New Report: Climate Change will Cost Farmers Far More than a Climate Bill

The Environmental Working Group has just released a report which finds that the cost of climate change will be far greater for farmers than that of a Climate Bill.

An executive summary and the full report are available at: https://www.ewg.org/2009/crying-wolf-report The report has received excellent coverage with stories in the WSJ, NYT, WP and many other outlets: https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE5960L020091007. <https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE5960L020091007> The following is an excerpt from the Report:

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“Farm industry leaders and their supporters in Congress are trying to derail climate change legislation by insisting that the House-passed bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), will cause ruinous increases in the costs of production for farmers. This threat is so potentially devastating, they claim, that climate change legislation should be shelved or loaded up with concessions that send more money to their agricultural constituents.


A more careful examination of the facts shows that climate change itself, not climate legislation, is the real threat to American agriculture, and that climate-induced crop losses will cost US taxpayers and farmers far more than could ever be caused by the ACES bill.


Economists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently concluded that the costs of the climate bill are so small that they cannot credibly be characterized as a threat to farm income. Between 2012 and 2018 they project that costs will increase on average by a meager $0.45 per acre for soybeans, $0.66 per acre for wheat, and $1.19 per acre for corn, well under one half of one percent of current per acre production costs for these crops.”