EPA wants to apply Title V to Farmers and Ranchers

weslinder · Jan 5, 2009

It seems that the outrage is mostly about the tax, but anyone who has been involved in Title V Permitting will know that the paperwork costs way more than the tax.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20081230165231.aspx

EPA 'Cow Tax' Could Charge $175 per Dairy Cow to Curb Greenhouse Gases
Farm Bureau warns just this one rule may increase milk production costs up to 8 cents a gallon.

Call this one of the newest and innovative the ways your government has come up with to battle greenhouse gas emissions.

Indirectly it could be considered a cheeseburger tax, but one of the suggestions offered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act is to levy a tax on livestock.

The ANPR, released early this year, would give the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas for not only greenhouse gas from manmade sources like transportation and industry, but also “stationary” sources which would include livestock.

The New York Farm Bureau assigned a price tag to the cost of greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA in a release last month.

“The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog,” the release said. “Any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would have to obtain permits.”

Kate Galbraith, correspondent for The New York Times, noted on the Times’ “Green Inc.” blog that such a “proposal is far from being enacted” and that the “hysteria may be premature.”

But Rick Krause, senior director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau, warned it’s certainly feasible – especially based on the rhetoric of President-elect Barack Obama and the use of the EPA to combat global warming. Such action by an Obama administration would take an act of Congress for livestock to be exempt.

“The new president has been on record as saying that he really supports regulating greenhouse gases out of the Clean Air Act,” Krause said to the Business & Media Institute. “So, we really have to keep an eye on it. Legislation would really be the only way to exempt it at this point – the cow tax.”

Krause said it is difficult to quantify the cost that might be passed directly to the consumer by farmers from the legislation, but predicted it would mean higher costs for dairy production.

“It’s hard to figure what it would do to consumer prices since farmers, unlike other industries, really can’t pass their cost along directly like utilities and things do,” “About the only thing we could realistically come up, in terms of any of this stuff – it would add between 7 and 8 cents per gallon of milk costs to farmers. So it would cost them 7 or 8 cents more to produce a gallon of milk.”

Even the Department of Agriculture warned the EPA that smaller farms and ranches would have difficulty with limits as much as 100 tons annually on emissions:

“If GHG emissions from agricultural sources are regulated under the CAA, numerous farming operations that currently are not subject to the costly and time-consuming Title V permitting process would, for the first time, become covered entities. Even very small agricultural operations would meet a 100-tons-per-year emissions threshold. For example, dairy facilities with over 25 cows, beef cattle operations of over 50 cattle, swine operations with over 200 hogs, and farms with over 500 acres of corn may need to get a Title V permit. It is neither efficient nor practical to require permitting and reporting of GHG emissions from farms of this size. Excluding only the 200,000 largest commercial farms, our agricultural landscape is comprised of 1.9 million farms with an average value of production of $25,589 on 271 acres. These operations simply could not bear the regulatory compliance costs that would be involved.”
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http://beefmagazine.com/government/1124-epa-proposes-cow-tax/

Greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act would not only adversely impact livestock producers but all farmers. Crop production emits nitrous oxide from fertilizer and methane from rice production, and fields that emit 100 tons of carbon would also be subject to permitting requirements as well. Any Florida farm with 500 acres of corn, 250 acres of soybeans, 350 acres of potatoes or only 35 acres of rice would be forced to obtain Clean Air Act permits.
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If this goes through, it will kill the few remaining for-profit independent farmers and ranchers in this country. We will be left with corporate farms and ranches that can afford to do the paperwork, and hobbyists who keep their farms and rances smaller than 50 cows and 35 acres of rice.

MadMax · Jan 5, 2009

weslinder said:

If this goes through, it will kill the few remaining for-profit independent farmers and ranchers in this country. We will be left with corporate farms and ranches that can afford to do the paperwork, and hobbyists who keep their farms and rances smaller than 50 cows and 35 acres of rice.
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exactly what the federal govt has intended to do with the food production industry in this country for decades now, unfortunately

read The Omnivore's Dilemma. excellent book.

Invisible Fan · Jan 5, 2009

If only there were TurboTax designed for ranchers and farmers...

Major · Jan 5, 2009

New Zealand got big headlines a few months ago for the cow fart tax. I don't know if they ever implemented it or not, but there was a big stink about it there a few months ago (I think we had a thread here, but I'm not positive).

JuanValdez · Jan 5, 2009

weslinder said:

If this goes through, it will kill the few remaining for-profit independent farmers and ranchers in this country. We will be left with corporate farms and ranches that can afford to do the paperwork, and hobbyists who keep their farms and rances smaller than 50 cows and 35 acres of rice.
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Sounds good to me. Most of the industry is already big business anyway. If you're only going to knock off a few independent ranchers (since there's only a few left) while taxing big agri-business, then I'm fine with it.

JayZ750 · Jan 5, 2009

Hasn't Barack indicated he is in favor of a cap and trade system - as the US would be under if they ratified the Kyoto Protocol? Wouldn't that effectively take place on any kind of cow tax, etc?

Not that it still wouldn't hurt small farmers. If you're in a business that produces an disproportionate amount of greenhouses gases, and the global consensus seems to be that those are bad, well, policy decisions may impact your business.

DFWRocket · Jan 5, 2009

I wonder what exactly the percentage of "few remaining" is in regards to the industry as a whole. Also, how much will the cost of food go up because of this. The costs will eventually be passed down to the consumers.

rocketsjudoka · Jan 5, 2009

Does anyone know of how much GHG's are emmitted directly by livestock themselves and not from manure, since manure storage and disposal is already regulated?

bucket · Jan 5, 2009

DFWRocket said:

Also, how much will the cost of food go up because of this. The costs will eventually be passed down to the consumers.
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"It’s hard to figure what it would do to consumer prices since farmers, unlike other industries, really can’t pass their cost along directly like utilities and things do,” “About the only thing we could realistically come up, in terms of any of this stuff – it would add between 7 and 8 cents per gallon of milk costs to farmers. So it would cost them 7 or 8 cents more to produce a gallon of milk.”

So, the price of a gallon of milk will go up by something less than 7 or 8 cents.

Buck Turgidson · Jan 5, 2009

JuanValdez said:

...you're only going to knock off a few independent ranchers (since there's only a few left)...
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This is pretty much bullsh!t, pun totally intended.

Supermac34 · Jan 6, 2009

This will pretty much really hurt a lot of small to medium farmers in the South part of Texas. My wife's family are pretty much all small/medium independent farmers getting squeezed on costs.

Despite fairly high corn/soybean prices the last few years, costs have risen to pretty much take any extra profit out.

Add an additional cost to cattle, one of the few fairly profitable points that the farmers/ranchers in the area can maintain, it will really hurt a lot of middle to lower income folks in the region.

pgabriel · Jan 6, 2009

they should just balance it against all the subsidies

Okay that facetious and cynical and I really don't believe that but its funny.

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EPA wants to apply Title V to Farmers and Ranchers

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