Sen. Griffo blasts 'cow tax' proposal in letter to US EPA
Thursday, December 18, 2008, 4:22pm
State Senator Joseph Griffo has written a sharply worded letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calling for the agency to immediately stop all efforts to develop and implement a tax on livestock, an action that could cost New York dairy farmers an estimated $120 million per year.
“Regulating farming through the Clean Air Act would be one of the gravest, worst, most destructive bureaucratic blunders in the history of American government,” Griffo wrote EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.
“The farmers of my Upstate New York District, and the farmers across America, who are working long hours in one of the most important sectors of our economy, as well as one of the greatest foundations of our rural communities, deserve a formal, official ruling delivered immediately that there will be no ‘emissions tax’ on livestock, and that instead of working against farmers, EPA will work with them to promote the use of anaerobic digesters and other technology that can find productive uses for the methane produced by livestock. The farmers of Upstate New York deserve better from their government than this ill-considered proposal. It must be withdrawn.”
Griffo said the proposal represents a danger to rural areas when agencies at any level make decisions without a full understanding of rural communities.
“When we have people in agencies who have no understanding of the types of issues that impact our Upstate New York communities and rural areas, the result is regulations and concepts like the cow tax,” Griffo said.
Sen. Griffo represents the 47th Senate District, which runs from Utica in the south to Massena and Louisville in the north, including Potsdam and the east and south of St. Lawrence County.
|
