A US lawmaker from the state of Arizona has introduced legislation in Congress that would impose a 300 percent tax on the sale of water-intensive crops grown by foreign companies in the state, in a bid to curb the extensive use of water in the drought-stricken state.
This is more of an anti-foreigner measure than it is about protecting water resources. If they cared, they would have curbed consumption in general.
It’s bad when US citizens are sucking up all the water.
It’s even worse when a foreign country that has made hostile attacks against the United States does the same thing.
Yes, but I’m sure a couple of very rich people profit from this, you see!
/s
Anti-foreign ownership of domestic resources. Not anti-foreigner.
Otherwise yes.
OK now do foreign ownership of real estate. I’m getting close.
Removed by mod
Whatever reigns this shit in. I say this as a liberal stuck in a rural Arizona town who’s water is being stolen. About 10 years ago a farm popped up just outside of town and it now consumes most of the valley we live in. This farm pumps 10x the consumption of the entire city with a population of 80,000. Peoples wells are running dry and this dude pays nothing for this water.
This is the desert. Nothing is supposed to grow here. We probably shouldn’t even live here.
Fuck these guys, I don’t care where they are from. But if it takes xenophobia for the idiots in this state to vote on it, go ahead. If the crops are for local use, well, we did fine before they showed up. We didn’t need those farms. So they will go away. If the market for these stupid unethical crops isn’t propped up by foreign consumption they wouldn’t exist.
Still it will be more than a drop in the bucket. The amount of water pumped for these water intensive cropd was insane.
Eh. I’ll take it as a win
Agree completely, but hear me out. It’s politically difficult to ask ranchers and farmers to do anything. Like historically, a lot of our domestic policy centers around keeping them happy - the idea being that they are providing such a vital service that we don’t want to mess with them much.
That’s why Bundy thought he was going to get away with free grazing forever, and why huge swathes of homestead were granted a few hundred years ago - gotta get people turning dirt into food/money.
So even if this is primarily anti-foreign, it still provides a sorely needed example of legislation that could pass, and then the practice in bureaucracy needed to enforce it. It can be expanded. Let them pass this, and then lobby and advocate for adding groups to it in future legislative sessions.
It’s not a bill against farmers. In this case, farmland is leased to a Saudi company called Fondomonte, which uses the state’s groundwater to grow alfalfa, which is then exported to feed cows in the country.
This is a real actual headline. Get me the fuck out of this reality
This absolutely sounds like something from nottheonion
The Republicans should all for this America First bill, right?!
