FARM and ranch delegates at the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting unanimously approved a special resolution to strongly oppose cap and trade proposals before Congress and strongly support any legislative action that would suspend the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
The delegates cited recent developments in the climate change debate as reasons to re-emphasize their opposition.
The resolution asserted that proposed cap and trade legislation would result in significantly higher production costs for farmers, and that potential benefits of agricultural offsets are far outweighed by the costs.
According to the resolution, the administration's economic projections show the proposed cap and trade legislation would result in planting trees on 59 million acres of crop and pasture land thereby damaging the capability of US agricultural producers to feed a growing world population and create the conditions for higher consumer food prices.
Cap and trade legislation would eliminate jobs, and could result in the loss of 2.3 million jobs in the US over the next 20 years.
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