Stories Of Government Working

After a minor stumble, the House today passed the Food Safety Enhancement Act, which would bolster the Food and Drug Administration's efforts to ensure food that's not contaminated and vomit-inducing. La Vida Locavore has more. Basically, the bill would properly fund the FDA to carry out their mission, paid for by the food producers, and would enact stringent performance standards for food producers, with mandatory trace-back systems and frequent inspections of facilities. And it would apply the standards for domestic food safety to imported food as well.

Given how pretty much almost everyone in America eats food, and given the high profile of food outbreaks during the age of e.coli conservatism, if this gets through the Senate I would hope that somebody would let the public know. It ain't health care reform, but it's an important measure with a tangible effect on people's lives. I'll give you a couple others. The stimulus package provided $100 million dollars for the nation's food banks to make sure the truly needy could find food this year during these economic struggles. Food assistance is up about 30% this year over last year, and so providing some stimulus funds to feed people has a real human benefit, in addition to allowing the hungry some breathing space to get back on their feet. And the House pumped in some more money for highway and unemployment funds, so that people who are jobless can continue to access benefits and construction projects in the states can continue.

We have a problem with the conservative demonization of government, mainly because too few people are out there telling the story of government when it works. It makes it easier to lift the heavy policy objects when you restore a little bit of trust that when government is properly organized and managed it can actually help people.

This is another failure that liberals would be wise to counteract.

UPDATE: The roll call. The food safety bill passed 283-142. A few House liberals voted against it, I'd be interested to hear their thoughts.

UPDATE: The President:

"Today the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, legislation that will raise food safety standards, allow the FDA to issue mandatory recalls of harmful products, and enhance our oversight of imported food.

This action represents a major step forward in modernizing our food safety system and protecting Americans from foodborne illness. Those are the goals of the Food Safety Working Group I convened in March and charged with making recommendations to improve our food safety system. And that is why we announced a new rule to control Salmonella contamination in eggs and are working to reduce the presence of harmful pathogens such as E. coli in meat and produce; strengthen our capacity to trace the source of outbreaks; and update our emergency operations procedures.

I commend the House of Representatives for its action today and look forward to working with the Senate to enact critical food safety legislation."

This stuff matters too.

Prioritize The Populism

Out of nowhere, the Obama Administration and its federal agencies have started to crack down on speculation and monopolies, while improving individual safety. These populist positions deserve pride of place from the White House; they should talk a lot more about them.

Hold a press event about stopping oil speculation:

In a big departure from the hands-off approach to market regulation of the last two decades, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler, said his agency would consider new limits on the volume of energy futures contracts that purely financial investors would be allowed to hold.

The agency also announced that it would pull back part of the veil on the oil and gas markets, publishing more detailed information about the aggregate activity of hedge funds and traders who arbitrage between domestic and foreign energy prices.

....Oil prices have swung wildly in the last year, hitting about $145 a barrel last summer, then plunging to $33 in December before rising to about $70.

....A growing number of critics have blamed some of the extreme volatility on the role of purely financial investors — those who are simply betting on the direction of energy prices, as opposed to those who actually use such products, like airlines....Non-commercial traders accounted for almost a fifth of the activity in several major oil and gas products for the week that ended June 30, according to data compiled by the commodities agency.

Matt Taibbi, in his great story on Goldman Sachs, writes about how last year, "a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed." That's just unconscionable, and the CFTC has a role to play in dialing that back.

Furthermore, the President should deliver a live speech on telecom monopolies:

The U.S. Justice Department has begun looking at big telecom companies to try to determine if they have abused their market power, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition Monday.

The journal, which cited people familiar with the matter, said that the Antitrust Division's review was in its very early stages and was not official.

Lawmakers have recently raised questions about whether large wireless carriers were hurting smaller rivals by entering exclusive agreements with the makers of popular phones.

I think they could reel in a lot of people by telling them they shouldn't have to change carriers to use an iPhone.

Finally, rather than a fact sheet and a webcast, how about a prime-time special on food safety?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is issuing a final rule to control Salmonella contamination of eggs during production. This rule is estimated to reduce the number of foodborne illnesses associated with consumption of raw or undercooked contaminated shell eggs by approximately 60%, or 79,000 illnesses every year, and will generate annual savings of over $1 billion [...]

Stepped Up Enforcement in Beef Facilities: FSIS is issuing improved instructions to its workforce on how to verify that establishments handling beef are acting to reduce the presence of E. coli. Also, FSIS is increasing its sampling to find this pathogen, focusing largely on the components that go into making ground beef.

Preventing Contamination of Leafy Greens, Melons, and Tomatoes: By the end of the month, FDA will issue commodity-specific draft guidance on preventive controls that industry can implement to reduce the risk of microbial contamination in the production and distribution of tomatoes, melons, and leafy greens. These proposals will help the Federal government establish a minimum standard for production across the country. Over the next two years, FDA will seek public comment and work to require adoption of these approaches through regulation [...]

Building a National Traceback and Response System: A system that permits rapid traceback to the source of foodborne illness will protect consumers and help industry recover faster. Yet despite the dedicated efforts of food safety officials across the country, our current capacity to traceback the sources of illness suffers from serious limitations [...]

Improving Organization of Federal Food Safety Responsibilities: Building a more effective safety system requires federal agencies to improve management of their food safety responsibilities and coordinate more effectively with each other.

I hear that the President's approval rating is sinking in Ohio. They are experiencing a terrible economy like the rest of the country, but they also see bank bailouts without the same attention paid to the auto industry, and think they're getting the shaft. Maybe if they knew that their government was trying to stop oil speculation to lower the price of their gas, stop the phone companies from ripping them off, and stop food manufacturers from making them sick, they'd have a little more comfort that their President is on their side.

Food Safety And Its Consequences

It is exceedingly smart for the President to tackle food safety in his weekly address. The Twitterers in Washington will yelp "But how can he take on something ELSE?" But I'm going to go ahead and guess that 100% of Americans eat food. And the e. coli conservatism of the Bush years had a real and profound effect on people. There's a lady on my street who I see walking my dog every now and again, and one of her dogs died from the melamine scandal a couple years back. Here in California, the tainted spinach scare of 2007 cost the state's farmers hundreds of millions of dollars. It's astonishing that we have had to worry for so long about the quality of the food we purchase, and it contributes to this anti-government backlash that they are incompetent and unable to deal with even core functions.

And that was true - under an executive branch that didn't regulate and didn't care about food safety. But this executive branch will. And Obama's opening paragraph of his weekly address signals that government is vital and needs to be treated with seriousness and respect.

I’ve often said that I don’t believe government has the answer to every problem or that it can do all things for all people. We are a nation built on the strength of individual initiative. But there are certain things that we can’t do on our own. There are certain things only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and don’t cause us harm. That is the mission of our Food and Drug Administration and it is a mission shared by our Department of Agriculture, and a variety of other agencies and offices at just about every level of government.

In the address Obama announced the appointment of Margaret Hamburg as the new head of the FDA. She has a long record in government, including a stint as New York's health commissioner. Her deputy, Joshua Sharfstein, is the Baltimore Health Commissioner. They are serious people who are not former lobbyists or executives of the industries they will regulate, and they will get the proper staffing and funding to actually carry out the mission of the department.

People have lost faith in our institutions. A more competent and successful FDA may seem small, but it's part of an effort to restore trust in government, as the only entity big enough for numerous tasks. Proven ability in making food safer and more secure can lead to proving that government can administer health care or implement a workable system to fight global warming. With e. coli conservatism demonizing the functions of government for so long, it's vital to see some pushback.

The address is below.



UPDATE: Here's a really good part of this - banning downer cows from the food supply. This is a health initiative, not just public safety.

Hunger Strike For CEO Parnell

I thought that the banksters' hearing would be the best in the House yesterday, but actually the hearing with the Georgia peanut plant owner was much more interesting - and enlightening.

As salmonella illness began spreading across the country last fall, the owner of a Georgia peanut plant that was causing the outbreak railed against the cost and delays that the contamination was causing his businesses, according to internal company documents obtained by Congress.

Stewart Parnell, president of Peanut Corporation of America, also pressed federal regulators to allow him to continue using peanuts from the tainted plant and shipped contaminated products to customers with a homemade certificate that falsely attested to their purity, according to e-mails and memos made public yesterday at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Parnell, whose Virginia-based company is at the center of a massive food-contamination scandal and a federal criminal investigation, was compelled by subpoena to appear before lawmakers but refused to answer questions [...]

Federal regulators at the hearing called Parnell's actions "unconscionable"; several lawmakers called them criminal.

"This is a company that cared more about the financial bottom line than it did about the safety of its customers," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee chairman.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) held up a large jar wrapped in yellow police tape stamped "Caution" and filled with some of the 1,900 peanut products that have been recalled as a result of the contamination. "I'm going to ask Mr. Parnell if he'd like to open this and sample some of the products that he thought it was okay for others to eat," Walden said.

Parnell, who showed no emotion, did not respond to Walden's invitation. Instead, he repeated the only line he spoke at the hearing: "Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer your questions based on the protections afforded me under the U.S. Constitution." (emphasis mine)

Parnell was actually on an advisory board on PEANUT QUALITY under Bush's Department of Agriculture.

If nothing else, the change in Administration portends a return to federal agencies and watchdogs actually performing their core functions again. President Obama has already called for a full review of the FDA and said that the government is too slow in tracking tainted food. I believe the President values competence and will do his best to remedy this.

One thing, though... this hearing took place in Henry Waxman's House Energy and Commerce Committee. Clearly it's more of a job for the Oversight Committee, though obviously the commerce of food makes it germane. These are the types of hearings Waxman held all the time at Oversight. Does he have to hold two gavels now? Is Ed Towns alive?

World Report

This has been a long time coming.

• Gaza: Gazans are quickly rebuilding the smuggling tunnels, making one wonder why 1,300 Palestinians had to die in what amounts to a large war crime, for no strategic gains. This of course hurts the chances for peace from Israel's perspective as well, as Bibi Netanyahu can demagogue that the current leaders "didn't finish the job" in Gaza, and as Prime Minister, he would. It's a sad pattern that wars embarked upon by "liberal" Israeli politicians do nothing but strengthen the hand of neoconservatives. I find the American engagement into the peace process promising, but without any partners, its success will be limited.

• Zimbabwe: Yet another failure to form a unity government while the countryside suffers from hyper-inflation and cholera attacks. Mugabe simply won't give up power, and the long-term crisis under his rule have to be a factor in the other nations in the region forcing his removal. I can't see how he stays on. There's a Southern African Development Conference summit this week - the other nations have a responsibility to the Zimbabwean people, let's see if they commit to it.

• Iraq: I have no idea what Ryan Crocker thinks he's accomplishing with this statement, warning against an "abrupt troop withdrawal" while simultaneously assuring everyone that Obama isn't doing that. Thanks, Ambassador, for boldly warning against the impact of a non-existent takeover of the government from a non-existent liberal hippie brigade calling for a non-existent immediate airlift of every US soldier. God, these guys are incompetent.

• Somalia: Nobody could have predicted that, when the Ethiopians invaded Somalia, they would soon pull out and leave the country to the same Islamists they went in to "vanquish." I hope the new Administration learns that you work for peace with the elements in a country who can actually enforce it. Creating "transitional authorities" never works.

• China: Man, the Chinese authorities don't mess around when their corporate executives screw up, do they? The death penalty for the head of the dairy implicated in the tainted milk scandal? Ouch.

• Congo: This is very good news in the bloodiest conflict in the world (also the bloodiest one you never hear about):

It seems the government of Rwanda cut a deal with the government of Congo to form an agreement to crack down on Hutu militias the Rwandans don’t like and have Rwanda turn on its proxy, the rebel leader Laurent Nkunda who Rwanda used to fight the Hutus but who’d been making all sorts of trouble and attempting, as Rwanda-backed rebels in Congo tend to, to overthrow the central government.

This is generally seen as an unexpected but positive move. Among African nations who are weary of war, perhaps Congo is the weariest.

• Sri Lanka: It looks like the Sri Lankan army is going to wrap up a successful counter-insurgency, now seizing Tamil Tiger strongholds and breaking the back of the rebels. Somebody should pay a visit to Colombo and find out how they did it. Hopefully the civilian casualties in this long-running war will stop.

Gotta Love It

Retiring House Republican (which is to say, House Republican, since they're all retiring) Tom Davis:

"The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they'd take it off the shelf."

This is what you get when you persistently lie for political gain to the point where you become totally untrustworthy, use government for nothing more than profit-taking and come to Washington with the idea that government is bad, necessarily producing bad government.

The president of the Chino meatpacking plant that triggered the largest beef recall in U.S. history admitted Wednesday that crippled cows, which are more likely to carry disease, probably entered the food supply at his company.

"Obviously my system broke down," said Steve Mendell, president of Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., once a major supplier to the school lunch program.

Mendell initially told a House oversight subcommittee that "downer" cows at his plant "were not slaughtered, ground or sold."

But after lawmakers screened a graphic undercover video that showed ailing cows being jabbed with electric prods, beaten and rolled with forklifts toward slaughter, Mendell acknowledged that the four-minute clip did indeed show that at least two cows were processed into food.

The Humane Society had to sniff this one out because the FDA was busy not doing anything.

We have a President whose 2008 legislative agenda is to throw out lawsuits. I mean that's the whole agenda.

So, the question I have is whether or not Tom Davis is SURPRISED that their brand is rancid dog food. From China. That got into the country because Republican regulatory agencies didn't properly inspect it.

E. Coli Conservatism

By now you've heard about the 134 million pound recall of beef, after a Humane Society video showed employees at a slaughterhouse abusing downer cows and forcing them into the food supply.

The recall applies to beef slaughtered at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. since Feb. 1, 2006. The company has produced no meat since Feb. 4 of this year, when operations were suspended.

The action came nearly three weeks after the Humane Society of the United States released a video showing workers at the plant using forklifts and water hoses, among other methods, to rouse cattle too weak to walk. In addition to issues of animal cruelty, the video raised questions about whether so-called downer cattle were entering the food chain in violation of federal regulations.

Although the Humane Society said at least four non-ambulatory cattle had been slaughtered for food, the USDA had repeatedly said it had no such evidence. On Sunday, federal officials said for the first time that they had evidence such cattle from Hallmark had been processed for food.

There have been enough of these videos made by PETA, the Humane Society, and other groups, that you have to figure that this kind of animal cruelty is the norm. Businesses want to maximize their profit and that means using every animal as meat, regardless of their physical health or disease. And the reason is very simple: there aren't enough resources for the USDA to inspect all of the plants. They have too few inspectors and not enough funding. With little oversight comes many opportunities for abuse, because there won't be any consequences. Democrats can investigate the process all they want; like the pet food recall, like the toy recall, they'll discover that nobody's doing any overwatch.

This is how the "drown government in the bathtub" ideology of conservatism ends up impacting everyone's real life. Their goal is to strip as much regulation as possible for business, and you can only infer that they don't care about the results. Just another thing at stake in this election.

We Can't Have you Keeping The Meat Clean! What If People Stop Getting Sick?

Best opening sentence to a news item evah.

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

"We're standing up for what we believe in! We're not going to let these femimeatpackers test to see if their product has infectious disease! That's not the American way! Some people said we shouldn't take this fight. It's too tough, nobody will think you're at all sane. Well, I say sometimes you have to stand up and fight, and I can think of no better fight to make than one on behalf of mad cow disease!"

If you read on, you'll see that one rogue meatpacking company (Al-Qaeda Meats?) wants to test their cattle, but that would mean all the other agribusiness conglomerates might have to test their cattle too, so the Bush Administration is boldly saying "No!" to testing for food safety. The great Rick Perlstein has more.

First, observe the contempt for liberty. When E. coli conservatives say self-regulation is preferable to government, they're even lying about that. Second, observe the contempt for small business. When a small company want to - voluntarily! - hold its product to a higher standard, the government blocks it, in part because bigger companies have to be protected from the competition, in part because a theoretical threat to the bottom line (false positives) trumps protection against a deadly disease.

There's your conservatism, America: not extremism in defense of liberty. State socialism in defense of Mad Cow.

Perlstein calls them "e.coli conservatives." That's being charitable.