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Edited on Mon Jun-22-09 02:36 PM by garybeck
note, I did not write this... forwarded from email.
THE INFLUENCE GAME: Excuse me! Lobby wins on burps
By DINA CAPPIELLO – 11 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — One contributor to global warming — bigger than coal
mines, landfills and sewage treatment plants — is being left out of
efforts by the Obama administration and House Democrats to limit
greenhouse gas emissions.
Cow burps.
Belching from the nation's 170 million cattle, sheep and pigs produces
about one-quarter of the methane released in the U.S. each year,
according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That makes the hoofed
critters the largest source of the heat-trapping gas.
In part because of an adept farm lobby campaign that equates government
regulation with a cow tax, the gas that farm animals pass is exempt from
legislation being considered by Congress to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
The EPA under President Barack Obama has said it has no plans to
regulate the gas, even though the agency recently included methane among
six greenhouse gases it believes are endangering human health and welfare.
...
"It really has taken on a life of its own," said Rick Krause, a lobbyist
with the American Farm Bureau Federation, which coined the term cow tax
and spread it to farmers across the country. "This is something that
people understand. All that we have to say is that (cows) are the next
step with these proposed permit fees. And people are still talking about
it."
Administration officials and House Democratic leaders have tried to
assure farm groups that they have no intention of regulating cows. That
effort, however, has done little to ease the concern of farmers and
their advocates in Congress about the toll that regulating greenhouse
gases will have on agriculture.
...
"I don't think livestock should be ignored. Every industry has to play
their role," Mitloehner said. But laws designed to reduce emissions from
smokestacks and tailpipes won't work with cattle, which can't be fitted
with pollution control devices, Mitloehner said.
...
The climate bill specifically excludes enteric fermentation — the fancy
term for the gas created by digestion and expelled largely by burping —
from the limit it would place on greenhouse gas emissions. The
legislation directs the EPA not to include it among the various sources
that could be subject to new performance standards.
...
On Thursday, Rep. Todd Tihart, R-Kan., successfully added an amendment
to the spending bill that covers the EPA to block the agency from
including biological processes of livestock — including the release of
methane — as part of regulating greenhouse gases.
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