Your Letters: Monday

Nuisance rule needs work

The nuisance ordinance should be passed, however I don’t understand the 100-foot definition. I like to visit State College for lots of reasons, none of which includes falling bodies/bottles.

The concern for the thoughts of the ACLU should not stop the ordinance. There are just as many, if not more, organizations and individuals that may just love to defend the ordinance. The ACLU no longer knows what is constitutional. They only know what they choose to interpret from the far-left secular view.

We must keep working to prevail over that minority view, especially that it is, for now, king of the “hill” (or, to put it another way, “Capitol”).

Joe Rech Philipsburg

Ag lobbyists a problem

Thanks for a balanced article (Nov. 2) about agriculture and the climate bill. Unfortunately, it only hinted at the kind of hysteria big ag lobbyists have been stirring up both on Capitol Hill and with farmers.

Among the worst actors is the American Farm Bureau, which convinced members that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was trying to pass rules under the Bush administration that would result in a $175 per animal “cow tax.” The EPA had merely released a preliminary notice that outlined how the Clean Air Act could be used to control greenhouse gases, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture commented could have a financial effect on farms.

The current Waxman-Markey climate bill has left agriculture fully exempt from emission caps. The ag industry still complains that the bill would raise the price of energy and chemicals in the future. But higher prices would provide an incentive to use less energy and fewer chemicals, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and slowing global warming.

Climate change is projected to hit the heartland states the hardest, and as an agronomist I can assure you that even small shifts in temperature can have disastrous consequences for crop yields.

Douglas M. Mason State College