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
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:
Lucky us! The FDA has just issued draft guidelines for safe leafy greens, tomatoes, and melons. I have a hunch we'll be talking about these guidelines much more in the near future - as soon as organizations like the Cornucopia Institute, Organic Consumers Association, and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition get a good look at them and start telling us how we can properly comment to the FDA. So stay tuned...
The House Oversight committee Domestic Policy subcommittee will be holding a hearing on the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement on Wednesday, July 29 (tomorrow). We need YOU to give them a call to tell them that you oppose the LGMA and any expansion of it. You may recall the LGMA from a diary I posted a week or so ago called Mass Stupidity Alert: Scorched Earth Food "Safety" Tactics. You can give it a quick once-over again if you'd like, but the gist of it is that the LGMA calls for farmers to rip out hedgerows and discourage any form of life other than their crops anywhere near their fields. The practices are NOT upheld by science and they've been deadly to wildlife without actually preventing E. coli contamination in any meaningful way.
Please give a quick phone call to the committee at 202-225-6427 or fax them at 202-225-2392. The good news is that the subcommittee chair is Dennis Kucinich. If you call, tell the briefly that you oppose the LGMA and any expansion of it because it is harmful to the environment and sustainable agriculture and it is also ineffective. If you want to give them a longer message, either send a fax, or call and ask for an email address you can write your comments to.
At this point, who can forget the 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach? For me, it was a wake-up call. Before that, I had no idea that such a large percent of America's leafy greens came from one area in California (the Salinas valley, in Monterey county). In a way, bagged leafy greens are the ground beef of vegetables. Whereas a steak comes from one cow and a head of lettuce comes from one plant, ground beef can come from hundreds of animals - and bagged leafy greens can come from several different farm fields. If one cow or one farm field has an E. coli problem, the germs get mixed in with the entire batch of ground beef or leafy greens.
The part where this analogy breaks down is that E. coli comes from manure, and spinach doesn't poop. Cows do. Also, E. coli dies at 165F and whereas we (usually) cook beef, we don't always cook leafy greens. At the time of the spinach/E. coli outbreak, somebody jokingly said to me that this was meat-eaters way of killing off the vegetarians (i.e. having their food taint our food, which we would then eat uncooked while they would cook theirs and avoid getting sick).
Obviously, having repeated E. coli outbreaks from leafy greens isn't acceptable. But it's no more acceptable to put in place measures that are bad for organic producers and the environment, which appears to be a distinct possibility in our near future.
Our next step on this will be to wait for a post on the Federal Register from the USDA, and we can send comments there. For now, the only action we can take is to inform ourselves and spread the word.
Workers on one large farm killed 33 deer in a single year. Farmers poisoned ponds to get rid of frogs, ripped out trees and bushes and erected miles of expensive fencing.
But two years of testing wild animals and birds in the region suggests that only a small fraction actually carry the strain of Escherichia coli responsible for the contamination. (Source)
And how many were found to carry E. coli 0157:H7? Less than 1%. This is no surprise to my fellow tree-hugging hippies. We've been protesting the insane "leafy greens" agreement for some time now. After several E. coli outbreaks, farmers were instructed to put up fences and get rid of hedgerows to keep the wildlife away. The Cornucopia Institute warned that they were not acting in the name of science and they were basically acting counter to organic practices. Is now the time when we get to say "I told you so"?
