Environmental Issues

With the recent climate talks in Paris there has been renewed interest in other climate and environmental programs here in the northwest. At a recent Farm Hall meeting of state senators and farm leaders a pair of programs that deal with carbon sequestering were discussed. Dan Wood, Executive Director for the Washington State Dairy Federation discussed these programs.

WOOD: The Carbon Washington plan is not revenue neutral. The cap and trade or what some call the cap and tax plan last session that's based on my recollection is had about a $1.3 billion dollar net tax increase. There were discussions and even presentations from the Governor's office on how that increased funding would be spent.

He says that there isn't a lot of support for this plan from the ag community.

WOOD: I think you'll find most of the agricultural organizations are not in favor of the Carbon Washington plan because of what it does to agriculture and we have to look at, not only the production of food but we have to look at the processing and we have to look at the transportation. It's all one big ball of wax and you cannot separate out and say we're not going to hammer production or we're going to offer incentives that will go away in a few years and then hit the processors and hit the transportation and believe that it will have no impact on agriculture. It absolutely will.

Wood says to use caution.

WOOD: When you hear that something is revenue neutral, as President Reagan used to say, "It ain't necessarily so."

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.