tagged w/ Revolving Door
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Apparently burnishing your resume at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a pretty good way of launching your career in high finance.
The Project On Government Oversight’s (POGO) investigative team took a look at five years’ worth of records from the SEC and found that 219 employees left the SEC between 2006 and 2010 for jobs representing firms before the SEC.
Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, not until you start wondering if SEC regulators could be tempted to give preferential treatment to firms that might one day hire them.
POGO released a report and searchable database shows that some employees announced their intention to represent regulated clients within days of leaving the Commission.
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/05/the-revolving-regulators-new-pogo-report-and-searchable-database-highlights-ethics-challenges-for-se.htmlApparently burnishing your resume at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a... more
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On a slow Friday afternoon, a surprising bit of news came down the pike: Roger Beachy, head of National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the main research arm of the USDA, has officially resigned his post, effective May 20.
Who is Beachy? When Obama hired Beachy in 2009, I got a case of policy whiplash, because it seemed to me that the administration kept whipping back and forth between progressive food-system change and agribusiness as usual. Beachy, you see, came to the post from the Danforth Plant Science Center, where had he served as the organization's president since its founding in 1998. Nestled in Monsanto's St. Louis home town, Danforth has long and deep ties to Monsanto.
According to its website, the center "was founded in 1998 through gifts from the St. Louis-based Danforth Foundation, the Monsanto Fund (a philanthropic foundation), and a tax credit from the State of Missouri." Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant sits on the center's board of trustees, along with execs from defense giant McDonnell Douglas and pharma titan Merck. Another notable board member is Alfonso Romo, a Mexican magnate who cashed in big during his country's notoriously corrupt privatization /liberalization bonanza in the early '90s, and who sold Seminis, the globe's largest vegetable-seed company, to Monsanto in 2005. (Here's my account of that deal from the time.)
In his short stint at USDA, Beachy never hid his enthusiasm for ag biotechnology -- or his disdain for organic ag. When I met him at an agriculture conference in Mexico and asked him about funding for organic research, he came up with a novel slander against synthetics-free ag: "I'm concerned about the safety of organic food... I'm concerned about the issue of microbial contamination with organic." It was a strange encounter; I wrote about it here.
Beachy also hotly promoted GMOs, and thundered against organic, in a recent profile in Scientific American.
Now he has quit abruptly -- according to the USDA's internal announcement, posted on ScienceInsider, to "spend more time with his wife, his children, and his grandchildren" back in St. Louis. Be that as it may -- sometimes, no doubt, people actually do abruptly quit jobs to "spend more time with family" -- Beachy's exit coincides with news that NIFA's budget outlook has darkened considerably. Reports ScieceInsider:
This year's pot for competitive grants is down about 1%, a far cry from the 64% increase that the Obama Administration had requested for FY 2011. And reflecting larger fiscal realities, the department's request for FY 2012, submitted in February and still pending before Congress, was scaled back substantially, although still a robust 25% increase.
Meanwhile, the Danforth Center, where Beachy is still listed as a researcher, is going great guns. According to the April 14 St. Louis Today, "Researchers working to develop genetically modified, nutrient-dense cassava got another major boost Wednesday with an $8.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."On a slow Friday afternoon, a surprising bit of news came down the pike: Roger Beachy,... more
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Substantial equivalence. When looking at these two words many come away with the impression that they signify fairness, safety and adequate disclosure to consumers regarding the products those words are attached to. However, regarding the marketing of transgenic foods specifically genetically modified organisms in our food that is anything but the case. I think it is crucial that consumers are aware of what is in their food and how it may affect them and their children in order for them to be able to make informed decisions about what goes into their bodies. This knowledge is essential as a preventative measure to maintaining health and also regarding informing consumers about any other effects what they buy may have on the enviroment. Therefore, in discussing substantial equivalence in regards to GMOs and the underlayer of collusion involved in pushing them into the world I think it important to begin at the beginning.
This is the standard definition of "substantial equivalence":
"Substantial equivalence is a concept developed by OECD in 1991 that maintains that a novel food should be considered the same as a conventional food if it demonstrates the same characteristics and composition as the conventional food."
This concept was pushed in regards to GMOs by the FAO and the WHO in the early 1990s. Its intent was the stripping away of years of testing of so called "novel" foods which can be prohibitively expensive and time consuming and therefore would have affected the profits of companies like Monsanto that have a virtual stranglehold on the FDA, USDA, and other regulatory agencies and governments that have afforded them special treatment in allowing them to use this planet and its species as one huge science experiment. The residual effects of applying these two words to GMOs and in allowing them to be foisted upon the world with little to no adequate testing already negates the validity of applying the substantial equivalence label to them.
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This is from a paper written in 1997:
John Fagan, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Biology, Maharishi University of Management
"The concept of substantial equivalence has been used in Europe, North America, and elsewhere around the world as the basis of regulations designed to facilitate the rapid commercialization of genetically engineered foods. For instance, European Commission (EC) regulations concerning novel foods and food ingredients apply the concept of substantial equivalence to both the safety testing and to the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Genetically engineered foods classified as substantially equivalent are spared from extensive safety testing on the assumption that they are no more dangerous than the corresponding non-genetically engineered food (1). Using similar arguments, genetically engineered foods classified as substantially equivalent are not required to be labeled as genetically engineered (2). The effect of these regulations has been to allow genetically engineered foods to enter the market place without sufficient testing to assure safety and without sufficient labeling to allow consumers to de cide for themselves whether or not to purchase and eat these novel foods. The health of the population of Europe is thus being placed at risk.
The fundamental inadequacies of this approach have been discussed previously. For instance, one article presented in the Proceedings of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Workshop on Food Safety Evaluation (3), came to the following conclusions: (1) Because the concept of substantial equivalence has no dimensions, it cannot be used as a predictor of which novel foods will require substantial safety testing in animals. (2) Depending on the nature of the novel food, the usefulness of the concept of substantial equivalence in determining the necessity for extensive safety testing ranges from useful to negligible. (3) The number and range of safety tests required is best determined, not by the concept of substantial equivalence, but by the nature of the product under consideration.
At first glance the term substantially equivalent implies that two foods are equivalent in all characteristics that are of importance to the consumer-safety, nutrition, flavor, and texture. However, in actual practice the investigator compares only selected characteristics of the genetically engineered food to those of its non-genetically engineered counterpart. If that relatively restricted set of characteristics is not found to be significantly different in these two, the genetically engineered food is classified as substantially equivalent to the corresponding non-genetically engineered food and is required to be neither tested further nor labeled as genetically engineered.
The argument supporting this practice is that since most of the characteristics of a particular genetically engineered food are similar to those of its non-genetically engineered counterpart, it must be the case that the genetically engineered food is substantially equivalent to its non-genetically engineered counterpart with respect to all characteristics relevant to the consumer. This is obviously a fallacious argument, and should not be used as the basis for avoiding more extensive testing and for avoiding the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Most critically, if characteristics important to food safety are not evaluated directly, the safety of consumers will be in jeopardy."
end of excerpt.
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continued at the link.
Thank you for supporting this blog and for helping me get out this important information.Substantial equivalence. When looking at these two words many come away with the... more
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ROGUE AGENCY CHOOSES “BUSINESS AS USUAL” OVER SOUND SCIENCE
CENTER ANNOUNCES IMMEDIATE LEGAL CHALLENGE TO USDA’S FLAWED ASSESSMENT
The Center for Food Safety criticized the announcement today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that it will once again allow unlimited, nation-wide commercial planting of Monsanto’s genetically-engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa, despite the many risks to organic and conventional farmers USDA acknowledged in its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). On a call today with stakeholders, Secretary Vilsack reiterated the concerns surrounding purity and access to non-GE seed, yet the Agency’s decision still places the entire burden for preventing contamination on non-GE farmers, with no protections for food producers, consumers and exporters.
“We’re disappointed with USDA’s decision and we will be back in court representing the interest of farmers, preservation of the environment, and consumer choice” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety. “USDA has become a rogue agency in its regulation of biotech crops and its decision to appease the few companies who seek to benefit from this technology comes despite increasing evidence that GE alfalfa will threaten the rights of farmers and consumers, as well as damage the environment.”
On Monday, the Center sent an open letter to Secretary Vilsack calling on USDA to base its decision on sound science and the interests of farmers, and to avoid rushing the process to meet the marketing timelines or sales targets of Monsanto, Forage Genetics or other entities.
CFS also addressed several key points that were not properly assessed in the FEIS, among them were:
•Liability, Implementation and Oversight — Citing over 200 past contamination episodes that have cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales, CFS demands that liability for financial losses incurred by farmers due to transgenic contamination be assigned to the crop developers. CFS also calls on USDA to take a more active oversight role to ensure that any stewardship plans are properly implemented and enforced.
•Roundup Ready alfalfa will substantially increase herbicide use – USDA’s assessment misrepresented conventional alfalfa as utilizing more herbicides than it does, which in turn provided a false rationale for introducing herbicide-promoting Roundup Ready alfalfa. In fact, USDA’s own data shows that just 7% of alfalfa hay acres are treated with herbicides. USDA’s projections in the FEIS show that substantial adoption of Roundup Ready alfalfa would trigger large increases in herbicide use of up to 23 million lbs. per year.
•Harms from glyphosate-resistant weeds – USDA’s sloppy and unscientific treatment of glyphosate-resistant (GR) weeds ignored the significant contribution that RR alfalfa could make to their rapid evolution. USDA failed to analyze how GR weeds fostered by currently grown RR crops are increasing herbicide use; spurring more use of soil-eroding tillage; and reducing farmer income through increased weed control costs, an essential baseline analysis.
“We in the farm sector are dissatisfied but not surprised at the lack of courage from USDA to stop Roundup Ready alfalfa and defend family farmers,” said Pat Trask, conventional alfalfa grower and plaintiff in the alfalfa litigation.
The FEIS comes in response to a 2007 lawsuit brought by CFS, in which a federal court ruled that the USDA’s approval of GE alfalfa violated environmental laws by failing to analyze risks such as the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa, the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds, and increased use of glyphosate herbicide, sold by Monsanto as Roundup. The Court banned new plantings of GE alfalfa until USDA completed a more comprehensive assessment of these impacts. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals twice affirmed the national ban on GE alfalfa planting. In June 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Alfalfa until and unless future deregulation occurs.
“Last spring more than 200,000 people submitted comments to the USDA highly critical of the substance and conclusions of its Draft EIS on GE Alfalfa,” said Kimbrell. “Clearly the USDA was not listening to the public or farmers but rather to just a handful of corporations.”ROGUE AGENCY CHOOSES “BUSINESS AS USUAL” OVER SOUND SCIENCE
CENTER... more
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News release from the official Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center website - http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/
NEW ORLEANS -- This morning at approximately 8:45 a.m. CDT, a discharge of liquids was observed from a diverter valve on the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise,which is on station at the MC252 well-site.
As a precautionary measure,the lower marine riser package (LMRP) containment cap system, attached to the Discover Enterprise, has been moved off the Deepwater Horizon's failed blow-out preventer to ensure the safety of operations and allow the unexpected release of liquids to be analyzed.
Capture of oil and gas through the LMRP cap is therefore temporarily suspended until such time that the cap can be re-installed. Capture of oil and gas through the BOP's choke line to the Q4000 vessel on the surface continues.
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/691031News release from the official Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center... more
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Take action now and let's bring down Monsanto:
70% percent or more of our food contains genetically engineered food brought by the bio-tech giant: Monsanto.
GMO is endangering people's health and our environment at an alarming rate.
Cross-contamination is irreversible and good, organic crops are being jeopardized.
These seeds are incredibly expensive compared to the traditional ones and have been genetically modified to produce their own pesticide, to survive the spraying of the: "Roundup", a potent herbicide and to self terminate.
This has lead our farmers to buy new GMO seeds each year and depend on Monsanto. As a result of this ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops, 125,000 farmers took their own lives.
These people were driven to debt, to economic distress, homeless and landless.
GMO has and is failing catastrophically.
This company is persecuting, bullying and bringing farms to bankruptcy.
GMO was never adequately tested for safety, actually more and more research shows its dangers to the human/animal health, polluting our crops and our water.
Monsanto did use false advertising; Monsanto poisons the third world and privatizes water. Its employees have passed through the so-called revolving door many times, they rotated between this industry and the public agencies:
Clarence Thomas, Gwendolyn S. King, Linda Fisher, Jim Travis, Linda Avery Strachanand, Toby Moffet , Marcia Hale, Donald Bandle, George H. Poste, Michael Kantor and Michael Taylor all bending rules, finding loopholes to assure this company profits.
This technology is only exacerbating hunger, poverty, irreversible contamination and climate change in our world.
Bring down Monsanto's monopoly on our food and a centralized agriculture.
Bring down Monsanto's genetically engineered seeds.
Bring down the use of harmful pesticides, herbicides and chemicals alike.
Hold this company accountable for its damages to the world.
Organic agriculture, permaculture and biodiversity are the only answer to sustainability, to the preservation of our environment and our health.
We want you, as our government, as a body of representation of the people of the United States to invest billions subsidizing organic, environmental agriculture.
Bring down Monsanto's poisoning, companies alike and the agrochemical industry once and for all as it is one of the greatest threats to the whole human race.
Thank you.
Sign this petition, it takes less than thirty seconds and you'll make a world of difference, BRING DOWN MONSANTO NOW:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/bring-down-monsanto-monopoly
Join the Organic Movement:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-sjc1/hs305.snc3/28853_393239006316_237028531316_4216266_6910470_n.jpgTake action now and let's bring down Monsanto:
70% percent or more of our... more
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Today the Senate Foreign Relations committee held a hearing on the Global Food Security Act (S.384), which, as I have documented on this blog before, Monsanto HAS been involved in lobbying on. The bill first came to my attention about a year ago, when the same committee held a very similar hearing about the same bill. In the year since then, I've become increasingly knowledgeable and outraged about the issues surrounding global food security. In the meantime, the Obama Administration took the lead on the issue of global food security from the Senate, and USAID is doing quite a bit already (in partnership with the World Bank and private organizations and companies) to really f*ck things up worldwide.
One of the clauses in the bill specifies that the U.S. should promote biotechnology in its efforts to combat global hunger. After a year of lobbying to ask them to remove this, they still haven't. Lugar made a point today in saying how necessary he thought GMOs are. My very inadequate transcription of his remarks are as follows:
'The average African farmer's yield per acre is 1/2 that of an Indian farmer, 1/4 that of a Chinese farmer, and 1/5 of an American. [Something about Bill Gates' piece in the Wall Street Journal today] The role of GMOs in agriculture development is a matter of contention. Europe's rejection of GM has pressured African governments for fear they will lose export markets. Others argue safety is not proven despite 2 decades of safe use of GMOs. This ensures that much of the continent [Africa] will lack the tools to deal with changing climate in the long run. We may not be able to double food output by 2050. I ask to what extent does USAID support a full range of technologies? To what extent do the strategies encourage biotech?'
Here's the thing. The "double food output by 2050" figure is one that was created by idiots. Or just very greedy assholes. It assumes that the rest of the world will want to eat much more grain-fed meat (like Americans do now). Unfortunately, Mother Nature does not operate like a market with supply and demand. A diet of grain-fed meat means increased diet-related chronic illnesses for those who eat it. And it means continued and worsened environmental degradation and climate change for the planet. Our species existence on this planet is contingent on us NOT increasing grain-fed meat consumption (and in fact, on DECREASING it). Therefore, the Senate, USAID, and Bill Gates are all aiming for a false goal.
Rajiv Shah (head of USAID) answered as follows (again, this is a very poor transcription):
'USAID has had a longstanding relationship with CG research activities [the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, a major institution of the Green Revolution] - linking them to local agricultural systems. We've invested in land grant universities through collaborative research systems. The two things we are looking to evolve - we've identified a set of core crops and core production constraints like rice, maize, and cassava and drought tolerant and heat tolerant traits. We are working with partners around the world to do this. We are looking to partner with USDA and the unique capabilities they bring. We've specifically support transgenic technologies including GE eggplant in India and we are supporting building the regulatory systems in other countries and then we'll let farmers decide what they want.'
Shah is an asshat. I really don't have a nicer word for him or a more apt description. He came originally from the Gates Foundation (which employs a former Monsanto VP and is now working with CGIAR and actively promoting GM crops and industrial agriculture) to the USDA and then to USAID. By all accounts he's very smart, but he's 100% on board with this "new Green Revolution" extend industrial ag including biotech to the developing world plan (despite massive amounts of science that says it's a bad idea).
The number one outrage for me from this hearing was when Shah said that it was appropriate to be speaking about this on Earth Day and then referred to US promotion of biotech as "sustainable." He said we are working on two fronts - to make agriculture produce more and to make it more sustainable. Except, from what I heard, it seemed that his idea of sustainable was GM "drought tolerant" seeds.
Next came Jacob Lew, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. He said (roughly):
'The regulatory environment is very important. If you don't fill the space with science and knowledge and facts, then fear can fill the space just as easily. To deal with the problems of the future, we can't afford to let it drift for decades. It must be addressed as the technologies are developed.'
In other words, if USAID and its partners are not active in promoting biotech, then people around the world might discover some of the risks or problems with biotech and reject it. He wants to use biotech now, not wait for years or decades until technologies are proven safe (or perfected so that they are safe) before using them.
Next, Lugar and the two witnesses (Shah and Lew) had an exchange about a "country-led" effort to solve problems of food insecurity. They don't want to be paternalistic, and yet they don't want to give up control over the uses of their money in the countries where they spend it. Essentially it sounds like the US will lay out what they are interested in doing (i.e. biotech) and if other countries are interested in playing ball, they can. If they don't, then they don't get any money from us or the World Bank.
snip
This turned into a dialogue about women. Research shows that some 70% of smallholder farmers in the developing world are women, and a disproportionate percent of the hungry are women and girls. Also, when you give $1 of additional income to a woman, it is more likely to go toward the health and well-being of the family than if you give that $1 to a man. I'm very pleased that the U.S. government is recognizing this and taking action on it.
Unfortunately, there's a negative side to this too. I believe it was Rajiv Shah who mentioned during the hearing that it is easier to convince women to buy GM seeds and grow GMOs because you can make a case for increased nutrition from GMOs. They are also more likely to purchase ammonia fertilizer (which kills the life in the soil and pollute waterways). Thus, women are more likely than men to respond to arguments the US makes telling them to adopt GMOs and industrial ag.Today the Senate Foreign Relations committee held a hearing on the Global Food... more
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In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in a rigorous analysis known as an environmental impact statement (or EIS). USDA released its draft EIS on December 14, 2009. A 60-day comment period is now open until February 16, 2010. This is the first time the USDA has done this type of analysis for any GE crop. Therefore, the final decision will have broad implications for all GE crops.
CFS has begun analyzing the EIS and it is clear that the USDA has not taken the concerns of non-GE alfalfa farmers, organic dairies, or consumers seriously. USDA’s preliminary determination is to once again deregulate GE alfalfa without any limitations or protections for farmers or the environment. Instead USDA has completely dismissed the fact that contamination will threaten export and domestic markets and organic meat and dairy products. And, incredibly, USDA is claiming that there is no evidence that consumers care about such GE contamination of organic!
USDA also claims that consumers will not reject GE contamination of organic alfalfa if the contamination is unintentional or if the transgenic material is not transmitted to the end milk or meat product, despite the fact that more than 75% of consumers believe that they are purchasing products without GE ingredients when they buy organic.
USDA claims that Monsanto’s seed contracts require measures sufficient to prevent genetic contamination, and that there is no evidence to the contrary. But in the lawsuit requiring this document, the Court found that contamination had already occurred in the fields of several Western states with these same business-as-usual practices in place!
USDA predicts that the approval of GE alfalfa would damage family farms and organic markets, yet doesn’t even consider any limitations or protections against this scenario. Small, family farmers are the backbone and future of American agriculture and must be protected. Organic agriculture provides many benefits to society: healthy foods for consumers, economic opportunities for family farmers and urban and rural communities, and a farming system that improves the quality of the environment. However, the continued vitality of this sector is imperiled by the complete absence of measures to protect organic production systems from GE contamination and subsequent environmental, consumer, and economic losses.
Tell USDA That You DO Care About GE Contamination of Organic Crops and Food!In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA)... more
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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
Climate change legislation is off the table for now, but the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is still working to regulate greenhouse gasses. The organization is up against strong opposition from Republicans and some Democrats. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is heading the charge, with the assistance of Bush-era EPA officials, now lobbyists with clients in the energy industry.
The EPA and the Clean Air Act
In April 2009, the EPA found that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gasses pose a hazard to public health. This finding obligated the EPA to regulate these pollutants under the Clean Air Act, a responsibility the Bush administration fought to avoid. The power the agency now has to limit carbon emissions extends far beyond its usual scope, and the EPA’s decisions will have a lasting impact on environmental regulation in this country. As the agency moves to act, everyone from Sen. Murkowski to the state of California is protesting the changes. Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones reports:
“The California Energy Commission last month sent a letter to the EPA asking it to slow down on implementation of regulations on greenhouse gas emissions….The CEC argues that phasing them in too fast could hurt efforts in the state to expand use of low-carbon energy.”
Opponents in Congress are taking action to shut down the EPA’s attempts to curb greenhouse gasses, Sheppard writes. Both Sen. Murkowski and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) have filed bills that would delay or stop the EPA’s regulatory process.
Attempting to ‘gut the Clean Air Act’
Grist’s Miles Grant is also keeping a close watch on opponents of the regulation.
“At first it seemed like simply one bad idea from Sen. Lisa Murkowski,” he writes. “But now we know the real story—a tangled web of public officials, polluter lobbyists, and efforts to gut the Clean Air Act.”
It emerged this week that Murkowski had help in drafting her bill from EPA administrators from the Bush administration, as first reported by the Washington Post. These former officials now work in Washington as lobbyists and represent clients like Duke Energy and the Alliance of Food Associations on climate change matters.
“Every day it seems we’re learning more,” says Miles. “More about the revolving door between the Bush administration and polluter lobbyists; more about their influence with senators and their staffers; and more about who’s really pulling the strings on efforts to block climate action—Big Oil’s MVP, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK).”
Even the American Farm Bureau Federation…
Another opponent, as Care2 notes, is the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the country’s largest farm group. The organization approved a special resolution during its four-day convention on Sunday. The resolution supports legislation like Murkowski’s or Pomeroy’s that would “suspend the EPA’s authority to regulator greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”
During a speech, AFBF president Bob Stallman said that American farmers and ranchers “must aggressively respond to extremists” and “misguided, activist-driven regulation.”
“The days of their elitist power grabs are over,” he said.
More opportunities to improve climate policy
The EPA’s new power is not the only opportunity that the Obama administration has to improve U.S. climate policy. David Roberts, also reporting for Grist, writes about $2.3 billion in new tax credits for clean energy manufacturing companies, announced last Friday.
“There were 183 projects selected out of some 500 applications; one-third were from small businesses; around 30% are expected to be completed this year. The winners are spread across 43 states,” Roberts reports.
Roberts calls it “better than usual industrial policy.” The credits are meant to give a boost to the new green energy economy.
But Roberts warns, “It’s also absurd that clean energy industries still depend on capricious, short-term extensions of tax credits. … Obama has called on Congress to cough up $5 billion a year for these credits, but how enduring will yearly appropriations be the next time Congress changes hands?”
Iowa and the biodiesel tax credit
The answer likely depends on how much support these projects get from the representatives of states that will benefit from the tax credits. In Iowa, for instance, the state’s three Democratic Representatives have asked the House leadership to prioritized a 2010 renewal of the biodiesel tax credit, as Lynda Waddington reports for the Iowa Independent.
“If members of the U.S. Senate do not act on last year’s program extension, however, it might be a moot point,” Waddington writes. The renewal has gotten stalled in the Senate, where both Iowa Senators are blaming the opposite party for delays.
From policy to people
When politicians jockey over regulations and renewals, climate change work in Washington can seem very abstract. But people like John Henrikson, a forester who’s committed to farming 150 acres of trees in sustainable ways, help ground lofty policy ideas down in reality.
“Henrikson’s approach embodies a new way of thinking about our relationship with forests. For years he has been processing his own trees into trim and molding, sold through a broad network of local businesses,” reports Ian Hanna for Yes! Magazine. “Five years ago he got his forest certified to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards, a global system for eco-labeling sustainably managed forests and the products derived from them. And, most recently, he’s developed a project to sell rights to the carbon sequestered on his property.”
Without strong policy coming out Washington, it’s harder for entrepreneurs like Henrikson to make green business a reality. If legislators like Sen. Murkowski and groups like the AFBF don’t block them, the EPA’s new rules are going to begin coming out in March. There’s a major action to combat global warming that the U.S. can take before then, though—for example, we could officially commit to our promise to reduce emissions 17% from 2005 levels by 2020. The deadline for registering climate pledges under the new Copenhagen Accord is the end of this month.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
Climate change legislation is off the... more
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"The War of the Empire has many faces
The 'war on terror' has become nameless since our administration changed. But it is the same war, it has the same goals and it is as unwinnable as it always was. But certainly there are other ways of conquering the planet, says Washington. And so they impose the huge industries with their humungous profits on the entire world, corporations like Monsanto, Cargill, Dow, Bunge and others, giants that impose their own laws on world-wide agriculture and their goal is to make us eat only what they profit from."
More:
"There is also another important point to make in President Obama's choice of Michael Taylor to head the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Michael Taylor is the notorious revolving-door man who, during the George W. Bush era switched jobs between a high-level post for Monsanto and working for the government agencies that are supposed to regulate the food industry, such as Monsanto."
I keep thinking and wondering about this and can't get over it, why is Obama supporting this?
Remembering Vandana Shiva's words:
" Societies and economies can be destroyed by bombs. Societies can also be destroyed by locking every aspect of life like provision of food and water through an economic war.”
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/"The War of the Empire has many faces
The 'war on terror' has become... more
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www.YourMilkOnDrugs.com Dairy products from cows treated with Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST) may sharply increase cancer risk and other diseases, especially in children. Already banned in most industrialized nations, it was approved in the US on the backs of fired whistleblowers, manipulated research, and a corporate takeover at the FDA. This must-see film includes footage prepared for a Fox TV station—canceled after a letter from Monsanto's attorney threatened "dire consequences."www.YourMilkOnDrugs.com Dairy products from cows treated with Monsanto's... more
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After watching this video, go out and see if you can find a book called Spider's Web. All designed to hide the real truth behind what these so called public servants are doing as they pass through the revolving door.
The wrong doing seems to know no limits. All as they tell the American People that we have no right to know what they are doing while serving in Public Office.After watching this video, go out and see if you can find a book called Spider's... more
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