Would you believe some geniuses over at the Environmental Protection Agency want to tax the methane gas emitted by cows?
(Why not bottle it at the source?)
Here's the story as it appeared on an NBC website:
Farmers vow to fight proposed tax on cow flatulence
Story By: Jamie Smith
Source: NBC
You might see cows as a source of milk, but the Environmental Protection Agency sees them as a source of methane gas, the kind that traps heat in the earth's atmosphere and contributes to global warming.
"You can hear them burp as they ruminate, when they bring back up to chew it again. That's what emits the methane," explained dairy farmer Charlie Hanehan of Saratoga, New York. The EPA has floated the idea of taxing farmers for each of their cows.
Hanehan estimates it would cost about $175 per cow, per year. He milks 1,300 cows. "It would probably be around $230,000 per year for our dairies," Hanehan said. "You can figure that that's pretty much going to wipe us out."
So Hanehan and other New York farmers are asking Congress to step in to make sure this idea of taxing farms for flatulence is expelled swiftly.
New York Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, says the whole idea stinks. "The first thing I'm going to do is call the chairman of our Agriculture Committee and talk to him about this and how it's upset my farmers and ask him how quickly we can get this done," she said.
The idea of a gas tax on cows has been raised in other countries, but was blocked by the farming community.
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The whole issue strikes us as bull.
To download a copy of the article, please use this link: Taxing Flatulence
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Our thanks to Steven B. Shapiro for flagging this story to us.