Farmers across the country have been up in arms the last few weeks over an Environmental Protection Agency proposed “cow tax.”
The EPA issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking last summer that called for public comments on the idea of regulating greenhouse gas emissions from cars, as well as stationary sources, which included cows, other livestock and crops. A spokesman for the EPA said farmers were distorting the message contained in a consolidation document, which contained a brief mention of farming and was designed to address the regulation of greenhouse gases across all industries by use of the Clean Air Act.
The proposed “cow tax” became national news when a national lobbying group, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), calculated that 25 cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 pigs would emit more than 100 tons of carbon equivalent a year (methane and other nitrogen gases emitted by farm animals) and farmers could therefore be required to pay for a pollution permit (cow tax) if the new rules were adopted.
The AFBF calculated that the proposed “cow tax” could cost farmers up to $175 per cow, $87.50 per beef cattle and $20 per hog.
The Lincoln County News contacted two local dairy farmers last week, Wayne Cunningham, Waldoboro, and Larry Russell, North Newcastle. Neither farmer had heard of the proposed “cow tax”.
Cunningham has roughly 180 head. If enacted, the “cow tax” could cost him $31,500. “That would be enough to do me under quick. It must be an April Fool’s joke. It can’t be possible. I’d be all done,” Cunningham said.
Russell owns roughly 500 head, and if the AFBF is right, his “cow tax” could be $87,500. When asked if the “cow tax” would shut him down, Russell responded, “I guess probably. There is not that kind of profit in it,” Russell said of dairy farming. “And milk keeps getting cheaper and cheaper and everything else is going up,” Russell added of the current price of milk, which is under $14 a hundred weight.
“They do some stupid things in Washington. We’ve got Pelosi and Reed. It’s hard telling what it’ll do,” Russell said of government.
According to news accounts, on Dec. 2 the EPA told U.S. congressman Robert Aderholt that the livestock emission tax was never seriously considered and had no chance of being proposed by Congress.
