The Buckeye Institute, a think-tank, warned that the Biden administration’s push for net-zero climate-control policies threatens U.S. food production.
“To better appreciate the true costs that American farms and households will likely pay for the Biden administration’s net-zero policies and objectives, The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center developed a model corn farm that must play by the government’s new carbon emissions rules,” the report says. “The farm’s operational costs, as expected, all rose significantly. Diesel fuel needed for trucks, tractors, and combines became more expensive. As did propane needed to power grain dryers and heat barns. And prices for the nitrogen fertilizer needed to grow crops rose, too.”
If net-zero emission policies are implemented, costs for farmers will increase by “at least 34% percent,” the think tank explained.
As farming production costs increase, the average American family will have a household grocery bill of $1,300 per year, the report estimated.
The institute noted that to achieve net-zero climate targets, the Biden administration “agreed to reduce America’s emissions by 50-52 percent by 2030 and to reach economy-wide net-zero [greenhouse gas emissions] by 2050.”
“Achieving the administration’s desired decarbonized economy will require aggressive climateemission reduction policies that drain and replace fossil fuels from every sector of the U.S. economy,” the report stated. “The Biden administration has already begun implementing stringent regulatory policies designed to dramatically reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the oil, natural gas, and chemicals industries, and the administration’s looming rule on ‘environmental, social, governance’ (ESG) reporting threatens to force carbon compliance onto every other emission-intensive industry.”
While similar policies have been tested in Europe, resulting in “unmitigated failure,” the report said that “U.S. policymakers have recommitted American industry to the same net-zero emissions standards and have imposed the same kinds of costly mandates on farms and businesses that will ultimately reduce food and energy supplies without achieving their intended benefit.”
