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Tom Harkin 
Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 18:00:00 PM PST
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Well, it took a little longer in the Senate than in the House, but the Dems came out with their Ag Committee roster:
1. Tom Harkin, of Iowa, Chairman
2. Patrick J. Leahy, of Vermont
3. Kent Conrad, of North Dakota
4. Max Baucus, of Montana
5. Blanche L. Lincoln, of Arkansas
6. Debbie Stabenow, of Michigan
7. E. Benjamin Nelson, of Nebraska
8. Sherrod Brown, of Ohio
9. Robert P. Casey, Jr., of Pennsylvania
10. Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota
11. Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York
12. Michael Bennet, of Colorado
The Republicans are:
1. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) Ranking Member
2. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana
3. Thad Cochran, Mississippi
4. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky
5. Pat Roberts, Kansas
6. Mike Johanns, Nebraska
7. Charles Grassley, Iowa
8. John Thune, South Dakota
9. Vacant seat (What - are they still hoping Norm Coleman wins his race?)
Meanwhile, the House finally nailed down its ag subcommittees.
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Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 13:21:19 PM PST
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Today, the Senate Ag Committee held the confirmation hearing for Tom Vilsack. I would expect that the process involves the Ag Committee questioning Vilsack and then voting on him, followed by a vote by the full Senate. Typically, the committee's vote to send the nominee to the full Senate for a vote is accompanied by a recommendation to the Senate to confirm that person. (An exception was in the case of John Bolton, in which the committee voted to let the full Senate vote but did NOT recommend that they confirm him.) Vilsack should have absolutely no problems. I've heard that the questions asked at the hearing weren't exactly tough and probing...
UPDATE: If you missed the Vilsack hearing, the recorded webcast is now available online (thanks to Aliza Wasserman for giving me the link!). Political junkies and foodies, enjoy!!
Below, find some excerpts from Tom Harkin's statement at the Vilsack hearing.
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Sun Nov 16, 2008 at 00:35:25 AM PST
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Tonight I discovered the fun of Thomas.gov, the Library of Congress website. Want to know what our friends in Washington are up to? Thomas will tell you. In my case, I was searching for something that I couldn't find, but I ended up stumbling upon a bunch of really great bills that Tom Harkin has proposed this year. They are:
S.771: A bill to amend the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 to improve the nutrition and health of schoolchildren by updating the definition of "food of minimal nutritional value" to conform to current nutrition science and to protect the Federal investment in the national school lunch and breakfast programs.
If I've got the facts right, you can't serve "foods of minimal nutritional value" in schools, but the way they define "foods of minimal nutritional value" allows you to basically serve whatever you want. Cheetos? Mountain Dew? No problem. Under government definitions, those aren't foods of minimal nutritional value (so what is? tree bark?). Good on Harkin for proposing this! Unfortunately, after gaining 32 co-sponsors, it went to the Ag committee and died there.
More below.
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Fri Oct 17, 2008 at 09:17:48 AM PDT
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cross-posted at Bleeding Heartland
I learned today from the Public News Service that Jon Bailey of the Center for Rural Affairs
has done an analysis of the 2008 Farm Bill, and found 233 times more spending on commodity subsidies than on rural development.
"Initiatives that would help start businesses, create jobs, make communities attractive places for people to relocate to, were left out of the farm bill."
In contrast, Bailey notes, the Farm Bill allocates $35 billion for commodity subsidies, which makes the amount for revitalizing rural areas seem paltry.
"There are only three programs totaling $150 million for rural development in the final Farm Bill. Rural development got the very short end of the stick."
Bailey noted that the 2002 Farm Bill included "more than $1 billion in mandatory spending for rural development programs."
If you go to this page at the Center for Rural Affairs, you can find a link to a pdf version of the full report.
As much as I admire Senator Tom Harkin, I was very disappointed by how the Farm Bill (officially known as the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008) turned out. I have no idea what can be done to get Congress to redirect government funding toward sustainable farming practices and programs that improve the quality of life in rural areas.
Meanwhile, Susan Heathcote, the water program director of the Iowa Environmental Council and a member of the state Environmental Protection Commission, wrote a good guest editorial for the Des Moines Register about the need for better monitoring of drinking-water sources.
She mentioned two recent incidents of conventional farming polluting drinking water in the Des Moines area. Farms 80 miles upstream contributed to high ammonia levels found in the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers last spring, and a cyanobacteria "algae bloom" prompted the Des Moines Water Works to stop drawing from the Raccoon River in August.
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Sun Jul 27, 2008 at 12:46:11 PM PDT
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Senators Tom Harkin, Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy, Jeff Bingaman, and Barbara Mikulski just introduced the Federal Obesity Prevention Act of 2008 into Dodd's subcommittee on Children & Families:
The Federal Obesity Prevention Act of 2008 was developed to respond to the recommendations of public health experts and organizations, including the Institute of Medicine and Trust For America's Health, which have called for more coordinated, sustained federal leadership to address the obesity crisis. The legislation establishes an interagency task force of department Secretaries or other high level officials to fill that need. The task force will:
1. Establish a government-wide strategy for preventing and reducing overweight and obesity that includes defining clear roles, responsibilities, and accountability for all agencies of the Federal Government;
2. Coordinate effective interagency coordination and priorities for action among Federal agencies, including short-term and long-term goals for childhood and adult obesity rates; and
3. Implement and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy.
Members of the task force will include the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Education, Transportation, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Interior, and Labor as well as the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.
Let's keep an eye on this and see if it goes anywhere. Then we'll have to see who gets appointed to the task force if it passes, to see if they will actually take the steps needed to curb our obesity epidemic.
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Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 08:00:00 AM PDT
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Tom Harkin is an important man to know if you care about your food. As the chair of the Senate ag committee, he holds a lot of power over our food system. He's also very often the best hope we have for improving our food system. (While he's not the most progressive elected representative, he is the often the most progressive person in a position of power.)
Tom Harkin (D-IA)
Tom is a 4th term Senator who won his last election with 54% of the vote. He was born in Cumming, IA, on November 19, 1939. He is Catholic and he received his law degree at Catholic University in 1972. He served in the Navy from 1962-1967 and in the reserves from 1968-1970. Before he was elected to the Senate, he was an attorney. He is married and his wife's name is Ruth.
In 2007, his committee (and the full Senate) passed a much more progressive Farm Bill than the House did. He is supportive of conservation programs and, under his leadership, the Senate passed the very first livestock title in the Farm Bill with provisions to make the market less unfair to small producers.
Contact Information
DC Office: 202-224-3254 (phone); 202-224-9369 (fax)
District Offices: 515-284-4574 (Des Moines); 319-365-4504 (Cedar Rapids); 563-322-1338 (Davenport); 563-582-2130 (Dubuque); 712-252-1550 (Sioux City)
Chief of Staff: Brian Ahlberg
Scheduler: Amy Beller
Legislative Director: Pam Smith
Communications Director: Jennifer Mullin
Congresspedia Entry on Tom Harkin
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