Good piece Hempy. The facts stand on their own. McConnel, like most politicians, can't seem to look beyond the short term and invest in the future. He doesn't get how making businesses energy efficient today will ultimately increases profits down the line. His visionary skills are lacking.  

I recall Ashcroft and the DOJ made an arbitrary ruling in 2001 that any hemp products could not be grown or imported in the US, despite its numerous benefits to society. Do you know if this is still the case?

I agree that legalizing hemp for biofuel development would be a good idea.  

I do some CO2 research in my professional life (at a university) and your human health facts which you use to support your argument ring hollow.   Fred Bell is a particularly uninspiring source.  He advocates alot of paranormal mumbo jumbo and apparently has connections to beings from the Pleiades.  I particularly like the pyramids that he suggests people wear to "reset their brains."  (Maybe we wouldn't need hemp then...) Believe Mr. Bell if you like, but I don't think quoting his work will get you noticed among the Senate staff (except for some laughs).  Here are some things to consider:

"Higher carbon dioxide levels mean the body has a decreased amount of oxygen available to it, and consciousness begins to suffer."  
This is true, but it has to be at much higher levels than we are talking about in the atmosphere.  In an enclosed coal mine or a space ship without CO2 filters working, this becomes a problem.  However, oxygen is about 21% of the atmosphere.  CO2 is only about 0.036% currently, up from about 0.031% in 1958 and 0.028 pre-industry.  These differences have important effects on global warming but these differences by themselves are not likely to have major impacts on human health.  In fact, most indoor environments run about 0.04-0.06% CO2.  We cannot even calibrate our CO2 measuring instruments inside if we are going to use them outside.  If 0.036% was going to cause health problems, we'd all be feeling them already when we were inside.

"The depleted ozone layer is also causing us serious immune system problems."
Again true.  But this is not the result of the greenhouse effect nor added CO2 from fossil fuel burning.  CO2 does not interact with ozone in the stratosphere (where the ozone layer is located).  Ozone depletion is caused by CFCs, nitrous oxide, methane, and bromide compounds.  Of these, only CFCs are completely produced by humans and they have caused the vast majority of the problem.  The other compounds have both human and natural sources.  Methane and nitrous oxide are commonly produced by agricultural practices (such as irrigation, rice field flooding, and overfertilization) and therefore do cause problems for both the ozone layer and for global warming.  While you do not explicitly state that CO2 is responsible for ozone depletion, it is a common misconception that the public has, and I think it would be a logical connection to make based on the structure of your letter.  Hemp farming may in fact exacerbate methane and nitrous oxide emissions if the agricultural practice relies too heavily on nitrogen fertilizer or takes place in wetlands.

Legalizing hemp appears to be an uphill battle still.  I don't see a particular groundswell behind it, despite circulating in left leaning crowds.  As a mitigating crop for biofuels and fiber production, it has scads of promise, but the THC thing will continue to get in the way.  If there was ever a situation ripe for genetic modification, hemp would be it.  The genetic modification would not fuse genes from different species, it would only change the genetic make-up of the current species.  We would therefore not have to worry about super-weeds (like we do with sunflower) or negative effects on non-target species (like we do with Bt corn).  Further, traditional plant breeding, which is a form of genetic modification at slower rates, has already begun to develop hemp varieties with lower THC contents, so we know it is possible.  If the hemp lobby would back GMO hemp to lower THC contents, I think it would find a lot of broad public support, even among some Republican constituencies (agribusiness).

I recommend Global Environment to my students.  It is by EK and RA Berner, published by Prentice Hall.  It gives good, concise descriptions of global warming, ozone depletion (both in Chapter 2) and other global environmental issues.  (Disclosure, I am not associated with the authors in any way.  Never even met them.)

Lurking, thank you for your informative reply. I didn't go there with CO2 and ozone depletion as I haven't found any info that it was the case.

Generally hemp doesn't need fertilizers although I have read that it probably would be required if hemp were being grown for fuel.

As far as hemp growing in wetlands, I haven't found any information that it could. I thought it might be good to grow it in places like New Orleans to rebuild the wetlands, but I've found no info that it would.

Hempy,  I'm not sure that hemp will grow in wetlands either, but I have seen in growing in some pretty wet fields in Kentucky as I've been searching for caves to crawl into. (Advice given to me from an old caver, always wear your helmet and headlamp when crossing unfamiliar fields looking for caves.  You'll be less likely confused for DEA...)

Flooded fields, even if only for 3-4 weeks in the spring, would result in anaerobic soils and the conversion of nitrogen to nitrous oxide.  This would be worse if there was fertilizer application before the rains.

How much fert. would be needed and how many soggy areas might be planted in hemp?  No idea.  But thinking about it more, I suspect that the effects of the N2O produced would be less than the CO2 saved, and so hemp would be a net plus for atmospheric health.

Lurking, apparently Indian hemp (I asume it's Cannabis Indica) grows in the East Yosemite Valley. Not much info is given about it though. YOSEMITE VALLEY

A hempster tells me that hemp, tomatoes and rosebushes growing together use about the same amount of nitrogen for optimum yield. That doesn't mean a whole lot to me.  Maybe it does to you.