FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2017

Contact: Andrew Jerome, 202-314-3106
[email protected]

WASHINGTON – In a sweeping and regressive executive order on energy, President Donald Trump today reversed years of progress in the U.S.-led fight against climate change. The order dismantles critical Obama-era policies that prepare the United States to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

“Climate change jeopardizes American food security and the livelihoods of American family farmers, ranchers and rural residents,” said NFU President Roger Johnson. “This executive order sends a very clear message to Americans and the rest of the world that our country will not lead the global effort to curtail climate change. It also stems any further progress the United States can collectively make to thwart the severe effects of climate change.”

Trump’s executive order rescinds more than half a dozen federal regulations and guidance that aid in making the U.S. food system more climate resilient. This includes an August 2016 White House guidance for federal agencies to consider climate change in environmental reviews and a November 2013 order instructing the federal government to prepare for the impacts of climate change.

 “For American farmers, truck drivers, shipping companies, distributors, retailers, and consumers, climate change poses very real and immediate threats to their pocketbooks,” said Johnson. “By disregarding climate change science and considerations, the president is putting our nation’s food system, and those that rely upon it, at risk.”

Obama-era climate policies created a path of sustainability for family farmers and ranchers dealing with climate change by curbing carbon emissions that trap heat and change the climate. They also paved the way for agriculture to be a major contributor to reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and moved the needle toward compensating producers for environmental services, Johnson noted.

“Considering family farmers’ and ranchers’ potential for sinking major amounts of carbon in their soils, agriculture needs to be engaged by the administration and to be a leader in the movement to mitigate climate change,” said Johnson.

“Discounting climate implications hinders our nation’s ability to protect it’s food system. NFU urges the administration to consider the devastating effects of climate change on the livelihoods and well-being of family farmers, ranchers and rural communities.”

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NFU delegates in March passed a special order of business, titled, “Family Farming and Leading the Way on Climate Change,” which calls on the organization to lead and support efforts for the advancement of carbon storage in the soils of family farmers, ranchers, and agro-foresters.

NFU supports the creation of new agriculture-based markets that reward those that practice and implement conservation techniques scientifically proven to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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About NFU
National Farmers Union has been working since 1902 to protect and enhance the economic well-being and quality of life for family farmers, ranchers and rural communities through advocating grassroots-driven policy positions adopted by its membership.

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7 Comments

  • The climate change thing has been a big hoax, the scientist were being paid to fudge the numbers they plugged into the equation. One only has to look at Al Gores statement that New York was going to B under water by 2013 to see that everything being said about Google warming is a lie, a fabrication. Furthermore, these people want to put us in jail because we don’t agree with them, shows you they are off their rocker

    • Sorry Karl, but climate change is no hoax and no joke. Spend some time educating yourself on what is happen to our polar ice caps and our mountain glaciers. Look at the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, droughts and floods across the globe over the last twenty years. Pay attention to the time of year your fruit trees bloom compared to when you were a kid; watch the bird migrations and notice when the first and last frost come to your location.
      Take time to stop listening to the squawk box and pay attention to what is happening around you.

    • I have been on the same farm for 60 years that my family has been on since the 1800`s. There is definitely global warming. We do not have near as much snow or cold weather as we did 50 years ago. It is obvious that there is global warming, if you would would spend some years outside in the country instead of staying inside watching Fox News it would be obvious to you to.

  • Do these previous commenters believe in a creation? If so then how is it that a man can be so arrogant to believe he would be allowed to destroy something he did not create ? I wonder. Just try Nebraska. It’s not that far away.

  • The earth has been much warmer and much cooler at other times than it is now. There was a time that the Arctic was navigable and they grew grapes in England. We are well within cyclical ranges that were reached much before we started using fossil fuels. We also had the ‘summer that never was’ in Europe in the 1100s (I think) which reduced production in especially northern Europe for many years.
    Also we have had droughts much worse than those in recent years. From what I understand, most anthropologists believe that the most likely reason that the American Indians of the Southwest abandoned their dwellings in the 1200s or 1300s was due to a decades long drought.
    It is arrogant to think that the carbon put into the atmosphere by man will change the climate that much when one large volcano puts more carbon into the atmosphere than man ever has and the earth recoups from the effects of the volcano in a few years.
    The problem with Obama’s policies is that they were politically motivated and not scientifically motivated.

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