A win for ethanol

[Tempest]

Quote:
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) announced victories for farmers and the ethanol industry Wednesday after the end of a late-Tuesday negotiating session with Democratic leaders over a climate change bill that could come up for a vote by Friday.

"We think we have something here that could work for agriculture," Peterson said modestly to reporters, as he described some big concessions from Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA). As Peterson and farm group lobbyists told Agriculture Online Wednesday, these are the key changes:

USDA, not the Environmental Protection Agency, would run a cap and trade program that would allow farmers and landowners to sell carbon credits to coal-fired power companies and other large emitters of greenhouse gases believed to be contributing to global warming.

Farmers who have already made changes in production, such as no-till, that would capture carbon, would get credit for those changes, going back to 2001, and they would be allowed to participate in any new cap and trade program.

For at least six years, EPA will not able to use an international indirect land use change when it estimates the carbon footprints of ethanol and biodiesel. Indirect land use threatened to make many existing biodiesel plants and new ethanol plants ineligible for government mandates that require gasoline and diesel blenders to use the biofuels. Under the compromise, that requirement will be taken out of the 2007 energy law and an independent group such as the National Academies of Science would review the science behind the theory that more corn acres for ethanol are leading to deforestation in the Amazon. After a five year review, Congress would have another year to study the issue before EPA could act.

Quote:
"What that means is that USDA has veto power over this,"

http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/1245882097369.xml

Paying off the farmers so they will support cap and tax.

 

[Johnny]

I'm sorry, but you will never convince me there is Global Warming. Just more and more control over us sheep.

 

[Pablo]

Cool - another batch of "change"

I'm counting all the change!!

 

[Win]

So, this means that those of us that have idle land will get credits, going back to 2001, that we can sell to hapless coal fired powerplants and other greenhouse gas emitters that are getting the Big O touch?

Yes we can! Now that's change I can believe in!

If it's anything like gas royalties, my credit will be about 1/1000 of what the energy will wind up costing when I go to buy.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted By: Johnny
I'm sorry, but you will never convince me there is Global Warming. Just more and more control over us sheep.
+1

"Going Green" is the next marketing scheme to part consumers from their hard earned cash!

 

[Gary Allan]

Here's one thing I can't quite figure out. Just what is there to gain?

I mean, everyone already has everything that is worth having. Our entire commerce sector is draining us dry 24/7/365. Just what more is to be had?

That is, if money or whatever was your desired outcome, then get on the board of XOM ..or GE ..or whomever is already sucking a good portion of the American pie. It's already being eaten alive.

If population management was the goal, then I'd say that poverty, debt, taxes, and inflation already enslave us. What possible outcomes can be more effective?


Choices have always been about $$$$ ..so has anything involving any concept of freedom outside of the confines of your mind. We wrote the book on equating $$$ to freedom.

Like the guy in RoboCop said "Sure, it's a free country, except nothin's free.".

 

[Johnny]

The thing that bothers me is that it is the whack-o's from my generation and their offspring that are doing this to us.

Peace and love, ya right.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
Just what is there to gain?

Expansion of government power.

 

[Tornado Red]

It looks like enough of the farm state Democrats went along with their lunatic leadership and voted for the cap-and-tax bill. I though they were smarter than that, or at least wanted to get reelected.

 

[Gary Allan]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
Just what is there to gain?

Expansion of government power.


To what end that cannot or has not already be attained via other means?

 

[Kruse]

Originally Posted By: Johnny
I'm sorry, but you will never convince me there is Global Warming. Just more and more control over us sheep.


I think there is global warming. Just like there is global cooling. (We supposedly had an ice age at one time) I just don't think global warming and cooling is caused by humans, at least not like our holding-out-the-collection-plate politicians would like everybody to believe.

 

[Torino]

There were 6 (possibly 7) ice ages. EVERYONE KNOWS that the SUV's, oil refineries and steel mills melted that ice. The sky is falling as All Gore said. John--Las Vegas.

 

[Gary Allan]

How's this one. We are doing it ..or at least inserting our massive unnatural output into the recipe ..but don't want to endure the costs of detuning ourselves to reduce the impact ..heck, we don't want to even explore the possibilities.

..but all of those self serving tendencies aside..

The challenge of getting an entire planet to alter its way of life is just not plausible ..even if you can show that that they're trapped in a prison with finite resources with most of them already fully developed.

So ..don't bother. It's too late on too many fronts. Maybe if we run out of carbon based fossil fuels soon enough ..and the planet has juuuuuuuuuuust enough capacity to handle it...the species will survive for another round after the massive kill off during the collapse.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
How's this one. We are doing it ..or at least inserting our massive unnatural output into the recipe ..but don't want to endure the costs of detuning ourselves to reduce the impact ..heck, we don't want to even explore the possibilities.

..but all of those self serving tendencies aside..

The challenge of getting an entire planet to alter its way of life is just not plausible ..even if you can show that that they're trapped in a prison with finite resources with most of them already fully developed.

So ..don't bother. It's too late on too many fronts. Maybe if we run out of carbon based fossil fuels soon enough ..and the planet has juuuuuuuuuuust enough capacity to handle it...the species will survive for another round after the massive kill off during the collapse.


+1

Enjoy the ride...before it gets rough. It will take the realization that it's to late for people to change there way, Then again maybe not, I have seen survivors of lung removal due to cancer smoke..Intelligent species my [censored]

 

[CROWNVIC4LIFE]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
How's this one. We are doing it ..or at least inserting our massive unnatural output into the recipe ..but don't want to endure the costs of detuning ourselves to reduce the impact ..heck, we don't want to even explore the possibilities.

..but all of those self serving tendencies aside..

The challenge of getting an entire planet to alter its way of life is just not plausible ..even if you can show that that they're trapped in a prison with finite resources with most of them already fully developed.

So ..don't bother. It's too late on too many fronts. Maybe if we run out of carbon based fossil fuels soon enough ..and the planet has juuuuuuuuuuust enough capacity to handle it...the species will survive for another round after the massive kill off during the collapse.

+1