Agriculture
Chair: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Max Baucus (D-MT)
- Michael Bennet (D-CO)
- Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
- Bob Casey (D-PA)
- Kent Conrad (D-ND)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Pat Leahy (D-VT)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Mike Johanns (R-NE)
- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Pat Roberts (R-KS)
- John R. Thune (R-SD)
Appropriations
Chair: Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Robert Bennett (R-UT)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Arlen Specter (R-PA)
Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Agriculture
Chair: B Collin Peterson (D-MN)
V. Chair: B Tim Holden (D-PA)
B Joe Baca (D-CA)
- John Boccieri (D-OH)
B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Bobby Bright (D-AL)
B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
- Travis Childers (D-MS)
B Jim Costa (D-CA)
- Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
- Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)
B Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
- Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
B Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
- Steve Kagen (D-WI)
- Larry Kissell (D-NC)
B Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
- Betsy Markey (D-CO)
B Jim Marshall (D-GA)
P Eric Massa (D-NY)
B Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
- Walt Minnick (D-ID)
B Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
- Mark Schauer (D-MI)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
B David Scott (D-GA)
B Zachary Space (D-OH)
- Timothy Walz (D-MN)
- Frank Lucas (R-OK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- K. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Sam Graves (R-MO)
- Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Mike Rogers (R-AL)
- Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA) *=House Organic Caucus member B=Blue Dog Democrat
Appropriations
Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
- Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
*P Sam Farr (D-CA)
*P Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
- Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
- Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
* Tom Latham (R-IA) *=House Organic Caucus member
P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Education and Labor
P Chair: George Miller (D-CA)
- Jason Altmire (D-PA)
- Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
- Timothy Bishop (D-NY)
P Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
- Joe Courtney (D-CT)
- Susan Davis (D-CA)
P Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
P Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
P Phil Hare (D-IL)
- Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
P Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
- Rush Holt (D-NJ)
- Dale Kildee (D-MI)
P Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
P Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
- Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)
P Donald Payne (D-NJ)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Robert Scott (D-VA)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
P John Tierney (D-MA)
- Dina Titus (D-NV)
- Paul Tonko (D-NY)
P Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
- David Wu (D-OR)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Rob Bishop (R-UT)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
- Luis F Fortuno (R-PR)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
- Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA)
- John Kline (R-MN)
- Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
- Tom McClintock (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Thomas Petri (R-WI)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- Mark Souder (R-IN)
- GT Thompson (R-PA)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC) P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
THIS is what I've been waiting for. The dirty details on the egg operations that sold the tainted eggs. Bill Marler got to it first, in case you want to check out what he had to say. I've got excepts below on what - exactly - the feds found when they checked out the egg factories that sold the tainted eggs.
In short, at Wright County Egg, they found holes in the buildings where other animals could get in, wild birds, standing water, rodents (a MAJOR risk factor for salmonella), escaped chickens, live and dead flies, live and dead maggots, and lots of poop (piles of manure 8 feet high!).
There were also some problems in the feed mill, which makes sense if the salmonella came from the feed. Birds were all over the place in there, and there were holes in several food containers. Plus some "avian like feces." No surprise, the FDA tested for salmonella and found plenty of it in there.
The report for the Hillandale, the other farm (the one not owned by DeCoster), was much less exciting. There's still a bit of manure, rodents, open holes in the structures, standing water, and lack of record keeping, but it's clearly not as bad as the DeCoster operation.
Today, the FDA issued inspection reports on the two egg farms involved in a recall of half a billion eggs for salmonella contamination, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. Conditions were, shall we say, less than optimal.
The inspectors found manure piles up to 8 feet high, holding doors open and giving wildlife access. "Wildlife" included live rodents, wild birds and a plague of flies, live and dead, including their larvae (maggots). "Additional problems included overflowing manure pits, improper worker sanitation and wild birds [a potential source of avian influenza] roosting around feed bins," reports the New York Times.
The investigators also found salmonella bacteria in chicken feed and in barn and walkway areas, and in water used to wash eggs at a Hillandale facility. It isn't clear, yet, which came first: the salmonella or the egg.
There's more dirt on DeCoster. Recall that in 2000, Iowa named him a "habitual violator," a title that prevented him from opening any new livestock facilities for five years. So he got others to start a new business that couldn't be traced back to him. Then, once his habitual violator title was gone, he took ownership of it. (This is similar to what he did - but got caught for - in Ohio.)
There are some other articles on DeCoster's criminal past in the LA Times and the Des Moines Register. I love the title of the Des Moines Register piece: "DeCosters in Iowa: A checkered legacy." Checkered? How about outright criminal?
So are local eggs safer? Newsweek says "not necessarily." The article is kind of lame. All food carries some risk. Duh. But no small producer who only sells locally will cause 1400+ cases of salmonella across the country and tank the entire egg industry.
I was just on On Point on NPR. As the show ended, I had a few last points I wanted to make but couldn't. So I will make them here.
We had the owner of a very large egg farm on the show, a man who I have no doubt is a wonderful, ethical person who is doing absolutely the best he can to produce quality, safe eggs. And he was making the point that there's nothing wrong with industry consolidation and with one farm having 6 million chickens.
Another guest was Caroline Smith DeWaal of Center for Science in the Public Interest, who spoke about the long delay in getting food safety regulation in place, as well as some of the confusion between having food safety regulated between different federal departments and agencies.
Well, no pun intended, but this is a "chicken and egg" problem. When you have this kind of consolidation with these huge farms, you also have a class of producers who can afford to influence Washington - and influence they do. So then their industries are not well regulated. In this case, you've got food safety split between departments, which is by design - it makes the regulators less efficient. FDA is chronically underfunded. That's by design too.
This isn't just with eggs, it's with all food. And that brings me to another point. One caller brought up vegan diets as a way to avoid eggs. But how about a way to avoid food? Vegans eat too, and the foods they eat also come from highly consolidated industries controlled by relatively few companies with lots of political power.
A very telling example of the problem comes from arsenic pesticides. These were popular after the Civil War until around the 1930's. At that point, food poisoning cases mounted up and many, if not most, Americans suffered from mild to severe symptoms of arsenic poisoning. In the 1950's, DDT came in to mostly replace arsenicals. The other day I looked to see when arsenicals were finally banned. The answer: they weren't. The EPA tried to have a go at banning many of the remaining legal arsenicals in 2006, and by 2009, the cotton industry had successfully lobbied them to continue allowing one of the pesticides they wanted to ban.
Some chemicals are banned. Some industry practices are banned. Some food safety procedures are in place. But until we stop this running game where the regulators are constantly behind industry because industry is lobbying government, we're still doing a lot of harm to ourselves and our environment. It's nice to ban one pesticide, but what's the use if a new toxic pesticide takes its place. It's great to put in place procedures to prevent salmonella outbreaks, but what food safety problem will happen next?
As for the question of producing safe eggs on large farms, I have no reason to assume that Stephen Herbruck, the farmer on the show, wasn't telling the truth that his eggs are safe. They likely are. But are they as healthy as possible? And what's the environmental impact of his model of business? I don't mean to target him - he seemed like a wonderful person - but there is a consequence in flavor, in health, and in environmental impact to the way we produce our food right now.
When I was in Cuba, where most food is produced sustainably on relatively small farms and then sold locally, a Cuban told me she thought eggs from the U.S. "taste like plastic." A chicken in a backyard flock provides fertilizer and eggs, and does so while disposing of bugs and kitchen scraps, thus reducing the amount of commercially grown food the chicken needs to eat. And, according to tests by Mother Earth News, these eggs will be quantifiably healthier than those you buy at the store. Is just having safe food the only standard you want, or do you want healthy, tasty food too?
Also, I have one last point. There was some talk that "you get what you pay for" and consumers want cheap eggs so they are getting them. Well, a look at historical egg prices shows a different picture. Farmgate prices for eggs have been stagnant, and the average egg farmers' profits have been zero or even negative over the past several decades. No wonder they need the volume provided by 6 million hens if they are getting so little profit (if any) per egg! But the share of the egg price that retailers take has been going up and up. Consumers ARE paying more for eggs with each passing year. That money just isn't going to the farmer. If consumers are paying more for eggs, shouldn't they be getting something more for their money? I'd rather see that money go to farmers so they can make production safer, more humane, and more sustainable, not to the retailers so they can stuff it in their pockets.
Over half a billion recalled. From egg operations owned by perpetual law breaker Austin "Jack" DeCoster. If you read this site regularly, there's probably little I can say about this that you don't already know. Especially if you read Tom Philpott over at Grist too, because he has done such a stellar job of reporting on this. I also recommend listening to Patty Lovera and David Kirby on yesterday's Democracy Now. But, if you still aren't satiated, you can check out my long article on Alternet ("Out of Control Egg Producer Flouts Regulations: Consumers Deal with 500 Million Salmonella-Tainted Eggs") with the FULL story on the egg issue.
If the egg recall is anything like the peanut butter recall, we are days or maybe weeks from being treated to disgusting detailed descriptions of the conditions inside the egg operations to blame for this. It's very likely that even if the cause of the salmonella was the feed after all, the egg operations are completely filthy and any descriptions of them will induce nausea. But for now, all we've got is speculation that it's the feed.
Between the years of 1975 - 1976, the Cambodian farmer, Name Name, like most farmers in the country during that time, grew vegetables and rice to feed the soldiers of the Lon Nol regime.
Using his bare hands, Name mixed the chemicals DDT, Folidol, Phostrin and Kontrin in order to keep the pests away from his crops. As a result, he suffered from strange and uncomfortable physical symptoms. Sometimes he was unable to move or feel his hands and lower arms, and he experienced pain in his lungs and heart. His short term memory was also affected. All of these symptoms often persisted for up to six months after exposure to the chemicals.
(Where is our Under Secretary for Food Safety? - promoted by JayinPortland)
I was wrong when I wrote, on Thursday, that one more day remained for the Senate to confirm Elisabeth Hagen to be USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety before recess. The Senate went to recess Thursday evening, next scheduled meeting September 13. I don't know if Pelosi's calling the House back will result in a special Senate session.
The next day, Friday, USDA FSIS announced the recall of another million pounds of frozen ground beef.
UPDATE:President Obama made three recess appointments today (Saturday). Elisabeth Hagen is not one of them. I guess Undersecretary for Food Safety is not a "key administration position."
CORRECTION: I deleted a link attached to the above update, which indicates that three recess appointments were made on August 7, 2010. That is an error by me. Those recess appointments were made July 7, 2010. No appointments have been announced during this recess, as of August 9, 2010.
Earlier this summer, I met with two food poisoning victims from recent famous national outbreaks. The first was about 3-year-old Jake Hurley's bout with salmonella from peanut butter. Here is the second, the story of a lovely woman named Bonita who had the misfortune of eating tainted spinach.
Bonita's food poisoning story has almost nothing in common with Peter's. The pathogens weren't the same, the foods that made them sick weren't the same, but there's a lot more than that. Peter's son, Jake, was exactly who you'd expect to get really, really sick. When foodborne illness strikes, the most susceptible are the very young and the very old. But Jake, thank goodness, didn't even require hospitalization. Bonita was in the prime of life - but if she hadn't gone to the hospital, she would have died. Jake's family had no worries about health insurance and his doctors did the right thing the first time. Bonita had nothing but worries about health insurance, even as she was deathly ill, and several doctors who saw her screwed up. Jake made a full recovery. Bonita didn't. So here's what happened, in Bonita's own words.
I recently had the privilege of interviewing two food poisoning victims, each from famous recent national outbreaks. There are many differences between them, but there are three major similarities: They provided the health departments with the samples that conclusively linked their illness to the tainted food products, they have changed their diets in similar ways to avoid food poisoning in the future, and they are upset that the government has done nothing (YET) to make our food supply safer (but hope the Senate will vote on the food safety bill soon).
Jacob Hurley accompanies his dad to testify before Congress
This is a cute kid. But, if things had gone a little bit differently, he's a cute kid who wouldn't still be here today. I spoke to his dad, Peter, who works as a policeman in Oregon. Jacob (who goes by Jake) was three years old when he got sick.
A few weeks ago now, I had the privilege of hearing Eric Schlosser speak about current problems in our food system at the Consumers Union Activist Summit in Washington, DC. I've transcribed the last section of his speech below (read part 1 and part 2).
Last week, I had the privilege of hearing Eric Schlosser speak about current problems in our food system at the Consumers Union Activist Summit in Washington, DC. I've transcribed the second section of his speech below (read part 1 here). I promise I will transcribe the rest soon.
Last week, I had the privilege of hearing Eric Schlosser speak about current problems in our food system at the Consumers Union Activist Summit in Washington, DC. I've transcribed the first 16 minutes of his speech below. I promise I will transcribe the rest soon. I've ended at this point for a very specific reason. That is, I've ended on one of the most disgusting images Schlosser described in his speech and I'd like to call attention to it. So please read this, and if you don't have time to read the whole thing, skip to the last two paragraphs.
There was one part of this week that was intensely emotional for me, and that was meeting Barbara Kowalcyk. If her name rings a bell, that's because you saw her in Food Inc. She was the mother whose son went from perfectly healthy to dead in the span of a few days due to eating E. coli-tainted beef. When I saw Food Inc. I was newly grieving my brother's death a few months before. Her story just hit me. When I used to see stories of tragedies like that, it made me sad but not overwhelmingly so. It just wasn't even something I could comprehend in order to empathize with it. But now, now I get it.
So, while mingling with other attendees of the Consumers Union Activist Summit, I saw an attractive woman in a lime green top standing a few feet away from me. Upstairs, a crowd was watching Food Inc, which I was skipping because a) I've seen it twice and b) films give me migraines and Food Inc was worth the two migraines I already got from watching it but not a third one. I thought I had heard that Barbara was coming. And I was pretty sure that this woman in green standing near me was her.
So I went up and said, "Have we met yet? I'm Jill." She held her hand out and said "I'm Barbara Kowalcyk." I bypassed her hand and went in for a hug, which I think took her by surprise. But if anyone needs a hug, it's her. My god, she needs more than a hug. She needs her son Kevin back and she needs Kevin's Law to be passed so no other mothers will ever, ever have to experience the hell she's gone through ever again.
The Consumers Union activist crowd can be an emotionally intense group. Lots of people have lost family members due to corporate corruption and greed. This Summit included a mom who lost her son to cancer because he couldn't afford health insurance. Last Summit included a woman whose husband was killed by the drug Zoloft. After these crippling losses (or near losses, in a case of a man I met this week whose son got salmonella from peanut butter last year and lived), these folks somehow find Consumers Union, and Consumers Union makes darn sure that Congress hears their stories (and often the entire nation does too when they get national press coverage).
I wish I couldn't have had the conversation with Barbara that I did. I wish neither of us were so familiar with the topic of losing a family member. It would have been nice to talk rationally and impersonally about the food safety bill, or something like that. But instead we spoke about the process of grieving dead family members - sons and brothers. My brother didn't die because of food poisoning, so there's no bill I can ask Congress to pass that would save brothers for other sisters in America. And I can't say that I know what Barbara is feeling because grief is individual and idiosyncratic and nobody knows what somebody else feels. But I've certainly experienced the hell of losing someone I love, and it outrages me that Barbara has to experience that too and only because some corporation was too cheap and too careless and too sloppy to sell her beef that didn't have E. coli-tainted cow manure in it.
Food safety becomes so much more real when you meet people whose lives were changed - ruined - forever because of the problems that exist in our food supply. It's not a joke. This food safety bill is not a game that we are going to win or lose, like our favorite sports team wins or loses. When the Cubs lose or the Padres lose, nobody dies. But for every day that the food in the U.S. remains unsafe, more people will die. Every single day, more people find themselves in the same situation as Barbara Kowalcyk when they lose children, parents, sisters, brothers, spouses, and friends to food poisoning.
Sadly, the bill that's before the Senate right now - S. 510 - will do roughly NOTHING to make ground beef (or any other beef) safer. It's targeted at the FDA, which regulates 80% of our food supply but not meat and poultry. That's the USDA, which is not included in the bill. To get a bill that addresses the USDA, we'd need to get the House and Senate Ag Committees to take action. And, with their current membership, they won't. Well, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will take action. Thank god for that. But we need more than just her if we're going to get something passed into law.
Back to S. 510, I'd like to see the final bits of E. coli-free sausage finished up before the bill comes to a vote. That is, there's nearly a compromise between those who fear that the bill will harm small farmers and those who fear that any exemption will reduce the bill's power to make our food safe. Let's get that compromise finished up, and then let's put the bill on the Senate floor and have a vote on it. Let's stop letting more Americans die from food poisoning each year than the number who died in 9/11. We went to war over 9/11, and yet food safety isn't even important enough for the Senate to bring it to a vote yet.
With less than 2 weeks notice and during the peak of planting season, the FDA held a listening session in San Antonio, Texas, on the issue of produce standards.
Michael Taylor, FDA's Senior Advisor, was there along with TX Deputy Commissioner of Agriculture Drew DeBerry and TX Associate Commissioner of State Health Services, Ben Delgado. After comments from Mr. Taylor about the FDA's plans to propose regulations for how farmers grow and harvest crops, an industry panel spoke for about an hour. Notably, there was not a single small or organic farmer or representative on the panel. In contrast, the public comments that followed were almost entirely from small farmers.
A young intern videotaped the comments, and we've got about 7 posted on YouTube:
Here's the text of the second Tester amendment to the Food Safety bill, along with the parts of the bill it affects. The first part basically says that any facility grossing under $500,000 per year doesn't have to do a HACCP plan (i.e. a food safety plan). While this section is about processing facilities, NOT FARMS, the exemption will go to small businesses including many small farms that make jam or sundried tomatoes and the like.
The second part says that small facilities (those grossing under $500,000 per year) do not have to follow the new traceability laws other than keeping records of one step forward and one step back (i.e. "I bought these tomatoes from Green Valley Farm and I sold them to ABC Grocery").
On page 133, between lines 17 and 18, insert the following:
(l) DEFERRAL TO STATE REGULATION OF CERTAIN FACILITIES. This section shall not apply to a facility for a year if the average annual adjusted gross income of such facility for the previous 3-year period is less than $500,000.
On page 200, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:
(C) LIMITATION FOR CERTAIN FACILITIES. In the case of a facility, in a year in which the average annual adjusted gross income of such facility for the previous 3-year period is less than $500,000, the recordkeeping requirements under this section shall be limited to records regarding the immediate suppliers and immediate subsequent recipients of such facility.
