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
Michelle Obama visited a community garden in San Diego last week and she was featured on the front page of the local paper, the Union Tribune, the next day. I sent in a letter to the editor and urged others to do the same. Ultimately, three letters were published, mine and two others. I was the only food justice advocate who wrote in. The other writers had very different perspectives.
One refers to the case of John Gardner, a convicted sex offender who confessed to murdering 2 teenage girls in San Diego. He murdered them in February but only just confessed. Yet the newspaper put Michelle O on the cover, presumably instead of the murderer.
The same letter refers to the farmers at New Roots (the community farm Obama visited) as immigrants who hardly speak English in a rather derogatory way. That makes me mad, to be honest. These folks are refugees. They aren't people who crossed the border illegally. They came here legally with the help of the International Rescue Committee. No doubt many would rather be in their own countries, which are likely too war-torn to raise children in. And they should certainly be commended for growing their own food to provide their children with healthy diets.
The other letter is just plain insulting. Why does Michelle Obama need a staff with aides? Well if you think her job as First Lady is to stay home and to cook and clean at the White House and look pretty in photo ops, perhaps she wouldn't need aides. But that's not the role of the First Lady these days. Hillary Clinton took on health care. Michelle Obama has worked with military families and now she's focusing on children's health. If you want to look at a waste of taxpayer dollars, look to the Pentagon, not at the First Lady.
See the original article here and the letters that were published below.
Michelle Obama is visiting San Diego to promote her campaign against childhood obesity.
The first lady will tour the New Roots Community Farm on Thursday afternoon as she promotes her campaign to encourage healthy eating for youngsters.
New Roots is the project of The IRC (International Rescue Committee), which is staffed by local heroes like Amy Lint and Ellee Igoe. They had to work like dogs to get this farm started and it's now the subject of a coordinated grassroots campaign to reform the city's laws around urban ag and community farms. You see, it cost tens of thousands of dollars to start this farm before spending any money on tools, seeds, or anything else. All that money was just to get through the various permitting processes required by the City of San Diego.
I don't have the details exactly, but it sounded to me that you need a good $10,000 or so to get a water meter installed, and then after that, you have to deal with various regulations that were not made with urban ag in mind at all. If you want to put up a structure, the city's laws were made for someone developing a condo building, not a tool shed. If you say you're doing agriculture, the city's laws worry about pesticide and fertilizer run-off, which isn't an issue if you're using sustainable methods. And so on and so on. At one point, San Diego even called a moratorium on new community gardens due to our water shortage - even though swimming pools, golf courses, and green lawns are all a-OK.
Despite this, the IRC still created New Roots Community Farm, which I believe is about 2 1/2 acres located in the City Heights neighborhood (an area with lots of immigrants from diverse backgrounds). I believe all of the folks who farm at New Roots are immigrants, often from Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
In another project, The IRC teamed up with Tierra Miguel (an absolutely amazing local farm) to provide Somali Bantu immigrants with a few acres at Tierra Miguel where they can farm. Tierra Miguel isn't as close to home as New Roots (it's quite a drive from San Diego actually), but the program's a huge success. From what I hear, quite a few of the elderly Somali Bantu immigrants had farming backgrounds and, without land to farm, felt lonely and depressed in their new country, surrounded by a new culture. Tierra Miguel offers them an escape from isolation and depression, and it also allows them to pass down their farming skills to their grandchildren and to provide their families with healthy food.
So I don't know what Michelle Obama will see or talk about when she's here, but I hope she learns a little about the background of the farm. The folks who made New Roots happen deserve the recognition they are getting today, and so do the farmers at New Roots. Now maybe the city government will pay attention to the First Lady, and get their heads out of their asses and fix local policies. (Last I heard, the city was saying that they've streamlined the urban ag permitting process and now all they need is a guinea pig with several thousand bucks to try it out and see if it is indeed better.)
A few weeks ago, Michelle Obama addressed the Grocery Manufacturers Association about her Let's Move program to reduce childhood obesity (transcript at the link). The major result of this has been that opportunistic corporations like PepsiCo have made flashy announcements about plans to make their junk food slightly less junky (but still junky) and the media has sung their praises. Junk food makers don't deserve praise for making slightly less-bad junk. Yet they get it all the time. Every time they put out a flashy press release making promises to remove the trans-fat or add one gram of whole grains to their products, that's what happens.
Unfortunately, they limit the length of comments. I intend to submit several. I've pasted my first submission below. I'd do more now so that you could skim them to get ideas, but I've got to run because we're taking the kids to see Peter Pan tonight. So please do me a favor - submit comments to Let's Move and then paste what you submitted in the comments here so that everyone can brainstorm together. Thanks!
This week Michelle Obama made big headlines by announcing a childhood obesity effort. There's a lot of analysis to be done on this, comparing her efforts with the overall work of the administration on childhood obesity, but for now, I'll just give you the news.
In addition to the high profile media coverage of Michelle Obama's campaign, the actual work will be done by a new government-wide Task Force on Childhood Obesity that was created when President Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum to establish it this week. They've got 90 days to review everything the government is doing on childhood obesity and then come up with an action plan and track their progress. In the meantime, Michelle is also working with a variety of interest groups, including pediatricians and corporations. She's established Let's Move.gov as a one-stop-shop for healthy recipes, exercise plans, and charts parents can use to track their family's progress. And she wants to improve school lunch via the Child Nutrition Reauthorization and eliminate "food deserts" (areas where there's no healthy food available). She's also working on getting people to exercise more.
For more info (including links to transcripts and videos), keep reading below.
The bill that will govern school lunch is called the Child Nutrition Reauthorization. Below, I've included a few things we can ask Congress to put in the bill, as well as some favorite resources for learning more about school lunch.
Spanish Woman Dies of Mad Cow: Spain found its fourth case of vCJD, the human version of mad cow disease. Authorities say the woman contracted the disease before Spain tightened regulations in 2001.
Most Campylobacter Due to Livestock: Scientists have proven that 97% of food poisonings from Campylobacter are from cattle and poultry (as opposed to wild animals). Campylobacter causes at least 2-3 million cases of food poisoning in the US each year according to the study (although food poisoning cases are often underestimated because few people report them to local health officials).
Study Finds Increase in Type 2 Diabetes in Kids: Formerly called "adult-onset" diabetes, Type 2 diabetes is now on the rise in kids. A study of North Dakotan kids found that diabetes increased from 0.28% to 0.45% (a 60% increase) between 2003 and 2007. Of those cases of diabetes, the amount estimated to be Type 2 went from 23% to 31%. I'd like to see them try that same study in a low income minority community somewhere. They'd be blown away.
Another E. Coli Outbreak: Illinois and Michigan, Lettuce. People are sick in both states. The lettuce comes from a company in Michigan. How many times does this need to happen before we get the reforms we need?
I was just listening to a radio program called How We Eat and the Slow Food Nation when I got a phone call from Eddie C. The program is a conversation moderated by Eric Schlosser with panelists Alice Waters, Anya Fernald, Bertram Lubin, and Harold Goldstein about the Slow Food movement and children's health.
As I was listening to Alice speak about the power of good food, Eddie's phone call proved her point. Yesterday I sent around an email to several friends in San Francisco and one in New York (Eddie) about a Slow Food Nation event (text of the email is pasted below), an Eat-In that is a collaboration between Slow Food Nation and Outstanding in the Field. What was Eddie's phone call about? He's buying his plane tickets and he's going to San Francisco. Slow Food Nation was already going to be fantastic, but with Eddie there it will be a thousand times better (for me, at least!).
Click the link above to hear the radio show (it's wonderful and very worth listening to), and give me a heads up if you'll be in SF Labor Day Weekend.
