OPINION:
American farmers have earned a living because we have affordable, available energy. By using diesel-powered equipment, nitrogen, and other fertilizers, we not only feed America, but we are the number one exporter of food worldwide.
Before I was Congresswoman Mary Miller, I was Mary the Illinois farmer and mother of seven. Together with my husband, we run a grain and cattle farm in Central Illinois and fed our family on a budget with the help of a fertilized garden. Now, we have great reason to be alarmed. Joe Biden and his “Green Bad Deal” team are in the process of creating yet another crisis. A food crisis.
The globalists and militant vegan activists are pushing junk science “scare pollution” policies on agricultural producers. These radical “Great Reset” leftists are destroying farms, especially family farms, with attacks on fertilizer & livestock. The leftists are pushing to replace the farmland we need for food with solar panels that are made in China and terrible for the environment. Without farms, people starve. We cannot let radical leftists control our food, as they are the same people that are causing famine, blackouts, and rationing in other countries.
For example, farmers in the Netherlands are revolting against their government over plans to impose laughable restrictions on the amount of animal manure Dutch farmers can spread on their own land to fertilize fields. The Dutch government believes, that to cut its nitrogen emissions in half by 2030, farmers have to sacrifice long-held, successful fertilizer practices. The Netherlands’ own government seeks to lessen its global agricultural influence by instituting Green Deal policies.
This agenda should sound familiar to Americans. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by pushing electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines that are manufactured in China – in order to convince the world a country can become entirely carbon neutral – is exactly what the Biden Administration hopes to achieve for America. It hasn’t happened yet, and I hope it never does.
In President Joe Biden’s America, we have an ongoing energy crisis that especially affects the livelihood of my fellow farmers and farm families in rural America. Leftists like Illinois Governor Pritzker have told us to expect rolling blackouts due to the dangerous, Green New Deal-inspired war on reliable energy generation. What happened in the Netherlands will happen here if we cannot solve this nation’s energy crisis.
Mr. Biden’s anti-energy agenda has caused the price of a gallon of gas to skyrocket to the highest average price of gasoline and diesel ever recorded. In my home state of Illinois, these prices were even higher than the national average. Instead of making it easier for American companies to increase domestic oil and gas production and hire more U.S. workers, Mr. Biden has shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline and begged OPEC and Russia to increase global output to ease rising prices.
Mr. Biden’s Democratic friends in Congress and Democrat governors have blamed American energy producers for this crisis while refusing to issue leases for energy production and discouraging investment. Democrats have taken advantage of the war in Ukraine to blame Vladimir Putin for gas prices while increasing purchases of Russian oil by 160%. They have claimed renewables are the only solution while stopping the production of critical minerals here at home, leaving our country even more dependent on China, while refusing to ramp up our domestic production of oil, natural gas, and biofuels, such as ethanol.
This has to change.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects world energy consumption will grow by nearly 50% between 2020 and 2050. Our nation can supply that energy demand. The United States boasts an abundance of natural resources. Our nation is innovative, and our energy producers can compete with China, but we must abandon this Green New Deal and stop helping China in order to stand a chance.
In recent years, we have seen foreign investors flood the market, especially in Rural America where the Chinese Communist Party is attempting to buy land in our country, with an emphasis on farmland, to gain strategic leverage over the United States.
According to the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act Database (AFIDA), foreign companies and individuals have purchased 519,248 acres of agricultural land in Illinois over the past decade. The purchases are worth approximately $4.1 billion.
America is on a dangerous path of losing our self-sufficiency which is why I introduced the National Security Moratorium on Foreign Purchases of U.S. Land with Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) to prohibit Chinese land purchases in the United States. We have an inherent responsibility to put our own citizens first, and the National Security Moratorium on Foreign Purchases of U.S. Land does just that.
In the same month that I introduced this bill, House Democrats held a hearing to promote cars made with Chinese batteries and minerals mined in China instead of supporting American farmers by promoting ethanol and biofuels. The American people would be much better served if the Agriculture Committee focused on prohibiting Chinese land purchases in our country.
Instead of blaming American energy producers, farmers, and ranchers for this nation’s energy and food crisis, perhaps Mr. Biden, Governor Pritzker, and Democrats should start believing in Americans and fight for their interests. Perhaps they should acknowledge their policies are failing and reflect upon it before we see Rural America revolt.
• Mary E. Miller is an American farmer and politician who is the U.S. representative from Illinois’s 15th congressional district.
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