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
The fight for safer food has officially kicked off. As I wrote yesterday, we've got a bill. Well, a draft of a bill, anyway. It's the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 and it's being introduced by Henry Waxman along with Representatives John Dingell, Bart Stupak, Diana DeGette, Frank Pallone, and Betty Sutton.
To take stock of the fight we're going to have, I began digging around lobbying records. Who's for what, and how much money are they spending. Let's see here:
Company
Amount (Total Lobbying, Not Just Food Safety) First quarter 2009 only
Food Marketing Institute
Kraft Foods
Grocery Manufacturers Association
Nestle
Sodexo
Miller/Coors
National Restaurant Association
3M
PepsiCo
Safeway
General Mills
Consumers Union
Center for Science in the Public Interest
But wait! Before you get worried that industry is outspending consumer advocacy groups and the lobbyists are trying to kill this legislation - apparently Kraft, Kellogg, and General Mills are now FOR food safety reform! Even the Grocery Manufacturers sound open to it. My hunch? First of all, these guys see the changes coming down the pike no matter what. They want to sound agreeable so that they can make sure that whatever reform occurs is to their own liking.
And second of all, they lost a lot of money from the peanut butter incident. So in that sense, they really DO want safe food. But in the hearings thus far, they definitely sounded hesitant about how much regulation they were actually interested in. Kellogg sounded particularly uncomfortable with unannounced inspections, user fees paid to the FDA to cover the cost of inspections, and microbial testing for pathogens. Remember, their #1 priority isn't food safety, it's profit. They are only interested in food safety as a means to that end.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the food industry, supports much of the legislation but objects to a $1,000 annual registration fee that would be required of all food facilities to help pay for the FDA's increased oversight. The association also objects to some of the tracing requirements, saying they would create a financial burden.
The peanut butter recall has GREATLY expanded since yesterday. If you have any processed foods with peanut butter in them in your home, I strongly encourage you to check the list of recalled foods (below). You can find specific lot numbers, stock numbers, and UPC codes for these at the official FDA website.
The peanut butter recall continues. The FDA has an updated list of all recalled products, which I've included below. As it turns out, Peanut Corporation of America - the company that supplied the bad peanut butter to everyone else - sells organics and pet food products in addition to just regular, plain old peanut butter. Also, where the original recall only included relatively small size containers of peanut butter by PCA, now the recall includes sizes like 1700 lbs and entire tankers. As a result, the recall of retail products now includes candy, cookies, crackers, ice cream, pet food, and snack bars!
The salmonella in peanut butter problem just gets bigger and bigger. It started with a recall by Peanut Corporation of America, with no consumer products affected. Then Kellogg recalled a few Keebler and Austin products because they buy from PCA. Now PCA has added more products to their recall, which means Kellogg has to expand their recall...
and Kellogg manufactures a few products for McKee Foods (Little Debbie brand) so now McKee is in on the recall as well. Can you say "oy vey"???
Kellogg says it is not aware of any tainted products but it is taking this measure as a precaution because PCA is one of its suppliers. Kudos to them, if that's the case. Since my earlier diary, the food poisoning tally has gone up - from "almost 400" to "at least 410" people, and from 42 to 43 states. I've also heard anecdotally that the problem has spread to Canada.
The Kellogg products that are being taken off shelves are Keebler & Austin brand:
Toasted Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Crackers
Cheese and Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers
Peanut Butter-Chocolate Sandwich Crackers.
Great article: Will there be GMO sugar in your candy? describes Hershey's lack of an answer about whether or not they will use sugar from GM beets in their products. In the past, Hershey, Mars, and others did NOT want to use sugar from GM beets and actually kept the beets "out of the ground."
Now? Sounds like they gave up. The article's author had an incredibly hard time getting answers, but the non-answers she did on whether candy makers will use sugar from GM beets get roughly amounted to "do we really have a choice?" Sigh. Good for Organic Consumers for calling for a boycott.
"1) OCA and numerous other faith-based, consumer advocacy, and farmer focused organizations actually have carried out letter writing campaigns since Fall of 2007, urging Kellogg's, M&M Mars, Hershey's and other corporations to not source GE sugar beets. OCA network members, for example, have sent over 15 thousand letters to Kellogg's before we considered launching a boycott of Kellogg's products.
2) OCA has targeted Kellogg's specifically for several reasons. First, Kellogg's actually produces food that is widely consumed in the United States. M&M/Mars and Hershey's are candy/junk food companies that have a very small percentage of their overall line dedicated to food items. The real nutritional impact of junk food companies switching from genetically engineered high-fructose corn syrup to genetically engineered sugar (sourced from sugar beets) would be relatively insignificant in the big picture
If you shop at a farmers' market, a boycott is easy. Kind of like they say... "I've been boycotting Mercedes for years!" But watch out - Kellogg owns Morningstar Farms, a leading vegetarian brand that sells fake meat. Here is a list of all Kellogg products.
