John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said he finds it strange that both Nebraska Senators oppose a cap-and-trade regulatory approach that:

1. Would set aside the current Supreme Court mandated EPA inclusion of carbon emissions into the Clean Air Act responsibilities that would uses inflexible benchmark periods tied to inflexible particulate levels that would be the worst case economic scenario for Nebraska’s largest single industry, production agriculture, not to mention the manufacturing and electrical generation sectors.  “Remember, when the Senate fails to pass climate change legislation similar to the House of Representatives, they allow the EPA approach to proceed,” Hansen said.   
2. Has already been successfully tried in the U. S. in the early 1990’s to reduce acid rain pollution from hydrogen sulfide.  Air particulates were reduced far ahead of schedule with far below projected costs.
3. Is based on real market forces that create real market opportunities based on reducing carbon emissions while transitioning to ag based renewable energy sources.
4. Has already been successfully modeled in the United States with the Chicago Climate Exchange using the latest scientifically based, independent third party verified agricultural practices that sequester carbon while rewarding farmers and ranchers for practicing sound conservation practices that also build soil structure while reducing both wind and water erosion.
5. Nebraska farmers and ranchers have already willingly volunteered to utilize, making Nebraska the largest Chicago Climate Exchange utilizing state in the nation for agricultural carbon sequestration with over 3.1 million acres amounting only 6.4% of the eligible land.
6. Would provide Nebraska farmers with a new renewable energy based market opportunity by sequestering carbon.  For example, comparing 2008 carbon prices at $4.72 / ton versus and current 2010 prices of carbon at $0.15 / ton, thanks to Senate inaction of climate change legislation, they have already cost Nebraska farmers and ranchers $18 million in lost income.  That amount of income is equal to Nebraska landowners getting paid $4,000 per MW for wind energy to get Nebraska up from the current 1% of electricity coming from wind energy to 20%, and then exporting an equal amount out of state!  
7. Allows business to slowly transition from dirty carbon burning fuels to clean burning renewable fuels by utilizing market forces over time in a gradual fashion.
8. Reduces carbon emissions and reducing the human impact on climate change.  
9. Would end the built-in subsidies to the coal and oil interests by allowing them to continue to not pay for the societal, economic, and environmental costs of their carbon emissions.
10. Would level the economic playing field between the finite and dwindling oil and coal based carbon emitting fuels of the past and the renewable emerging clean burning energy sources of the future including wind, solar, biodiesel, corn and cellulosic ethanol, all of which Nebraska has in abundance and all of which would economically benefit our state, agriculture in particular.  

“Both Nebraska Senators say they oppose EPA including carbon emissions into enforcement of Clean Air Act authority, yet both pursue a public policy course that insures it,” Hansen said.  “Both Senators have yet to propose a better solution to the problem of carbon emissions.  Both Senators claim to be pro life and conservative.  From my perspective, both are neither.”  

Hansen said pro life and conservative people do not bet the “future of human life on earth that the overwhelming majority of scientific data and opinion are wrong about the relationship between earth temperatures and the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.”

“ When in doubt, especially during times of crisis, conservative people act with an abundance of caution,” Hansen said. ”It is the moral and political responsibility of our elected officials to lead, especially in times of crisis.  Words of justification will not offset the lack of appropriate and timely action on this issue that decides the future habitability of the planet earth.  Yes, it is even more important than the next opinion poll or the next election.”