Prentice and Obama on Sustainable Energy

[TOM4CWB]

Dear Charlie,

I saw an invigorated Prentice after Obama's win... on the environment and Carbon cap/trade and evaluation.

If Canada can work with the US together on this project... in a co-ordinated manner... it will work.

We can't do it alone.

The best to both of these two special leaders... I hope they work well together... if they do it will go far in the progress of a sustainable energy system for North America!

Agriculture will be a huge winner in Obama's plan!

[Hopperbin]

Much better than Diones do it alone economic destructive plan.
I hope this works also and if they can work together on this issue then agriculture should also benifit as we should be a north american free trade zone. Although Obama brought in COOL maybe he can get over that.

[mcfarms]

Kramer said on his show to buy deere stock if Obama won as he's ag friendly. ( OR ag friendlier) That said the democrats are historically more protectionist than the republicans and in this time of economic uncertainty the past reaction of the US is to become more so in this regard.

[gustgd]

this was forwarded to me by a freind I don't know where it's from.

Obama Election Yields

Relief For US Farm Groups



President-elect Barack Obama is already getting accolades

from the U.S. agriculture sector, hopeful that his past support

of farm subsidies will translate into continued domestic policy

that favors producers.

The head of the largest U.S. farm organization, American

Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman, said

Wednesday it will be easier to work with Obama to ensure pro-farmer

policy than it would have been with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

“It’s a fundamental question of is there a role for a domestic

farm production-based policy in this country,” Stallman said

in an interview. “In general, I think we can at least hold that

discussion with an Obama administration. Maybe it would

have been more difficult with Sen. McCain.”

Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union, was

pleased that it will be an Obama administration his group will

be dealing with for the next four years.

“I am relieved it’s Obama,” Buis said. “If you look at the

candidates’ records...I have never seen a greater contrast

between the two major party nominees for president on who

takes the approach of working with rural America and who

takes the approach of going after all the [farm] programs.”

Neither Obama nor McCain voted on the new farm bill

approved earlier this year by Congress, but Obama has

expressed his support for the expensive five-year blueprint for

U.S. farm policy, and McCain said he would have voted

against it, Stallman said.

“President-elect Obama is certainly more supportive of

domestic farm policy and renewable energy issues that are

important to agriculture — ethanol,” Stallman said. “That

seems to be pretty clear.”

The difference between Obama and McCain on support for

U.S. subsidies that protect the U.S. corn-based ethanol industry

are clear cut. McCain has said repeatedly on the campaign trail

this year that he would like to see those protections disappear,

while Obama has a history of supporting ethanol subsidies.

“Obama was pretty solidly behind ethanol subsidies,

whereas McCain was pretty openly against ethanol subsidies,”

said Brett Stuart, a founding partner of the agriculture and

trade consulting firm Global AgriTrends.Stuart said Obama’s

election “should indicate to us that corn usage for ethanol will

increase as opposed to what it would have done under a

McCain administration.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in its October monthly

supply-and-demand-forecast report, reduced its prediction

for ethanol corn consumption by 100 million bushels in the

2008-09 marketing year. The new forecast is for four billion

bushels of corn.Three U.S. government-support programs for

ethanol are a tariff on imports, a tax credit for gasoline companies

that buy ethanol — expected to cost U.S. taxpayers roughly

$4 billion this year — and a mandate for gasoline companies

to buy ethanol.

Congress passed a new renewable-fuels standard in

December 2007, that mandates nine billion gallons of ethanol

be blended into gasoline this year. Next year, that climbs to

10.5 billion gallons, and it increases yearly until it reaches 15

billion gallons in 2015.

Buis, of the National Farmers Union, told reporters he has

faith that Obama will not “backslide” on his support for corn based

ethanol

Obama, in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires nearly

two years, said he has backed government support for ethanol

producers as a means to create more domestic fuel.

But in that January 2007 interview Obama also stressed his

support of those subsidies was conditional.

[gustgd]

Some things I am worried about with Obama is his protectionist stance against NAFTA, His thoughts on Oil sands and Coal, both of which affect Saskatchewan. And his support of COOL in animals.
After that is said though with the world economy in the shape it's in he's likely got bigger fish too fry.

[mustardman]

Tom remember I told you of the "cap and trade policy " of the conservatives?
You said you'd been to the policy convention and no such policy existed.

Well its going to come out now and by the way for all you "Anti carbon taxers" its does very much the same thing as a carbon tax.

The experts do say that it is less effective in reducing greenhouse gases than a carbon tax though.

Again Harper gets elected saying one thing and then when in office he does the opposite.
Kinda like Sask equalization and income trusts and fixed election dates and no deficits and......

[parsley]

Obama Promised www.barackobama.com/issues/rural/

1. Safety Net $250,000 payment top

2. Packer ban. Strengthen anti-monopoly laws. Producer protections.

3. Environmental Protection Agency. Confined Animal Feeding targeted

4. Country of Origin Labeling
Encourage Organic and Local

5. Help organic farmers with money to certify crops

6. Regional food systems.

7. Train young farmers.

8. Tax breaks for starting farmers

9. $$ for farmers for sustainable agriculture

10, Money to farmers to protect wetlands, grasslands.
11, Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050. U.S. a leader on Climate Change.

Parsley

[chuckChuck]

I don't see how the freemarket enthiasts are going support any of Obama's promises. Parlsey there is sure alot of government intervention policy in that list on behalf of the granola eating environmentalist crowd.

Mind you Harper supports import tarrif barriers for the dairy and poultry industries protecting them from international competition. I don't understand Harper's socialist intervention on behalf of dairy and poultry farmers. Why would Harper support socialist controls like supply management and cost of production formulas and tarrif barriers? Those are the kind of policy tools used in the former Soviet Union and socialist countries. Go figure.