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  True or False? The EPA Wants to Tax Cows
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ContributorArmyDem 
Last EditedArmyDem  Jan 06, 2009 07:29am
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CategoryGeneral
News DateMonday, January 5, 2009 01:00:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionIn an early move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from farms, was the EPA angling to tax livestock?

COMMUNITY NEWS

Q: Is the EPA considering a tax on cows and pigs?

A: No. The farm lobby warned that EPA "could" push for such a tax, but EPA never proposed any such thing and says it lacks authority to impose one anyway.

This one is a case study in how lobbyists sometimes justify their own salaries by loudly fighting against hypothetical but nonexistent threats from Washington.

The source of this hokum is a misleading news release put out by the American Farm Bureau Federation on Nov. 20. The highly inaccurate headline read: "AFBF Opposes EPA-Proposed Tax on Livestock." In truth, however, the Environmental Protection Agency hasn't proposed any tax on livestock. In fact, the Farm Bureau's own documentation admitted as much.

Along with its news release, the Farm Bureau issued a backup document titled "How EPA Regulation Could Lead to a 'Cow Tax.'" Note the word "could," indicating a possibility, not a certainty. The document said: "We do not know what direction EPA might take in any final proposal." It said a tax on livestock might be among "potential consequences" of an EPA attempt to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act, as authorized by the Supreme Court. Livestock, of course, naturally produce methane, a greenhouse gas.
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