La Vida Locavore is the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!
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
H.Res.362 [...] expresses the House's support for the goals and ideals of the National School Lunch Program and "recognizes that our pupils deserve access to high-quality, safe, and nutritious meals in school." It passed 403-13, every Democrat and 155 Republicans, including the entire GOP congressional leadership voting in favor.
The roll call reveals the shameful list of 13 Republicans who voted against this resolution: Todd Akin (MO-02), Paul Broun (GA-10), Jason Chaffetz (UT-03), Jeff Flake (AZ-06), Virginia Foxx (NC-05), Scott Garrett (NJ-05), Doug Lamborn (CO-05), Cynthia Lummis (WY-AL), Tom McClintock (CA-04), Ron Paul (TX-14), Ted Poe (TX-02), James Sensenbrenner (WI-05), and John Shadegg (AZ-03).
Usually when a House vote is that lopsided, I can count on Representative Steve King (R, IA-05) to be on the embarrassing end of the roll call. However, I'm happy to report that even the occasionally mean-spirited, uncompassionate, clueless, dare I say cartoon-villain-like King recognizes that "our pupils deserve access to high-quality, safe, and nutritious meals in school."
The Food Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 2749) is on the schedule to come up for a vote either late tomorrow or on Wednesday. The bill will provide us with a major overhaul of the FDA, which regulates the safety of about 80% of our food supply. They will be voting under a suspension of the rules, which means:
To pass under suspension of the rules, a bill must receive the support of 2/3rds of the members voting, a quorum being present. A quorum for purposes of suspensions is 218. If all members are present and voting, we will need 290 YEAs to pass the bill.
I don't know why they are using these special rules, but I have heard from at least one source that we will probably have the votes to pass the bill. What is most important to us right now is to ask our legislators to please support the Farr-Kaptur amendment to the bill, so that the bill is as non-harmful as possible to small producers who do not pose much threat to our food system.
Congressman Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03) used to be a full-time farmer and still owns a farm that raises cattle. On July 13 he testified before the House Committee on Rules in connection with H.R. 1549, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009. I've posted the full text of his testimony after the jump, but here are some highlights of the case he made against new limits on routine use of antibiotics by livestock producers:
1. Science doesn't support blaming the livestock industry for antibiotic resistance. "Pound for pound, humans and their pets use 10 times the amount of antibiotics used in food animal production."
2. "America's livestock, dairy and poultry producers [...] are committed to using antibiotics responsibly and have developed responsible-use guidelines for each of their respective industries."
3. By removing some classes of antibiotics from the market, H.R. 1549 "would require antibiotic sponsors to prove again what has already been proven during their initial FDA approval" and would leave livestock producers with "few, if any, medicines to prevent and control animal disease."
4. Denmark has seen more disease and piglet mortality in its swine herd since a ban on preventive and growth-promoting use of antibiotics went into effect. That has increased the use of therapeutic antibiotics to treat sick animals.
5. Pigs that have been sick during their lives "have a greater presence of food-safety pathogens on their carcasses." Public health could be undermined if we eliminate animal antibiotics.
6. The 2008 Farm Bill provided for more USDA research on antibiotic resistance, and the Animal Drug User Fee Amendments of 2008 require the FDA to collect more information about antibiotic sales. Those provisions should be allowed to work before Congress removes products from the market, as H.R. 1549 would.
Post any relevant comments or rebuttals in this thread.
The House just passed a major budget increase for the chronically-underfunded FDA. Specifically, the FDA is getting an extra $373 million (and the Wall Street Journal calls it "the largest boost in the agency's history")! To put that in perspective, the FDA's entire 2010 budget is $2.99 billion, so it was a about a 14% increase to their budget.
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) told DeLauro that "We're stealing our grandchildren's future by spending so much money," and introduced an amendment to keep funding levels the same. (Wait - wasn't he the guy who wanted to make 2010 the Year of the Bible? Are we supposed to pray the E. coli away?) DeLauro replied that Broun's proposal "in fact would put this agency back in jeopardy. We just cannot afford to neglet our food safety system any longer." Hell yeah, Rep. DeLauro!!!
(I have an idea for Broun - why don't we save our grandkids' money by no longer buying more F-22 fighter jets for the military... these things are the ultimate pork. They have parts made in 44 different states, so Congress keeps ordering more planes to create jobs in their states even though the military says NO MORE F-22s! The F-22 was made to fight the Soviets - but it's not just that they are outdated. They are also complete crap. They only fly an average of 1.7 hours at a time before breaking down! Let's use the money the House just set aside for F-22s for food safety instead.)
Back to the FDA budget story, here's some more info on the budget from the WSJ:
Much of the increase in funding will target food safety initiatives, an area where the FDA has faced numerous challenges in the last year amid concerns as to how the agency responded to a variety of foodborne health problems involving peanuts, pet food and hot peppers. Rep. DeLauro said it will allow the FDA to review more food that enters the country's borders and hire an additional 1,150 foreign and domestic inspections.
Let's start at the beginning, Credit Default Swaps are effectively insurance taken out that pays off if a derivative defaults. The trouble we got into with Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) is that the CDSs were not regulated. The other problem was that people were buying CDSs that didn't own the underlying derivative. This is called a naked CDS which I've heard was about 90% of the total market. Basically this was just gambling, unregulated gambling. Which is rare, because whether it's Vegas, a riverboat, a lottery or online cards, gambling in this country is always regulated and either taxed or made illegal. If it were anyone other than Wall Street betting on these CDSs it would have been shut down or taxed.
What does this have to do with agriculture? The CFTC is one of two regulatory bodies competing for the role of CDS regulator. The CFTC, Commodities Futures Trading Commission is overseen by the House Agriculture Committee.
At Mother Talkers, prgrsvmama26 brings us the news that Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York will reintroduce the Breastfeeding Promotion Act in June. Among other things, this bill would
* Add breastfeeding mothers in the workplace as a protected class under the Civil Rights Act of 1964
* Provide incentives for employers to have private lactation areas for workers
* Create a performance standard for breastpump equipment
* Create tax deductions for pumping equipment
1. Ask your Congress-critter to co-sponsor the bill.
2. If you live close to Washington, D.C., please plan to attend a press conference about the bill on June 3rd at 11:30 am on the Cannon Terrace at the Cannon Office Building, Independence Avenue and 1st Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003. Please RSVP to wchappel@myexcel.com with the number of adults/babies/children attending.
3. After the press conference, visit your representative's office to ask them to support the bill.
4. E-mail wchappel@myexcel.com immediately "if you have a workplace lactation discrimination story you would like to share at the press conference."
On a related note, I just learned last week that many health insurance plans cover the purchase of a breast pump. Pregnant women with insurance should look into this, because a quality breast pump can easily cost $300.
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