Farmers Relax (a Little) After Cow Tax Scare

From the New York Times' Green Inc. blog:

We are not the enemy. (Photo: Wendy Carlson for The New York Times)

To ranchers, they were two of the most absurd and terrifying words in the English language: “cow tax.”

Last last year, rumors that the Environmental Protection Agency was considering a tax on methane in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused angst in the farming community.

Methane, which the E.P.A. considers over 20 times more potent as a heat-trapping greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is emitted when a cows burp. The New York Farm Bureau calculated that such a tax could amount to $175 per dairy cow, and about half that for beef cattle.

The outrage was palpable....MORE