The $285 billion farm bill unveiled by Congressional leaders last week after months of negotiations may set the United States up for a hornet’s nest of problems at the World Trade Organization.

If the plan for a massive new U.S. agriculture law is passed this week as expected, lawmakers face a promised veto from President George W. Bush. The White House says the bill does not sufficiently cut subsidies to wealthy farmers and ignores other reforms proposed by the administration.
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Agriculture officials say measures that could bring problems at the World Trade Organization include: rules benefiting U.S. sugar producers, a $4-billion standby disaster fund and a new cotton incentive similar to one the world trade court already has ruled illegal.

For decades the environmental movement has drafted the world’s cutest and cuddliest mega fauna as symbols for their cause. From the grizzly to the panda, bears have always been the top choice for environmental iconography. In recent years environmental activists have enlisted the polar bear in their effort to take control of the U.S. economy on the grounds that global warming is destroying the bear’s arctic habitat. Now that the Interior Department has listed the polar bear as “endangered” pursuant to the Environmental Species Act (ESA), however, libertarians who are serious about their intentions to bring the federal government to a screeching halt ought to consider adopting the bear.

Normally libertarians are not a litigious bunch, but if they are willing to adopt some new tactics, Section 7 of the ESA could provide them the tool they need to end federal government interference in the economy forever. See the polar bear will be the first animal ever listed as endangered on a global warming theory. Normally, species are listed due to harms to their habitat from local factors like logging, farming, or hospital building. So when the Army wants to build a firing range to train troops to protect our country, environmentalists can sue to stop the activity since it will harm local endangered bird populations.

But global warming is just that: global. Virtually every federal government action anywhere in the country can be connected to increased greenhouse gas emissions, which after all, are the cause of the destruction of the polar bear’s habitat according to the Interior Department. So you wanna stop the Agriculture Department from sending subsidy checks to millionaire farmers? Claim the increased emissions from transporting the crops to market will harm the polar bears and sue to stop them. Wanna stop a new high way from being funded? Just point out the new traffic will increase emissions and ‘presto’ … no more high way. Wanna end increases in Medicare spending? All you need to do is show that increased health care spending prolongs peoples lives who inevitably emit more carbon. The possibilities are endless…..

Both parties deserve blame on this fiasco. At a cost of $290 billion over five years, Congress has just given billions of taxpayer dollars to millionaire farmers at a time when farm income is already at an all-time high. Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed the bill through Congress because she has 30 freshman Democrats she needs to protect in battleground rural districts. Minority Leader John Boehner failed to fight the bill because, as the Politico reports, after yet another special election defeat, House Republicans are operating on a “new survivor mentality” that includes abandoning their ideological principles against excess federal spending.

So how does a liberal House majority representing urban populations sign off on billions of federal handouts to millionaires in rural districts? By turning a supposed agricultural bill into a welfare bill. Of the $290 billion spent in the bill, $209 billion goes to welfare programs like food stamps, compared to only $35 billion for agricultural subsidies. And where does the rest of the money in the bill go? It goes to pork to buy off members otherwise not inclined to vote for the bill.

Again, the earmarking sins can be found on both sides of the aisle including: water for lakes in the deserts of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Nevada; $126 million in tax breaks for horse breeders in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky; federal land sales for ski resorts in Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Vermont; $1 million for a national sheep and goat center in Democratic Sen. Max Baucus’s Montana; $170 million for salmon fisherman in Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson’s California; and much, much more.

In “Godfather II,” Robert DeNiro’s young Vito Corleone is visited by the reigning mob boss Don Fanucci who tells him: “This is my neighborhood. You and your friends have to show me a little respect, ah? This truck you hijacked was in my neighborhood. You should let me wet my beak a little.” This is exactly what happened with the farm bill and is what happens with all federal government programs. In order to gain enough support for housing bailouts, SCHIP expansion, and cap and trade, politicians make sure everybody’s beak is wet. That way, when the American people demand accountability, politicians can rely silence from their co-conspirators — just like the mob.

Quick Hits:

• Although their populations have doubled since 1960, the Interior Department listed the polar bear as an endangered species based on computer models of what might happen to them.
• The murder of his high school football star son is inspiring Jamiel Shaw Sr. to challenge the Los Angeles Police Department policy that prohibits officers from initiating contact with people for the sole purpose of learning their immigration status.
• To close California’s huge budget gap, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to borrow against future state lottery earnings.
• New files shown to the Washington Post show high-ranking officials in Venezuela offered to help Colombian guerrillas obtain surface-to-air missiles meant to change the balance of power in their war with the Colombian government.
• Congress will only provide “green collar” job training funds to programs with a labor affiliation.

The Alliance for School Choice estimates that will fund as many as 10,000 scholarships:

“With his actions today, Governor Perdue has sealed his legacy as one of America’s foremost ‘education governors,’” said Lori Drummer, director of state projects for the Alliance. “Georgia is now a national leader in a school choice movement that is gaining momentum.”

The Alliance for School Choice congratulated Rep. David Casas, the House sponsor of the bill, and Sen. Eric Johnson, who shepherded the bill through the Senate, for their leadership. According to Drummer, the Georgia Family Council was also instrumental in educating the public about the tax credit bill’s benefits.

This is great news for Georgia families and taxpayers. Last year, Georgia became the thirteenth state to support private school choice by enacting a voucher program for children with special needs. To learn more about school choice programs across the country, see this Heritage report from February.

Related Posts:

• Common Sense Proving Not So Common in Georgia (May 6)
• More School Choice in Georgia (April 25)

Rich people use more goods and services than poor people. That’s what “rich” means. Of course multi-millionaires have larger gross GHG footprints than you and I do. So what? If Tierney wants to work on decreasing income gradients, I’m all for it. But of course he’s not. He just hates the idea that some rich people use their wealth to promote ideas he dislikes.

Wow. You don’t see the “rich people should be allowed to pollute more because they are rich” defense too often, but there it is. Kleiman quickly tries to backtrack and claim he’s all for fighting income inequality, but inequality is not the issue. China and India are bringing massive numbers of coal power plants online so they can all fly jets like Brad Pitt. They are doing it so their countries have enough energy to power an economy to feed their people and lift them out of poverty. Developing countries know the US emits much more carbon then they do, and having Kleiman assure them that emitting tons of carbon is what rich nations do because they are rich is not going to change their behavior.

Megan McCardle does an ample job of batting away Kleiman’s faith in carbon offsets:

Offsets are not the moral equivalent of indulgences–but they are just about as effective. I have no doubt that many who use them devoutly believe that they work, but I don’t think many of them care to investigate the matter too closely. In some sense it’s a technical question, but as far as I can tell, that technical question is not solveable.

Tree planting is risible unless you commit to keep the land planted forever. Shutting down third world pollution creates a rich market in polluting factories, and also does a lot of things that would have been done anyway. Other projects are even more questionable. None of them, as far as I can tell, attempt to account for rebound effects. I’m open to being convinced otherwise, but as far as I can see any cap and trade system that isn’t global, and/or includes offsets, will do (to a first approximation) basically nothing to halt global warming.

Obama would slap a 20% tax on the cost of a barrel of oil above $80 for all domestic oil companies. Chavez tax hits only foreign oil companies and charges a 50% rate for the cost of a barrel of oil above $70. The difference between Venezuela’s dictator and Barack Obama is only a slight matter of degree.

Heritage distinguished fellow Ernest Istook and senior policy analyst David Kreutzer discuss the windfall tax in a podcast here.

The Tax Foundation looks at who would be hurt by such a windfall tax and concludes:

A windfall profits tax on big oil companies may sound good in theory, but it will be paid by individuals. The individuals who bear the tax in the short run will be shareholders of the oil companies at the time of the imposition of the tax (or announcement thereof). That’s because the value of the individuals’ stock holdings (which reflect expected future net profits) will fall as soon as the new tax is announced.

”Offering the Colombians anything less than access to economic growth would be unfair and damaging not only to them, but to us.”
—San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 2007

“Now the Democratic-controlled Congress is balking at passing a painstakingly negotiated free trade agreement with Colombia. This would be both a betrayal and a blunder — because free trade and economic growth are perhaps the only ways to help the country continue its progress from near-failed state to democratic government struggling toward a modicum of peace, prosperity and accountability after four decades of violence. Colombians will view rejection of the agreement as a repudiation of their hard work and proof that U.S. protectionism trumps American promises about friendship, security and joint prosperity.”
—Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2007

“A group of Democratic leaders from the Clinton administration and Congress recently sent a letter to Congressional Democrats pointing out that rejecting the trade agreements signed in Latin America ‘would set back regional U.S. interests for a generation.’ Their argument also works on a bigger map. It would be a folly for the United States to turn its back on trade.”
—The New York Times, November 7, 2007

The Vallejo City Council voted May 6 to become the largest city to ever declare bankruptcy in California. The cause of Vallejo’s demise? Contracts with fire and police unions account for 74% of the city’s $80 million budget. Why did the city sign such ridiculous contracts? Because public sector unions are a controlling force in the Democratic Party and Democrats dominate Vallejo’s government.  So when it came time for the city to negotiate salaries with its unions, the Democrats were represented and the unions were represented, but the city’s taxpayers were not.

But don’t think for a second that this problem is confined to California. Bondbuyer.com reports: “The U.S. will probably see more municipal bankruptcies in the years ahead as local governments deal with the mountains of pension and retiree benefits they’ve promised but never funded.”

The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Moore documented many of these nationwide unfunded liabilities earlier this year, including: One of every three Los Angeles County school system dollars goes to teacher requirement costs; the 10 largest Chicago-area cities face a combined $18.7 billion in unfunded pension liabilities; Philadelphia was forced to issue a $4.5 billion bond to cover unfunded pension liabilities for 33,000 retirees.

Liberals in Congress defend their new bill for police officers, firefighters and other first responders by pointing to language that forbids public safety unions from striking. But as the Wall Street Journal notes, similar strike bans in state laws never work: “Union officials call strikes anyway, then negotiate amnesty as a condition of ending the work-stoppage. This is what happened in 2005 when New York transit workers broke the law by going on strike and shutting down the city. They paid no price and still got their raise.”

Heritage analyst James Sherk explains what we will have to cope with if this legislation passes:

A union’s monopoly over bargaining makes it a cartel that prevents employers from hiring workers who would do the same job for less than union wages. … Without providing financing for the mandate, the act will force these governments to either cut services or raise taxes.

Or as Vallejo shows, they could also just declare bankruptcy.

Quick Hits:

• Thanks to liberals in Congress, starting next year all cargo on passenger planes must be screened — a requirement that “could have far-reaching effects” on international commerce.
• Wal-Mart, the world’s largest toy seller, voluntarily raised its child product safety standards above existing government requirements.
• Senate and House Democrats reached a budget agreement Tuesday calling for, surprise, more federal spending than requested by President Bush.
• Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, speaking at a Heritage-sponsored conference, implored the U.S. military to prepare for fighting future wars against insurgents and militias such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than spending so much time and money preparing for conventional conflicts.
• A private South African company is fighting poverty throughout the world with innovative mobile solutions that bring basic financial services to the poor.

“To be blunt, paygo is under assault,” Bixby wrote. “Congress has waived paygo for economic stimulus legislation and a one-year Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) ‘patch.’ These waivers alone have added roughly $180 billion to the projected debt, not including higher debt service costs.”

The Blue Dogs have insisted that a $52 billion entitlement expansion of a veterans’ education program known as the GI Bill must be offset. The dispute has prevented Speaker Nancy Pelosi from bringing the bill to the floor.

David M. Walker, until recently comptroller general of the United States and  now president and chief executive of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, agreed with Bixby. “The Blue Dogs are on the right side of this issue,” Walker said. “If the proposed benefit is so important, the Congress should pay for it. If they aren’t willing to do that, then we should not expand the benefit.”

In his letter to the coalition of moderate and conservative Democrats, Bixby noted the importance of strict adherence to PAYGO to lessen the debt left to future generations of Americans. “Expressing support for paygo in the abstract is easy,” he wrote. “Making the trade-offs is the hard part.”

The small print in the ad goes on to explain: “Tackling global warming will generate a jobs program of epic proportions. … All told, going greener will create millions of new American jobs and pour billions of dollars into our struggling economy.”

Well, somebody forget to tell the authors of the “Climate Security Act” about all these millions of net jobs the bill will create. The bill contains a provision that would charge huge tariffs on goods from countries that don’t have  similar carbon-emissions caps on their economies. Huge trading partners like China, Mexico and India would all be affected.

But if the emissions cap is the “economic stimulus” claimed by the NRDC, then why is it necessary to include these tariffs? Shouldn’t all the new energy-saving technology allow the U.S. to compete at absolutely no cost?

But don’t trust us about the sure economic hardships that Lieberman-Warner will create. Just ask Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who told the Cleveland Plain Dealer last week:

I have serious concerns about any climate-change bill that doesn’t take into account energy-intensive industries like we have in Ohio — glass and chemicals and steel and aluminum and foundries.

Apparently, the NRDC took out an ad in the wrong paper. For honest accounting on the consequences of Lieberman-Warner, check out Heritage’s “The Economic Costs of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Legislation” today.