Pelosi buys off agri-business to advance climate bill

Global warming legislation is, like most big-government "reforms," becoming a costly porkfest benefiting well-connected corporations. My Examiner column today discusses the favors Democratic leaders have thrown at agribusiness to pass their climate change bill:

Here's how it works: Farmers need to kill weeds around their crops. They can till the ground to kill the weeds--a practice that releases carbon dioxide buried in the soil. Alternatively, they can spray the fields with chemicals that kill the weeds--thus leaving the CO2 underground.

The latter practice requires farmers to buy an herbicide such as agricultural Roundup, made by Monsanto, and also to buy Monsanto's genetically modified "Roundup Ready" seeds, which grow into plants that can withstand repeated Roundup spraying.

With the help of Monsanto, Novecta, a consulting and lobbying arm of the Iowa and Illinois Corn Growers Associations, has called on Congress this spring to grant farmers valuable offsets for shifting to "no-till" farming--a shift that will spur sales of Roundup and Roundup Ready seeds. Thanks to the Peterson-Pelosi deal, this scheme could become law.

Read the whole thing here.