Farm groups seek stake in House climate bill

As House Democrats work behind closed doors to shore up support on a major energy and climate bill, agriculture groups are pleading for major changes to make it more palatable in farm states. Representatives from two major farm groups told the House Small Business Committee yesterday that the bill should include a bigger role for the Agriculture Department and more offsets for farmers. A system to cap carbon emissions presents both an opportunity and potential pitfall for farmers. Fred Yoder of the National Corn Growers Association said carbon caps would likely cause increased input costs for farmers. Fertilizer prices -- which track the cost of oil and natural gas and have seen major increases over the past year -- could go up even more under a climate bill, he said. "Our costs are going to go up even if agriculture remains an uncapped entity -- we will be profoundly impacted by everyone else's carbon," Yoder said. "Really what we are looking for is an offset to bring back some of those extra costs." The potential boon for farmers in climate legislation would be if they could get payments for their conservation efforts to trap greenhouse gas emissions. Farm groups are calling on Congress to give agriculture a significant portion of offsets in the bill...NYTimes