Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has just announced he will be taking $20 million from that giant trough of tax dollars to fund another pro-environment scam.
Check out this press release I just got from the USDA …
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that applications are being accepted for up to $20 million in grants to facilitate the creation of new, innovative markets for carbon credits, providing additional revenue sources for producers to use to address natural resource conservation challenges.
“USDA has been a leader in supporting market-based solutions to improve water quality and reduce carbon pollution,” Secretary Vilsack said. “With this opportunity, we are supporting the next generation of projects that will help mature these markets and bring them to scale to benefit both producers and the environment.”
For 2015, approximately half of the $20 million is available for environmental markets and conservation finance projects that engage agricultural producers
Oh, how exciting. The government is going to protect us from climate change by paying farmers to do things that are frowned upon by the industrial agriculture industry, which is funded by the government.
The Good, Fatty Bites
To make a long story short, the government will continue to plow billions of dollars into agricultural subsidies that favor giant industrial agriculture operations that poison our water, pollute our air and squeeze every last nutrient out of our soil. But, because the carbon credit scam is the new black for 2015, ‘ol Tommy V. is going to scrape up another $20 million to “help the environment.”
If these guys really gave two shits about the environment, they would call for the immediate end of these giant welfare checks for their corporate whores that service them regularly in the halls of congress.
The best way to combat soil, water and air pollution is to stop subsidizing it!
The only problem with that is if the folks in Washington did such a thing, they’d lose those fat campaign contributions. And we can’t have that, can we?
So, just to ensure that folks still believe the government is actually necessary to protect the environment and combat the threat of climate change, the USDA throws environmentalists a bone. But beware, my tree-hugging friend. The marrow of these bones has been sucked dry, while all the good, fatty bites are being inhaled by the USDA’s corporate masters.
Rest assured, there are fewer enemies of the environment than the government. And this latest hustle by the USDA is just one more example.
Jeff Siegel
The Libertarian Treehugger
