Congress must nullify greenhouse gas permit requirements that were announced this week by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).
Efforts in Congress and legal challenges by states offer corrective paths to fix a very real disaster threatening farms.
“We believe the EPA’s greenhouse gas requirements will lead to costly and ineffective regulations on America’s farmers and ranchers,” says AFBF President Bob Stallman. “We vehemently oppose regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act because we believe it will require livestock producers and other agricultural operations to obtain costly and time-consuming permits as conditions to continue farming.”
Farm Bureau strongly supports a Senate resolution to disapprove of EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AL) and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and a companion measure in the House introduced by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO).
Stallman also supports legal challenges from many state government officials who have expressed their objections.
In 2008, the Agriculture Department warned if greenhouse gas emissions from farming operations are regulated under the Clean Air Act, many farms would become covered entities for the first time.
“We are concerned that the EPA decision announced Monday leads us down a direct path that fulfills USDA’s prediction. If Congress does not follow the lead of Sens. Murkowski, Lincoln and Reps. Peterson and Skelton, farmers will fall within the scope of regulation and struggle to cope with ineffective greenhouse gas regulations that are not economically sustainable. We urge Congress to take action before the regulations take effect next January.”