The EPA is proposing a new gas tax. No, it’s not a tax on gas-guzzling SUVs, it’s a tax on cows. That’s right, those dumb, friendly bovines are apparently indiscriminately polluting our Mother Earth.

Evidently when cows chew grass they both belch and, um, fart greenhouse gases: carbon monoxide to be exact. But not to worry, the all-knowing environmental extremists have a solution for everything – even if it’s “udderly” ridiculous.

The proposed tax is $175 per cow per year. The New York Farm Bureau assigned a price tag to the cost of greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA in a release last month.

In it, they concluded: “The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog. Any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would have to obtain permits.”

New York diary farmer Charlie Hanehan says the tax would cost him an estimated $220,000-$230,000 per year, causing his business to go under.

But not to worry, the tax will simply be passed on to the consumer. Jeff Poor of the Business & Media Institute says “Indirectly it could be considered a cheeseburger tax.”

Ten-dollar hamburgers anyone?