From our friend Pamela Rice at Viva Vegie!
EPA to ag: We want to hear from you...
Huh?
Maybe the EPA ought to come the the vegetarians for input. Then (and
only then) we can get an environmental policy that makes any sense.
-Pamela R.
article follows:
[EXCERPT: Frizzell said the EPA officials in Washington want input
from farmers and agribusinesses when they write new regulations. "Let
us hear your side of the story so we can get a balanced
decision."....]
click for original:
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/
EPA to ag: We want to hear from you
by Dan Looker
Successful Farming magazine
Business Editor
2/11/2010, 7:53 AM CST
An agricultural advisor for the Environmental Protection Agency in
Kansas City thanked the Agribusiness Association of Iowa for a chance
to speak to the group at the state fairgrounds in Des Moines
Wednesday.
"We don't get a lot of invitations -- being from the EPA," joked
Damon Frizzell, who is an ag advisor for the agency's Water, Wetlands
and Pesticides Division at the Kansas City regional office.
The government agency agriculture loves to fear has made key
decisions that affect the industry recently. It announced a new
renewable fuel standard last week that will expand the market for
biofuels, especially soybean-based biodiesel. And next summer the EPA
is expected to decide if the amount of ethanol in unleaded gasoline
can be increased from the current 10% to 15%. The agency also
regulates pesticides, runoff from confined livestock facilities and
perhaps in the future, greenhouse gas emissions from the largest
livestock operations.
Frizzell said the EPA officials in Washington want input from farmers
and agribusinesses when they write new regulations.
"Let us hear your side of the story so we can get a balanced
decision," said Frizzell, who was standing in for Larry Elworth, the
agricultural counselor to EPA's administrator, Lisa Jackson. Elworth
planned to be the keynote speaker to the trade group that represents
Iowa's ag supply and grain elevator industry. He was unable to fly
out of snowbound Washington.
Frizzell said that when EPA issued an "endangerment finding" for
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases last December, it means
that the agency has concluded the gases are factor in global warming.
But it doesn't mean the EPA will be regulating greenhouse gas
emissions soon.
"So much depends on what Congress does in the near future," he said.
The House has already passed cap and trade legislation but a similar
bill is stalled in the Senate.
Frizzell said that the new renewable fuel standard announced by EPA
will create a market this year for between 12 billion and 13 billion
gallons of biofuels. By 2022 the energy law EPA is enforcing, the
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, will mandate the use of
36 billion gallons of biofuels. That will be 7% of all gasoline and
diesel use projected for that year. And the demand for crops and
biomass that will be turned into fuel will increase net farm income
by $13 billion, he said.
=======
Now, hear the other side of this cozy industry/government relationship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
This would be the perfect lecture, if only Anuradha Mittal advocated
veganism; she's been known to support the interests of New York's
upstate dairy farmers.
-Pamela R.
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