detriment that it doesn't pay to try to tax gassy cows. BF