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BAUCUS AMENDMENT: NO PROTECTION FOR FARMERS, CONSUMERS, SMALL BUSINESSES
March 23, 2011

Posted by Matt Dempsey matt_dempsey@epw.senate.gov

BAUCUS AMENDMENT: NO PROTECTION FOR FARMERS, CONSUMERS, SMALL BUSINESSES

Bottom line: A vote for the Baucus amendment is a vote for EPA?s job-destroying cap-and-trade agenda. Small businesses, farmers, and consumers would still have to pay higher prices for gasoline, diesel, and fertilizer caused by EPA?s regulations.

Sen. Baucus (D-Mont.) on EPA's cap-and-trade agenda: "I do not want the EPA writing those regulations. I think it's too much power in the hands of one single agency, but rather climate change should be a matter that's essentially left to the Congress." (Link to Video)

No protection from higher gas, diesel, fertilizer prices

- Small businesses, manufacturers, farmers, even schools and hospitals-the very sources the Baucus amendment purports to exempt-would still have to pay the skyrocketing electricity, gasoline, diesel, and fertilizer prices from EPA?s cap-and-trade agenda, which would be imposed on non-exempt sources, such as power plants and refineries.

- According to recent testimony by the American Farm Bureau: "Farmers and ranchers would still incur the higher costs of compliance passed down from utilities, refiners and fertilizer manufacturers that are directly regulated as of January 2, 2011." (Link)

No protection from Eco-citizen suits:

The Baucus amendment leaves in place EPA?s "endangerment finding" for CO2 and methane, encouraging green activist groups to file global warming law suits against any farms (e.g. livestock operations) and small businesses (e.g. dry cleaners, restaurants) that emit those substances.

No protection from other EPA cap-and-trade regulations:

Small businesses and farmers could still be included in regulations to meet EPA?s potential ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for CO2 and methane, which would be a disaster for the economy. Activists groups have petitioned EPA to set those standards, and the Obama Administration wrote in a recent brief to the Supreme Court that the NAAQS provide EPA with a "mechanism for listing pollutants that „endanger public health or welfare.?"

Baucus confirms EPA's cap-and-trade authority, while conceding that such authority will harm small businesses and farmers. The Baucus exemptions are political cover, which leave small business and farmers in the lurch.





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