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hearings 
Wed Apr 01, 2009 at 13:22:17 PM PDT
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Today the Senate Ag Committee met to confirm three nominees to the USDA: Kathleen Merrigan (Deputy USDA Secretary), Jim Miller (Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services), and Joe Leonard (Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Civil Rights). All three will be confirmed, there is little doubt about that, but the highlight of the hearing for me was when Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) took Merrigan to task for her love of organic agriculture. Just one more reason we need to toss his ass out of the Senate in 2014.
Details below...
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Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 10:30:06 AM PDT
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Today the Senate Ag Committee held a hearing about child nutrition. There were two panels, but I'd like to focus on the second one for now - I'll get to the first one later. The second one involved one health professional and three industry representatives - one for dairy, one for Mars (as in the candy), and one for the American Beverage Association (i.e. soft drinks). Each of the industry reps presented their own special lines of bullshit, and Harkin totally took them to task over it. It was awesome. I wish I had some popcorn to munch while watching!!
UPDATE: If you want to express your thoughts to the Senate Ag committee, the committee # is 202-224-2035.
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Tue Mar 24, 2009 at 11:16:30 AM PDT
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The Senate Foreign Relations committee held an absolutely heinous hearing on global hunger today. It was very specifically focused on hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Here are the true things they said (most of the rest after this is B.S.):
- There are 800mil to 1bil hungry people in the world and 2/3 of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa and S. Asia.
- The world's population is growing
- Many of the hungry are farmers in Africa, many of whom are women, uneducated, and powerless.
- Farmers in Africa lack water for irrigation, petroleum-based fertilizer, GMO or hybrid seeds, pesticides, electricity, and any machinery whatsoever. 70% also live more than 30 minutes walking distance from the nearest road, effectively cutting them off from any markets.
- Global hunger is not just a moral issue, it's also a national security risk.
- White House leadership will be critical in any effort fighting global hunger.
After that, we started to get into chemical-ag-public-relationsland. More below the flip.
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Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 17:08:43 PM PDT
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This morning the House Energy & Commerce committee subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations held a hearing on the salmonella peanut butter outbreak. It was their 3rd in a series of three, this time focused on the companies supplied by Peanut Corporation of America and their lapse in food safety vigilance that allowed this to happen.
Opening statements, written testimony, and documents for the hearing can be found here.
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Thu Mar 12, 2009 at 16:18:58 PM PDT
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Yesterday I posted about the first three to testify at the NAIS hearing in the House Ag Committee - the USDA, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and R-CALF. Here's the next bunch: the National Milk Producers Federation, the American Veterinary Medicine Association, and representatives from Australia and Canada speaking about their versions of NAIS. Unfortunately, the House Ag Committee site does not offer anything that was said by the National Pork Producers Council.
If you are unfamiliar with NAIS, I recommend you start by checking out the New York Times op ed published on it this week. And go here to send the government a piece of your mind. (I'd follow that up with an email to your representative in the House too!)
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Wed Mar 11, 2009 at 17:08:39 PM PDT
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The House Ag Committee has posted the written testimony from today's NAIS hearing. Here's what was said by the first three speakers - one from the USDA, one from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and one from R-CALF.
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Wed Feb 11, 2009 at 11:10:27 AM PST
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Thanks to Obama Foodorama and Civil Eats for their continual updates and entertainment this morning over the peanut hearings on Twitter. See their Twitter feeds below.
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Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 18:49:20 PM PST
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Chris Dodd, the Senator from Connecticut, continues to express concern about childhood obesity. He chairs a subcommittee on Children and Families, and earlier this year he held two hearings on the subject.
This week he was at a forum focused on curbing obesity in children. The really GOOD news about this forum is that it was actually a serious attempt to solve the problem, not some sham put on by fast food companies.
(Thanks to Bill Scher for sending this info my way)
The Preventing Childhood Obesity: A Healthy Imperative for Connecticut's Next Generation site lists speakers that are a foodie's dream come true. For example, here's just the first part of the agenda:
Welcoming Remarks
Dr. J. Robert Galvin, Connecticut Commissioner of Public Health, and
Senator Mary Ann Handley, Public Health Committee Co-Chair, on behalf of the Connecticut Childhood Obesity Council.
Keynote address
Kelly Brownell, Ph.D., Director of the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity: "Is There the Courage to Change the American Diet?"
Address
Gina McCarthy, Connecticut Commissioner of Environmental Protection:
"No Child Left Inside"
Address
Thomas Merrill, General Counsel, New York City Health Department:
"Calorie Labeling in New York City Restaurants"
Success story
Jeanne Goldberg, Ph.D., Professor of Nutrition,
Tufts University School of Nutrition Science & Policy:
"Shape Up Somerville"
The agenda practically looks like a meeting of the Community Food Security Coalition! They also supply a ton of materials, which look like they provide an absolute wealth of information. (For example, check out this paper that ties soft drinks to health problems.) Bravo, Connecticut and Senator Dodd!
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Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 09:02:22 AM PDT
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I <3 Talk Radio News Service for covering the Senate's childhood obesity hearing yesterday! And Chris Dodd for holding the hearing! Dodd called on everyone to view this as what it is: a medical emergency. NOW can the mainstream media stop "showing both sides" when they report on obesity by quoting health officials and then quoting the Big Food lobby in the very next sentence? We don't try to show "balance" about any other epidemic disease.
I applaud Dodd for the quality of the witnesses he called on to testify. Here is what they said during the hearing:
Jeffery Levi, the Executive Director for Trust for America's Health, said that approximately twenty three million children are obese or overweight in the U.S., and rates of obesity have nearly tripled since 1980. He explained that the U.S., as a nation, needs a cultural shift in which healthy environments, physical activity and healthy eating become the norm. Francine Kaufman, a past national president of the American Diabetes Association, said that obesity has reached epidemic proportion in the U.S. Kaufman also said that during the mid-1990s, type 2 diabetes in youth increased ten-fold and mirrored the childhood obesity epidemic. She explained that there is no doubt that obesity in youth, along with its associated medical conditions, is the major health challenge of this century, and more needs to be done to combat it.
Margaret Grey, dean and professor of the Yale School of Nursing, said that this obesity epidemic in youth threatens not only the future of children with chronic diseases and a decreased lifetime, but the epidemic is multi-faceted and will ultimately affect the workforce and thus the economy. Grey explained that obesity and diabetes have physical complications - cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, blindness, and amputations - as well as complications related to quality of life - depression and academic achievement. She also said that this generation of youth cannot survive if Congress continues to pay for the care of their heart attacks, but not for the intensive behavioral care that it will take to reverse the epidemic.
(Emphasis added by diarist)
The American Diabetes Association also posted a press release about the hearing here. You can view the entire hearing for yourself here.
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Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 08:00:00 AM PDT
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Chris Dodd is holding a hearing at 2:30pm EST today to talk about childhood obesity. This will be the first of two hearings on the subject. Dodd chairs the Senate's subcommittee on Children & Families (under the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions).
The good news: they will be hearing from someone from the Yale School of Nursing.
The less good news: They will be hearing from someone from the American Diabetes Association, a group that's been somewhat influenced by "Big Food"
At least they aren't letting Coca-Cola reps testify.
A representative's office I saw today at the Texas State Legislature
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