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Senate ag chair discusses cap and trade
Is cap-and-trade dead?
In an exclusive interview with Brownfield, the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee—Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas—didn’t respond directly to that question. But she made it clear it’s time to look at other options.
“I just have great skepticism that this is the way to go,” Lincoln says. “I think we can do all of the things that we want to do—the priorities we have—on behalf of national security and the economy, lessening our dependence on foreign oil. I think we can lower our carbon output and I think we can create great green jobs, without having to use a cap and trade system. I don’t think that’s the only way to go.”
And Lincoln says EPA’s announcement that it plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions does not put additional pressure on Congress to pass cap and trade.
“I don’t think it’s an either-or. I don’t think it’s either cap and trade or EPA,” she says. “I think we can all put our minds together and come up with some good solid solutions as to how we move ourselves forward and how we incorporate everybody at the table, including agriculture.”
One option favored by Lincoln is the use of tax incentives to encourage renewable energy development. She says the Agriculture Committee will hold hearings on climate change legislation.
It is hard to think that new taxation is necessary to save the planet from global warming when we are having record cold. If cap and trade is such a great idea, why do they have to lie about their research?