© Copyright Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.
Washington,
May 12 – In his press conference to unveil the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill
Wednesday, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said he worked closely with Sens. Tom Harkin
(D-IA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) to craft a bill which
he believes will “create great wealth for agriculture.”
Kerry
pointed out that the bill “only covers about 2% of America’s
businesses, only 7,500 entities in America come under this bill. Small
business is exempt. Agriculture is exempt.”
Kerry
said “that 2% that comes under the bill equals about 75% of America’s
greenhouse gas emissions.” He added that companies at the press conference to
support the legislation, including Dow Corning, Dow Chemical, Honeywell, and
Florida Power & Light “know that this is good policy for them because it
gives them certainty about where it’s going to go over the next 20, 30 years
and it gives them the ability to have a business plan which makes sense for
them where they know they can create jobs.”
Kerry
said that because “countless companies. . . have already reduced their
emissions 20 and 30 and 40 percent and they’re making money doing it,” he
convinced the climate bill will work and that “agriculture is not going to get
hurt by this, they’re going to get helped.”
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) at the lectern, with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to the left, surrounded by energy
industry and environmental group leaders. Photo: Agri-Pulse.
Kerry’s
not alone in seeing opportunity for agriculture. National Farmers Union wasn’t
on stage with Kerry, Lieberman and energy industry executives Wednesday but
quickly issued a supportive statement. NFU President Roger Johnson said that “NFU
has long supported legislation that provides an opportunity for agriculture to
play a positive role in addressing our climate and energy needs. The discussion
draft announced today by Senator Kerry and Senator Lieberman continues along
that path. The senators and their staff have produced legislation that
recognizes the key role of agriculture in mitigating greenhouse gases, strongly
supports the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s role in overseeing and
administering agriculture offsets, and provides agriculture an exemption from
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) regulation for carbon pollution. These
are very positive steps in the right direction.”
Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) commented that “I look forward to examining the proposal from Senators Kerry and
Lieberman and applaud their efforts towards finding a workable solution
in the Senate. As Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, a
critical piece of this process for me will be having an accurate
analysis on the bill’s economic impacts on agriculture and rural
America. I look forward to reviewing the analysis being conducted by
EPA, as well as other economic studies that will examine the bill.”
National
Corn Growers Association President Darrin Ihnen commented that “The National
Corn Growers Association is reviewing the discussion draft of the American
Power Act released today by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman. We have
provided input to the Senate over the past several months on provisions
pertaining to the agriculture industry and we will continue to offer feedback
after we have a chance to review the text of this important piece of
legislation.”
Ihnen
noted further that “NCGA could not support the Waxman-Markey bill on the House
side due to the potential adverse economic impacts on corn growers. In light of
that, we will once again conduct an analysis of the new Senate version of
climate legislation before taking a position on the Kerry-Lieberman proposal.
We will also wait for the official analysis from the Environmental Protection
Agency in the coming weeks.
To
read the actual Kerry-Liberman climate bill along with bill summaries, go to: http://kerry.senate.gov/americanpoweract/intro.cfm.
For more coverage of the bill, go to: www.agri-pulse.com/20100512H1.asp.
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