How now kowtow [Mark Steyn]
To comply with emissions targets, European countries are considering a tax on bovine flatulence (or, as Steve Forbes would say, a flat. tax):
timesonline.co.uk
A cow tax of €13 per animal has been mooted in Ireland, while Denmark is discussing a levy as high as €80 per cow to offset the potential penalties each country faces from European Union legislation aimed at combating global warming... The Danish Tax Commission estimates that a cow will emit four tonnes of methane a year in burps and flatulence, compared with 2.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide for an average car...
Agriculture, transport and housing are not included in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which enables industrial companies to buy and sell permits to emit carbon dioxide. Instead, EU member states are obliged to cut the emissions from non-ETS sectors by 10 per cent overall by 2020.
While Romania and Bulgaria will be allowed to increase emissions, Ireland and Denmark are each faced with cuts of 20 per cent in farming sector emissions.
....
Even allowing for the regulatory yoke Europe's cowed citizenry labor under, the logic here is hard to follow. Why is some Bulgar's Holstein allowed to increase his flatulence while the poor Jutlander's has to put a stopper in it? Is there a dearth of flatulence in the Balkans but a Code Red alert over the North Sea? Couldn't the EU introduce flatulence offsets?
I asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs if the Obama Administration was also considering taxing cows, but he said only those cows earning over $250,000 a year. The Cow Jones fell 700 points on the news.
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