The President of APAS, Todd Lewis, appeared before the Senate Ag Committee.

He made a presentation to the committee on the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.

"It was specifically out of the budget bill, I believe Bill B-74 and a piece of it is called the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act," he said. "That's where the government in this budget bill wants to begin to add pricing to industrial fuel products."

Lewis says the legislation amounts to slipping a carbon tax in the back door.

"The only put together this set of consultations and presentations over the last three weeks,' he said. "Obviously they are interested in it, and we are hopeful that maybe the memo will be set back to the house asking that these surge charges not be put in place until we know more about the effect."

Lewis reminded the Senate that agricultural producers are unable to pass along any increased costs resulting from a carbon tax to consumers and that farmers are not being recognized for the work they are already doing to reduce carbon emissions through carbon sequestration.

He stressed the fact that farmers can’t pass along the cost of the tax to consumers and that having a Carbon tax on input costs simply increases our production costs and make us less competitive in the world market.