[Minnesota] –Minnesota agricultural producers and rural community leaders today firmly expressed their support for the passage of strong, comprehensive federal climate and clean energy legislation in 2010.

The leaders spoke during a conference call organized by 1Sky Minnesota and Clean Water Action. The call was part of a 1Sky-organized nationwide effort this week to profile the urgency of climate solutions and to shine a spotlight on attempts to weaken the ability to use the Clean Air Act to crack down on dirty coal plants.

Federal climate and energy legislation could unleash a wave of homegrown clean energy and technology deployment in rural areas, making our communities and our nation more resilient and secure. Some of the resulting jobs will be available to our children, keeping some of them closer to home and helping us with the huge task of rebuilding our local economies, schools and communities.

"The right kind of legislation could boost rural economies by spurring energy development in those communities," said Julia Olmstead, Senior Program Associate for the Rural Communities program at Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "This would benefit the climate, and also give rural communities more control over and benefit from their energy choices."

A recent study by the University of Tennessee found that a properly constructed climate and clean energy program will result in positive net returns to agriculture. Additional, diversified incomes more than compensate for increased input costs. At the same time, no major shifts were found no in commodity cropland use or in crop and beef prices.

"Because Minnesota’s history is so strongly rooted in agriculture, it’s only natural that the agriculture sector be a driving force behind the transition to a clean energy economy," said Jim VanDerPol, owner of Pastures A Plenty in Kerkoven, MN. "We, as farmers, must be part of the solution." Our land itself is an important asset in the fight against climate change. American agricultural and forestlands can absorb a significant portion of the U.S.’s carbon output. However, this depends upon our ability to reduce tillage and base our farming practices more on perennial plants.

The cheapest energy is the energy we do not use. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy estimates potential energy and cost savings in agriculture is over $1 billion annually. Todd Churchill, founder of Thousand Hills Cattle Company added, "We have proven that we can change our production model to reduce our contribution to climate change…and remain profitable." Strong federal climate and energy legislation is necessary to allow these changes to take root across all our rural communities.

In addition, at issue are congressional efforts led by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) to nullify the EPA’s ability to use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon emissions from dirty coal-fired power plants. "We think it would be a terrible precedent for Congress to begin overriding science," said Olmstead.

President Obama called upon Congress to deliver comprehensive climate and energy legislation in his State of the Union address. Congressional leaders have also made a commitment to pass climate legislation in 2010. Our rural communities need Congress to take the steps now to pass comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation and make rural communities part of the climate solution.

1Sky is a collaborative national campaign for strong federal action to tackle global climate change and invest in building the clean energy economy of the future. As one of the largest national campaigns in the country, 1Sky combines the force of 540 allied organizations, 190,000 committed climate advocates, 3,500 volunteer Climate Precinct Captains covering more than 394 congressional districts in 50 states, and a team of 37 including 25 organizers in 19 states working to mobilize constituent support.