Thune

I’ve said it before: There is a quick, painless way to immediately cut global greenhouse gas emissions – reduce beef consumption. Livestock production is responsible for 18 percent of global GHGs, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Cutting most of that takes a simple lifestyle change, nothing more.

Apparently, Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and Chuck Schumer of New York missed that memo – as well as President Obama’s directive that science must guide government decisions involving, among other things, “mitigation of the threat of climate change.”

The logical conclusion for anyone looking at the science would be to create policies that pare down beef consumption. Instead, Thune and Schumer introduced Senate Bill 527, which would bar the government from creating a “cow tax” that would effectively tax GHG emissions from livestock.