Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/category/opinion/)
It’s no secret to anyone paying attention that the POTUS is the nation’s science and climate change denier-in-chief. It’s a given undisputed fact at this point. But sometimes behind the scene what government does compared to what the POTUS says are two vastly different things. Four years ago the 2016 Republican Party Platform was crystal clear when it comes to governmental action on climate change:
Now there's a chance to right some of these wrongs. Last month USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service published a proposed rule in the Federal Register looking to improve organic integrity. The National Organic Program; Strengthening Organic Enforcement rule aims to provide greater certainty for consumers that when a product says it's organic it actually is organic.
If you live in one of our nation’s urban areas – Miami, Austin, Los Angeles, New York or Portland you might have seen on T-V this little ditty promoting Burger King's newest offering, the “Wopper with Reduced Methane Emissions Beef.”
Let's all sing along:
“When cows fart and burp and splatter,
Well, it ain’t no laughing matter.
They’re releasing methane every time they do.
And that methane from the rear goes up to the atmosphere,
And pollutes our planet, warming me and you.”
California voters said not only must in-state farmers raise calves, pigs, and chickens in a humane way, but that out-of-state Big Meat and Egg producers must also meet Prop 12 standards in order to sell shelled and liquid eggs, uncooked pork from breeding pigs and veal from calves to California wholesales and retailers.
There’s going to be lots of questions from farmers and concerned environmental groups surrounding Bayer’s new dicamba formulation. Certainly Bayer doesn’t want to be put through the wringer if it can help it.
North Carolina thought they had it wired – a Teflon ag-gag law –Chief Justice Thomas Schroeder wasn’t buying what ALEC, North Carolina attorney general, and North Carolina Farm Bureau were selling.
Smithfield’s ad, which was published the Washington Post Omaha World-Herald, and New York Times, begins with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts … the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”
If that’s not enough the Department of Justice has subpoenaed Big-Meats “big four” – Tyson Foods, JBS SA, Cargill, and National Beef/Marfrig – in an attempt to learn if there’s been price fixing hanky-panky during the COVID-19 crisis. The subpoenas come at the request of Attorneys general from North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Missouri, Idaho, and Arizona and South Dakota who collectively can’t figure out what the heck is going on with cattle prices in the last several months.
The Inspector General report released last month found USDA “neither ensured that the data in the proposed rule were presented in an accurate manner nor disclosed all known limitations of the data.”
A pre-trial hearing on the merits of Bayer's settlement conditions is being held later this week. Presiding district judge Vince Chhabria – who's handling the class action lawsuit – has all but slam-dunked Bayer back to the drawing board.