Information Sharing & Climate Change

Information Sharing & Climate Change. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Rural America is not sure the new climate bill is in their best interests. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the offsets of the climate change legislation will outweigh the negatives and benefit farmers.

VILSACK: One of the questions that was raised was what the impact would be economically on rural America and USDA is in the process of doing an evaluation on that but I am confident that despite the fact that there may be some increased costs in some aspects of the farming operation. At the same time though the bill creates opportunities for offsets. The ability to have individuals who need assistance being able to purchase the right and they’ll be purchasing those credits from farmers and ranchers. And the income from those credits being sold in my view at the end of the day is going to exceed the costs that might be associated with this bill so it’s a net gain for farm families and ranch families across the country.

House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas submitted an amendment to the House Rules Committee that would have put a stop to USDA sharing data between the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Agriculture. That amendment to H.R. 2997, the agriculture appropriations bill, was denied consideration. The amendment would have ensured that the funds appropriated for the Department of Agriculture would not be used to implement or conduct data sharing between the two agencies. 

Now here’s today’s Washington Grange Report.

(GRANGE)

That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.