Devastating Energy Bill Still Looms

According to the Ag Review:

“The Democratic Senate Majority Leader announced on Tuesday that the Senate will consider climate change and energy legislation before the end of the month, which will include the Kerry-Lieberman bill.

This comes as the Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed what we already knew about that bill. It would amount to a $751 billion national energy tax over ten years. It would attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing energy prices. This would be particularly devastating to our farmers and ranchers because agriculture is an energy-intensive industry.

An analysis of the House-passed national energy tax bill showed that net farm income would decrease by an average of $23 billion per year as a result of increased energy costs.

A recent poll indicates that Americans are clearly opposed to the Kerry-Lieberman bill and the House version, Waxman-Markey because they would increase taxes on energy.

The poll finds that:

– 94 percent of voters say that new energy taxes would hit lower- or middle-income citizens the hardest.

– 70 percent of voters oppose policies that would create new energy taxes in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

– 47 percent of voters believe that new energy taxes would kill jobs.”