Aderholt, R Rep 4%

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pow mofo pending heat deaths, 11 23 achieved WIC // kid killer

actually elected  1996  2008? but unopposed 2010

approp comm, so lots of MIC bucks , insulation? POISON PILL SEE GRANGER

==

see The Family bk netflix

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robert-b-aderholt

life 4% 2022 5% but

326 - 95 also buff

2022 Scorecard Vote

Establishing National Heritage Areas

House Roll Call Vote 540

Issues: Public Lands/Forests, Environmental Justice, Other

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) sponsored S. 1942, the National Heritage Area Act to establish a National Heritage Area System, which would allow for the Department of the Interior to provide technical and financial assistance to local coordinating entities to support the establishment, development, and continuity of such areas. Heritage areas are landscapes where natural, cultural, historic, and recreational resources combine to form cohesive stories and themes that are regionally distinct and nationally significant. This bill also designated seven new heritage areas, including the Alabama Black Belt National Heritage Area, and authorized new studies on potential sites such as the Great Dismal Swamp National Heritage Area championed by the late Representative A. Donald McEachin. On December 22, 2022, the House approved S. 1942 by a vote of 326-95 (House roll call vote 540). YES IS THE PRO-ENVIRONMENT VOTE. The president signed S. 1942 into law on January 5, 2023.

an 11 23

insisting they have to make tough cuts to government spending, some House Republicans are pushing to gut a decades-old federal program that helps feed 53% of all infants born in the United States, along with women through and up to six weeks after their pregnancies, breastfeeding women, and children up until the age of 5.

WIC, officially the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, is a program under the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. The USDA notes that it is “not an entitlement program as Congress does not set aside funds to allow every eligible individual to participate in the program. WIC is a federal grant program for which Congress authorizes a specific amount of funds each year for the program.”

Despite the growth in both population and food prices, some House Republicans, like U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), oppose increasing funding for WIC, according to Politico.

“At stake: whether the government will have to begin turning away large numbers of mothers and their children from the program,” Politico reports, noting House Republicans are “pushing to pare back WIC spending this year, arguing tough cuts are needed across the government amid the nation’s mounting debt.”

Aderholt suggested putting the onus on the USDA to ask the White House for more funds, rather than appropriate funds to meet the expenses WIC knows are coming. The Alabama GOP Congressman “who chairs the House Appropriations panel on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, recently argued there’s nothing stopping USDA from requesting more funding from the Office of Management and Budget for WIC if the program runs short during the stop-gap period,” Politico reported.

READ MORE: ‘DC Gulag’: Possible Trump AG Wants to ‘Denaturalize’ and ‘Deport’ MSNBC Host

“If this becomes a problem, that’s because the administration is purposefully making it a problem for not allocating these necessary funds,” Aderholt, the chair of the House Values Action Team (VAT), said. But Congress, not the White House, is responsible for funding WIC, which up until now has always been bipartisan.

“Without congressional action,” Politico adds, “Minnesota WIC director Kate Franken said states will be forced to add families to wait lists for the first time in nearly 30 years.”

“If WIC funding is not adequate, and funds are cut, our families and our communities would suffer the consequences,” Franken said.

Last year, Aderholt was among many Republicans and Democrats furious over the baby formula shortage, but was also one of the 192 House Republicans who voted against legislation to help the FDA address the problem, which was “triggered by a safety recall.”

Last week, Aderholt introduced a 2024 funding bill he said cuts “almost 30% and will bring funding back to roughly 2018 Trump-era levels.”

READ MORE: Trump Lawyer Trips Over His Own Argument as Judges Appear Skeptical of Gag Order Appeal

The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities last week noted House bills would take “away food assistance from hundreds of thousands of new parents and young children by underfunding WIC.”

“The House Agriculture bill’s WIC funding is well below the level needed to serve all eligible families who wish to participate, and would result in an estimated 600,000 new parents, toddlers, and preschoolers being turned away,” the nonprofit think tank reported. “The House bill would also cut WIC’s science-based fruit and vegetable benefit by between 58 and 71 percent (depending on the recipient’s age) for 4.7 million of the remaining participants.”

Earlier this month the President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson, noting his continuing resolution to keep the federal government open “doesn’t provide additional funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) so that postpartum participants and young children aren’t turned away from vital food assistance.”

vat off bs

Rep. Aderholt Assumes Leadership of House Values Action Team; Commits to Advancing Freedom, Families and Promoting Educational Opportunities | Congressman Robert Aderholt

January 10, 2023

Press Release

WASHINGTON—Congressman Robert Aderholt (AL-04) has been selected as the Chair of the Values Action Team (VAT) in the United States House of Representatives for the 118th Congress.

*“I am truly honored to serve as VAT Chair for the 118th Congress. Working together with our colleagues in both the House and the Senate, we have an unparalleled opportunity to advance an agenda that protects the rights of individuals, parents, and families. We are committed to securing a future of freedom and safety for our children and creating opportunity for every American.” said Congressman Aderholt.

Congressman Aderholt also announced that Dr. Charmaine Yoest will serve as the new Executive Director of the Values Action Team.

*“I am thrilled to have Dr. Yoest leading VAT staff in the 118th Congress. Her experience and commitment to the principles that VAT represents makes her an asset to our staff and the work that we will do. I think she will be perfect to help lead this organization.” said Congressman Aderholt.

“This moment in time, as our country confronts the effects of the pandemic, we need to focus on strengthening families, rebuilding our communities and ensuring that every American has the opportunity to thrive,” said Dr. Yoest. “ VAT will promote a conversation around timeless values, driving action on an agenda that protects the fundamental rights that every American is guaranteed.”

Previously, Dr. Yoest served as Executive Director of the 30-Day Fund; a Vice President of the Heritage Foundation; Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; an Associate Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; and the co-Executive Director of the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission.

Also joining the VAT staff as Policy Advisor is Aspen Frederick, who has served in the legislative office for Congressman Aderholt for the past three years.

“In the past year, there have been historic victories for conservative values—for life, for religious freedom, and for families. Under Congressman Aderholt’s leadership, VAT will continue our steadfast work to address ongoing challenges and to uphold the values that sit at the very heart of the United States,”said Frederick.

“This team that we have assembled, I believe will be able to hit the ground running as we work on the values issues in this new Congress,” statedAderholt.

VAT is a registered Congressional Member Organization in the House of Representatives focused on domestic policy issues. VAT Members of Congress partner with like-minded citizen groups to achieve common legislative and administrative goals safeguarding families and communities, supporting the institution of marriage, advancing educational freedom and opportunity, and ensuring First Amendment freedoms for all Americans.

###

Issues:Faith and Religious FreedomFamily Values

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poison pill

guk ref 2

no lnx

ENVIRONMENT

JUL 25, 2023

Amid Heat Wave, GOP Adds Climate Denial To Spending Bills

House Republicans are helping their fossil fuel donors with legislative fine print that would block climate action.

Matthew Cunningham-Cook

David Sirota

House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger, R-Texas, speaks with House Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

As scientists warn of a mass extinction and ecological tipping points, congressional Republicans are helping their fossil fuel industry donors by quietly inserting provisions into annual spending bills designed to bar the American government from combating and researching climate change, according to the fine print of legislative text reviewed by The Lever. Some provisions also require the leasing of federal lands and waters for oil and gas development, while potentially limiting such leases for wind power.

In all, Republican leaders have added at least a dozen such environmental provisions to four annual government spending bills as property damage and death tolls mount from historic heat waves, floods, and wildfires.

By adding the provisions to annual must-pass spending bills, Republicans who control the U.S. House are attempting to force Senate Democrats to choose between either accepting them or blocking the spending bills and shutting down the government.

For his part, President Joe Biden has declined to issue a climate emergency declaration, which could provide his administration new authority to circumvent at least some of the Republicans’ tactics.

The GOP bills are currently in the House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Texas RepublicanRep. Kay Granger, who has received nearly $1.2 million from the oil and gas sectorover the course of her career in Congress. Her second-largest career campaign contributor is the oil and gas industry, and she brags on her government website that she has fought to prevent spending to combat climate change.

Granger’s congressional district has been grappling with a heat-related public health crisis.

Blocking Fisheries Research As Oceans Boil

One of the most aggressive Republican climate provisions moving through Granger’s panel is buried in legislation funding the government’s science agencies. As waters around South Florida set records for the hottest ocean temperatures ever recorded, a line in the bill would bar the Biden administration from spending any money on “climate change fisheries research.”

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The move comes just weeks after tens of thousands of dead fish washed ashore in Texas due to high temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, following other recent mass die-offs in Australia. The Center for Biological Diversity notes that intensifying ocean acidification triggered by climate change “could disrupt the entire marine ecosystem.”

The subcommittee that originally authored the fisheries legislation is headed by Republican Rep. Hal Rogers,who hails from the coal-rich state of Kentucky and whose top career campaign contributors include donors from the mining and fossil fuel industries.

Rogers has raised more than half a million dollars from the mining industry over the course of his career, and $390,000 from the oil and gas industry, according to data from OpenSecrets. In the 2019-2020 cycle, Rogers’s campaign paid $66,000 to his wife Cynthia.

The science funding bill also zeroes out funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program at the National Science Foundation, which coordinates research across the federal government “to understand the human-caused and natural processes that influence our planet,” and would additionally block the government from using any funds to carry out climate-related Biden executive orders.

The bill targets a Biden order issued in January 2021 that directed the federal government to use the procurement process, in which it acquires goods and services from the private sector, to mitigate carbon emissions as part of a broader federal effort to address climate change.

The order also specifically directed the Commerce Department to “to collect input from fishermen, regional ocean councils, fishery management councils, scientists, and other stakeholders on how to make fisheries and protected resources more resilient to climate change, including changes in management and conservation measures, and improvements in science, monitoring, and cooperative research.”

The GOP legislation also moves to defund a separate Biden order from April 2022 that sought to enhance the federal government’s forest stewardship and promote “climate-smart stewardship of mature and old-growth forests.”

Requiring Offshore Oil/Gas Leases, Slowing Wind Power Leases

The Republican spending bills contain several more efforts to undermine the Biden administration’s ability to meaningfully respond to the worsening global climate crisis.

That includes the bill authorizing funding for the Department of Interior, which oversees public lands. The legislation contains a provision mandating, “None of the funds made available by this act may be used to consider or incorporate thesocial cost of carbon.” The bill also permanently rescinds $1.3 billion in grant funding under the Clean Air Act to mitigate the effects of air pollution, as more than a quarter of all Americans now live in areas with dangerous levels of such pollution.

The Interior spending bill also includes provisions requiring “the Secretary of the Interior to conduct quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales” as well as fossil fuel lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the bill report

At the same time, the legislation bars the government from issuing leases for offshore wind development in Florida until the completion of a study about windmills’ impact “on military readiness and training, marine environment and ecology, tourism, and other uses of the Outer Continental Shelf.”

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The latter rider is in response to Florida Republican lawmakers’ complaint that “people travel from around the world to see our pristine beaches — not windmills.”

The Department of Interior funding bill has been spearheaded by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Id.), who has received nearly $900,000 in campaign contributions from electric utility interests during the course of his career, as well as roughly $440,000 from oil and gas industry donors. In the last few years, climate-intensified wildfires have caused billions of damage in Simpson’s state.

Defunding Global Climate Investments

Then there’s the bill funding the Department of State and foreign aid. That legislation would bar funding for theGreen Climate Fund— one of the entities charged with fulfilling the mandates of the Paris Climate Accords — which received a $1 billion deposit from the Biden administration in April.

Likewise, the bill prohibits the federal government from financing the Clean Technology Fund, which helps developing countries transition away from dirtier energy sources, and also explicitly rejects the concept of climate reparations, decreeing that none of the funds may be used “to pay compensation to any country, organization, or individual for loss and damages attributed to climate change.”

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}:

The bill also prevents the funding of an August 2021 Department of Treasuring guidance calling on multilateral development banks like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to limit financing of fossil fuel projects.

The State Department and foreign aid bill is being overseen by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who has received nearly $430,000 in campaign contributions from the energy and natural resources industry during his time in office. His district includes locales that a recent climate study said are among the most likely to soon be underwater due to rising ocean levels.

The House bill for funding the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), meanwhile, seeks to bar the agency’s proposed climate disclosure rule, which would mandate that publicly traded companies provide a full disclosure of their climate risks.

The subcommittee overseeing the SEC bill is headed by Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) who has received more than $175,000 from oil and gas interests during his career. Womack’s home state has recently experienced deadly tornadoes and flash flood warnings.

Finally, the GOP bill funding the Department of Labor will maintain a ban from 1976 that has been reapproved annually under both Republican and Democratic control of Congress that bars the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from investigating deaths at farms that employ less than 10 people, including deaths related to extreme heat. (Due to mass automation in the agriculture industry, this exemption includes many farms that are quite large and profitable.)

While OSHA has yet to issue a standard governing excessive heat in the workplace, the agency is tasked with investigating deaths or injuries in cases of extreme heat. At least 436 people died from extreme heat on the job from 2011 to 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The OSHA bill originated in a subcommittee headed by Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), whose top career campaign contributors include donors from agribusiness and the fossil fuel industry. Nearly a quarter of the Alabama labor force is outdoor workers, and the state recently experienced temperatures above 100 degrees.

The bills will now move to the full House for approval, and then the final bills must be negotiated with the Senate and passed again through both houses of Congress. If the provisions are kept in the text and Biden vetoes the spending bills, parts of the federal government could shut down.

---

LNX

...The GOP bills are currently in the House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Texas Republican Rep. Kay Granger, who has received nearly $1.2 million from the oil and gas sector over the course of her career in Congress. Her second-largest career campaign contributor is the oil and gas industry, and she brags on her government website that she has fought to prevent spending to combat climate change.

Granger’s congressional district has been grappling with a heat-related public health crisis.

Blocking Fisheries Research As Oceans Boil

One of the most aggressive Republican climate provisions moving through Granger’s panel is buried in legislation funding the government’s science agencies. As waters around South Florida set records for the hottest ocean temperatures ever recorded, a line in the bill would bar the Biden administration from spending any money on “climate change fisheries research.”

The move comes just weeks after tens of thousands of dead fish washed ashore in Texas due to high temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, following other recent mass die-offs in Australia. The Center for Biological Diversity notes that intensifying ocean acidification triggered by climate change “could disrupt the entire marine ecosystem.”

The subcommittee that originally authored the fisheries legislation is headed by Republican Rep. Hal Rogers, who hails from the coal-rich state of Kentucky and whose top career campaign contributors include donors from the mining and fossil fuel industries.

Rogers has raised more than half a million dollars from the mining industry over the course of his career, and $390,000 from the oil and gas industry, according to data from OpenSecrets. In the 2019-2020 cycle, Rogers’s campaign paid $66,000 to his wife Cynthia.

The science funding bill also zeroes out funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program at the National Science Foundation, which coordinates research across the federal government “to understand the human-caused and natural processes that influence our planet,” and would additionally block the government from using any funds to carry out climate-related Biden executive orders.

The bill targets a Biden order issued in January 2021 that directed the federal government to use the procurement process, in which it acquires goods and services from the private sector, to mitigate carbon emissions as part of a broader federal effort to address climate change.

The order also specifically directed the Commerce Department to “to collect input from fishermen, regional ocean councils, fishery management councils, scientists, and other stakeholders on how to make fisheries and protected resources more resilient to climate change, including changes in management and conservation measures, and improvements in science, monitoring, and cooperative research.”

The GOP legislation also moves to defund a separate Biden order from April 2022 that sought to enhance the federal government’s forest stewardship and promote “climate-smart stewardship of mature and old-growth forests." [vid]

requiring Offshore Oil/Gas Leases, Slowing Wind Power Leases

The Republican spending bills contain several more efforts to undermine the Biden administration’s ability to meaningfully respond to the worsening global climate crisis.

That includes the bill authorizing funding for the Department of Interior, which oversees public lands. The legislation contains a provision mandating, “None of the funds made available by this act may be used to consider or incorporate the social cost of carbon.” The bill also permanently rescinds $1.3 billion in grant funding under the Clean Air Act to mitigate the effects of air pollution, as more than a quarter of all Americans now live in areas with dangerous levels of such pollution.

The Interior spending bill also includes provisions requiring “the Secretary of the Interior to conduct quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales” as well as fossil fuel lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the bill report

At the same time, the legislation bars the government from issuing leases for offshore wind development in Florida until the completion of a study about windmills’ impact “on military readiness and training, marine environment and ecology, tourism, and other uses of the Outer Continental Shelf.”

The latter rider is in response to Florida Republican lawmakers’ complaint that “people travel from around the world to see our pristine beaches — not windmills.”

The Department of Interior funding bill has been spearheaded by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Id.), who has received nearly $900,000 in campaign contributions from electric utility interests during the course of his career, as well as roughly $440,000 from oil and gas industry donors. In the last few years, climate-intensified wildfires have caused billions of damage in Simpson’s state....

d

efunding Global Climate Investments

Then there’s the bill funding the Department of State and foreign aid. That legislation would bar funding for the Green Climate Fund — one of the entities charged with fulfilling the mandates of the Paris Climate Accords — which received a $1 billion deposit from the Biden administration in April.

Likewise, the bill prohibits the federal government from financing the Clean Technology Fund, which helps developing countries transition away from dirtier energy sources, and also explicitly rejects the concept of climate reparations, decreeing that none of the funds may be used “to pay compensation to any country, organization, or individual for loss and damages attributed to climate change.”

The bill also prevents the funding of an August 2021 Department of Treasuring guidance calling on multilateral development banks like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to limit financing of fossil fuel projects.

The State Department and foreign aid bill is being overseen by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who has received nearly $430,000 in campaign contributions from the energy and natural resources industry during his time in office. His district includes locales that a recent climate study said are among the most likely to soon be underwater due to rising ocean levels.

Donate To The Lever

The House bill for funding the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), meanwhile, seeks to bar the agency’s proposed climate disclosure rule, which would mandate that publicly traded companies provide a full disclosure of their climate risks.

The subcommittee overseeing the SEC bill is headed by Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) who has received more than $175,000 from oil and gas interests during his career. Womack’s home state has recently experienced deadly tornadoes andflash flood warnings.

Finally, the GOP bill funding the Department of Labor will maintain a ban from 1976 that has been reapproved annually under both Republican and Democratic control of Congress that bars the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from investigating deaths at farms that employ less than 10 people, including deaths related to extreme heat. (Due to mass automation in the agriculture industry, this exemption includes many farms that are quite large and profitable.)

While OSHA has yet to issue a standard governing excessive heat in the workplace, the agency is tasked with investigating deaths or injuries in cases of extreme heat. At least 436 people died from extreme heat on the job from 2011 to 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The OSHA bill originated in a subcommittee headed by Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), whose top career campaign contributors include donors from agribusiness and the fossil fuel industry. Nearly a quarter of the Alabama labor force is outdoor workers, and the state recently experienced temperatures above 100 degrees.

https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/robert-b-aderholt/industries?cid=N00003028&cycle=CAREER}:

Top Industries 1995 - 2022

Top Industries

Sector Totals

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The bills will now move to the full House for approval, and then the final bills must be negotiated with the Senate and passed again through both houses of Congress. If the provisions are kept in the text and Biden vetoes the spending bills, parts of the federal government could shut down.

https://theintercept.com/2019/08/23/monsanto-republicans-cancer-research

EMAILS SHOW MONSANTO ORCHESTRATED GOP EFFORT TO INTIMIDATE CANCER RESEARCHERS

Lee Fang

August 23 2019, 3:00 a.m.

IN 2015, the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified glyphosate, an active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, as a “probable carcinogen,” setting off a global debate about the world’s most popular weedkiller.

Over the last four years, Republicans in Congress have excoriated and pushed to defund the IARC, casting their defense of the chemical as a quest on behalf of small American farmers. Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has written that his outrage over the cancer research is on behalf of the “farmers and food manufacturers who rely on traditional farming methods to produce the food that fuels America — and the world.”

But according to a recent trove of documents, the ongoing political assault on the IARC has been scripted in part by Monsanto, the St. Louis-based chemical and seed conglomerate that produces Roundup and Roundup-resistant crops.

Roundup has been cash cow for the company since the 1970s, fueling billions of dollars in annual profits. Its use has skyrocketed in recent decades since the company developed genetically modified corn and other crops that are resistant to it; it is now the world’s leading herbicide.

A growing number of individuals say that Monsanto failed to warn consumers of the dangers of using Roundup and had marketed the chemical spray as harmless to humans, while internally recommending that its own employees use gloves and protective gear. Critics say that the Roundup formula used in the U.S. also contains a surfactant that makes the herbicide far more toxic than the variation of the spray sold in the European market.

Monsanto, which merged with German multinational pharmaceutical company Bayer AG last year, is facing as many as 11,000 cases relating to glyphosate. Last year, Dewayne Johnson, a former groundskeeper now dying of cancer, was the first to win his jury trial in San Francisco state court against Monsanto, alleging that years of using Roundup contributed to his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Johnson was awarded $289 million by a jury, though a judge later reduced the amount to $78 million. Another plaintiff, Edwin Hardeman, also alleged that he spent decades spraying the glyphosate-based weedkiller with little to no protective gear and developed the same blood cancer, won a similar case in federal court this year.

[Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson after hearing the verdict in his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court of California in San Francisco on Aug. 10, 2018. Photo: Josh Edelson, Pool/AP]

The newly disclosed files, released by a plaintiff’s law firm, Baum Hedlund, include company emails, documents, and deposition transcripts showing that Monsanto lawyers and lobbyists guided lawmakers, coordinating efforts to question the IARC’s credibility and slash U.S. support for the international body.

The company has denied claims that its products cause cancer, and Monsanto lawyers have declared that Environmental Protection Agency’s designation of glyphosate as safe should clear the company of any legal liability. In a recent marketing campaign, Bayer touted its friendly cooperation with regulators as a sign that the public should have nothing to fear from its products.

But the documents also suggest that the firm has used its influence with lawmakers to antagonize regulators, applying pressure and investigative threats to shape the science used to research glyphosate and other controversial chemical compounds, as part of a larger campaign to silence critics and discredit the IARC.

IN JUNE 2015, Michael Dykes, then serving as Monsanto’s vice president of government affairs, laid out the company’s strategy for “managing the IARC issue,” following the cancer research center’s determination that March.

The company, he wrote in an email, had dispatched its team of lobbyists to brief “key staff at EPA, USTR, USDA, and the State Department as well as members of Congress” to raise concerns with the IARC’s scientific process, and with how the decision could impact agriculture as well as international trade. Lobbyists also met with an official at the Department of Health and Human Services; they saw the agency’s support as key “to secure a WHO clarification.”

Later in the year, Dykes updated the Monsanto team with plans to push back against the IARC, including the possible placement of advertisements — in the form of letters from third-party groups — in Capitol Hill newspapers, as well as preparation to use a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing as a venue to get the EPA to reaffirm support for glyphosate. “We will make sure Committee members ask EPA the glyphosate safety question,” Dykes wrote.

[Roundup weed killing products on May 14, 2019. Photo Illustration: Scott Olson/Getty Images

The following year, FTI Government Affairs, one of several consulting firms guiding Monsanto’s political response to the IARC decision, assisted GOP lawmakers with an effort to investigate U.S. support for the IARC.

In one email sent by Todd Rands, a former Monsanto attorney working with FTI, sent a draft of a letter ostensibly written by Rep. Rob Aderholt, R-Ala., a senior lawmaker on the House Appropriations Committee, addressed to Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes for Health. NIH is the government agency responsible for most federal public health research and is the largest funder to the IARC. The letter, in fact, had been written by FTI consultants, along with Rands’s edits, according to his deposition testimony.

The FTI-written letter declared that glyphosate “does not cause cancer,” accused the IARC of peddling “bunk science,” and threatened a reassessment of the NIH budget to ensure that the agency is “committed to only funding organizations that produce information and conclusions based on sound science, robust processes, and credible methodology.”

During his deposition, Rands said that he believed it appropriate for Monsanto to draft a letter on behalf of a lawmaker to NIH, calling such ghostwriting a “common practice in Washington.”

It’s not clear what Aderholt’s office did with the FTI-authored letter. Aderholt’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept. On June 2, 2016, Aderholt sent a letter to NIH to request a briefing on the IARC’s designation of glyphosate as a probable carcinogen and “the standards that NIH places on research funded by the U.S. taxpayers,” a letter that mirrored many of the demands in the FTI letter, though it used different language.

More GOP letters and demands for investigation over NIH’s funding for IARC followed. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, then-chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., Chaffetz’s successor as Oversight chair, and Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, then-chair of the House Science Committee, all called for inquiries into IARC funding and the designation of glyphosate as a carcinogen.

The Monsanto lobbyists closely conferred with the committees as they honed in on the IARC’s funding. Drew Feeley, an attorney for the GOP staff of the House Oversight Committee, emailed an FTI consultant to explain that his office was working to attach a line to a government budget bill designed “to apply to IARC” in order to slash its funding over the glyphosate issue. “Thanks again for coordinating,” Feeley wrote to the Monsanto consultant. Feeley, notably, is now serving as an attorney with the Council on Environmental Quality, the White House office that oversees environmental policy.

“We expect the House OGR investigation about IARC to expand as they move into the new administration,” wrote Rands, in an update to Monsanto colleagues.

Last year, under Smith, the House Science Committee devoted an entire committee hearing into questioning the IARC, with a focus on its conduct around glyphosate. Smith subsequently sent more letters to cancer researchers in Norway, demanding they “correct the flaws in IARC.” The House Appropriations Committee followed up by cutting $2 million in funding to the IARC, a symbolic move to distance the U.S. from the international body, which relies on a budget of around $40 million from a range of member countries.

THE CONGRESSIONAL OUTREACH was only part of a multifaceted effort to control the backlash sparked by the IARC designation.

In recent years, a great deal of new information has come to light around Monsanto’s work to conceal the potential health risks around glyphosate. Earlier this month, new documents revealed that Monsanto operated a “fusion center” to discredit critics of the company, including former Reuters journalist Carey Gillam, who has written extensively about glyphosate. The operation even monitored and considered legal action again singer Neil Young, a critic of Monsanto.

Le Monde, the French newspaper, published an award-winning investigation on the controversy, referring to the Monsanto-run campaign to discredit the IARC as an effort to “intimidate” the cancer research center.

A separate cache of litigation files, released in May, revealed that Monsanto also contracted with Hakluyt, a corporate intelligence firm, to keep close tabs on political elites in Washington. The company consulted with senior Trump and EPA officials, and confirmed that the administration would support Monsanto on glyphosate issues. “We have Monsanto’s back on pesticide regulation,” a domestic policy adviser in the White House told Hakluyt.

[pixA building on the campus of Monsanto headquarters in St. Louis on May 23, 2016. Photo: Michael B. Thomas/AFP/Getty Images

The last year has exposed other cloak-and-dagger tactics. The company was criticized for ghostwriting scientific studies on the safety of glyphosate, which were presented as independent research. At the San Francisco civil trial over glyphosate, an FTI consultant working for Monsanto was caught posing as a journalist working for the BBC and another British outlet.

And in 2017, one of the most stunning disclosures revealed that a senior EPA staffer, Jess Rowland, had quietly tipped Monsanto off to the fact that federal agencies had sought to reevaluate the safety of glyphosate, boasting to the company that he could “kill” federal investigations into glyphosate. Shortly before a crucial European Union vote on glyphosate products, the EPA suddenly released a report declaring the safety of the product. The document was later taken down because it had not yet been completed. One Monsanto official relayed to a colleague that Rowland had told him, “If I can kill this I should get a medal,” in regards to the glyphosate review conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a department of Health and Human Services.

After leaving the EPA, Rowland went to work in the private sector, consulting for chemical companies.

There’s also a revolving door between lawmakers supporting Monsanto and professionals working on behalf of the company. Shortly after retiring from Congress this year, following his investigation of the IARC, Lamar Smith took a job at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, a lobbying firm that represents Bayer-Monsanto’s interests in Washington.

==

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-16/alabama-billionaire-battles-murder-suits-as-prices-ebb

uly 16 (Bloomberg) -- Gustavo Soler knew he was in trouble. It was 2001, and Soler was union president at a coal mine in Colombia owned by Drummond Co., which is controlled by the wealthiest family in Alabama.

Soler’s predecessor, Valmore Locarno, and Locarno’s deputy, Victor Orcasita, had been killed seven months earlier, and now Soler was getting threats, says his widow, Nubia, in an interview in Bogota. He told his family to pack up. They would leave the area as soon as he got home from the union office in Valledupar, a city in the country’s coal belt. He never made it.

Armed men stopped his bus, asked for him by name and abducted him. He was found under a pile of banana leaves with two bullet holes in his head, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its August issue.

After the killing, Nubia says, Garry Neil Drummond, chief executive officer of Drummond Co., sent a taxi to bring her to the Drummond offices near the coastal town of Santa Marta, where, in a meeting, he promised to put her children, Sergio and Karina, then 14 and 9, through school.

Nubia describes a tender moment for a tough man. Drummond, now 75, started working in his family’s coal mines around Jasper, Alabama, at 15. As an executive in 1969, he negotiated an export deal with a Japanese trading company and fulfilled the commitment by strip mining Alabama’s hills with colossal shovels and trucks. When those reserves dwindled, Drummond Co. opened its first mine in Colombia in 1995. It came under attack from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a group that had been at war with the government since the 1960s.

Multiple Challenges

Nubia says Garry Neil, as he’s known, didn’t make good on his tuition promise. “He never paid for a pencil,” she says.

Drummond declined to comment on the matter. Nor did he answer a list of questions sent to spokesman Steve Bradley of Stephen Bradley & Associates LLC.

Drummond and his company face a barge load of challenges, starting with a possible strike by its Colombian workers after more than a month of wage talks ended July 7 with management and union leaders failing to reach an agreement.

Then there is the price of thermal coal, which is burned to produce electricity and which Drummond mines in Colombia. Its price has fallen 29 percent since Jan. 1, 2011, closing yesterday at $56.46 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Electric utilities have cut their use of coal to fire power plants, switching to cheaper natural gas. Just 37 percent of U.S. electricity came from coal last year, down from 50 percent in 2005. On July 9, Drummond told the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs that it planned to cut up to 425 workers at its Shoal Creek mine starting in September because declining coal prices.

Four Suits

Also dogging Drummond is labor lawyer Terry Collingsworth, who has filed four civil suits against Drummond Co., two of which demanded compensation for the families of union leaders killed in Colombia while representing workers at the Alabamian’s mines. In 2007 Drummond won one case brought by Collingsworth after a U.S. District Court jury in Birmingham, Alabama, concluded the company didn’t aid or abet the killers. Another suit was dismissed in 2012.

In the current case, filed in 2009, Collingsworth is suing the company and three current and former executives. The suit charges that Drummond Co. paid right-wing paramilitaries to terrorize the population along the 120-mile (190-kilometer) rail line from Drummond’s two mines to its port on the Caribbean, torturing and killing innocent people to keep them from giving haven to the FARC. Collingsworth sued Garry Neil Drummond personally for the same allegations in February.

Collingsworth brought his first suit as general counsel for the International Labor Rights Forum. He is now a Washington-based partner at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, law firm Conrad & Scherer LLP. He has made his claims in part under the 1789 Alien Tort Statute, which gives federal courts jurisdiction to hear complaints from non-U.S. citizens for violations of international law. He says he’s suing in the U.S. instead of Colombia partly out of concern for the safety of the plaintiffs.

Sold Stake

In numerous filings in the case, Drummond Co. and its CEO have denied any links to murders in Colombia. The company’s lawyer in the Colombian matters, William Jeffress of Houston-based Baker Botts LLP, declined to comment.

The Colombian mines are crucial to Drummond Co., which had revenue of $3 billion in 2012, based on the volume of its coal shipments. The company estimates its coal reserves at 2.2 billion tons, 2 billion of which are in Colombia, according to the company’s website. In 2011, when coal prices were higher, Drummond Co. sold a 20 percent stake in the Colombian operations to Tokyo-based Itochu Corp. for $1.5 billion. Based on that sale, the Colombian mines were worth $7.5 billion. Two years later, the fall in the coal price makes them worth less than $3 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg comparing Drummond with publicly listed coal companies.

A Billionaire

Garry Neil is one of two surviving heirs of Heman Drummond, who founded the company in 1935. When Heman died in 1956, he left the company to his seven children. Today, Garry Neil owns 100 percent of the capital stock in Drummond Co., according to an April report by business information provider Dun & Bradstreet Corp. If that’s correct, Garry Neil is a billionaire. Bradley, the spokesman, declined to comment on the company’s ownership.

Drummond is still charging hard at 75. He often works seven days a week, says Mike Zervos, who was president of mining operations at Drummond until 2004 and remains friends with Garry Neil. The pair spent many Sundays talking about conveyor-belt design and other improvements for the Colombian mines, Zervos says. “He’s the hardest worker in the coal business,” he says. “I know he’s worth a lot, but he earned it.”

Mr. Tom

In recent years, Drummond Co. has been expanding its operations in Alabama. Late last year, the company fired up Mr. Tom, its nickname for a giant 1970s-era dragline, to strip coal at the company’s Shannon mine, southwest of Birmingham. Mr. Tom is a 3,750-ton crane with a 320-foot (98-meter) boom that swings a bucket big enough to scoop up four Toyota Priuses. In January, Drummond moved the dragline 18 miles from an old mine near Brookwood, Alabama, to the Shannon mine on mechanical feet. The state required the company to write a 22-page cultural resource assessment of artifacts that Mr. Tom might crush on its journey.

Garry Neil Drummond’s newest project, if he goes ahead with it, would be a mine on the banks of the Black Warrior River, near where the city of Birmingham draws its water. Shepherd Bend LLC, a Drummond holding, obtained a permit to mine there from the Alabama Surface Mining Commission in 2010. Much of the land is owned by the University of Alabama, where Drummond is a trustee emeritus. According to the Washington-based environmental group American Rivers, any mining on the Black Warrior would endanger Birmingham’s drinking water. Cathy Andreen, a spokeswoman for the University of Alabama, says no one has approached the school about mining on the land.

‘A Conqueror’

Garry Neil is going it alone. There are no relatives in Drummond Co.’s upper management. For years, the company prohibited new generations from joining to avoid family fights, Zervos says. Four years ago, Garry Neil broke with precedent and hired his nephew, Segal “Ed” Drummond Jr., as executive vice president. Ed resigned earlier this year, the company says.

About 100 Drummonds gathered for Easter this year, Carolyn “Cappie” Drummond, who’s Ed Drummond’s wife, says in a telephone interview. Asked why Garry Neil doesn’t retire, she says: “He’s done it all his life. He’s a conqueror.”

Drummond has five children. One is a vascular surgeon in Birmingham. Another, Gary with one “r”, died in 2008 at 51. The same year, the University of Alabama established the Gary Drummond Jr. Memorial Research Award to study schizophrenia.

‘Exit Strategy’

“The big question about Drummond is what is the exit strategy,” says coal industry consultant Douglas Blackburn of BlackAcre LLC in Richmond, Virginia.

Drummond Co. could sell the two Colombian mines, where it produces coal at lower cost, to a giant like BHP Billiton Ltd., Blackburn says. Drummond Co.’s neighbor in Colombia is Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which bought the nearby La Francia mine in 2010.

Drummond lives a world away from his strip mines, in woods that fringe Drummond Lake, east of Birmingham, according to property records. Satellite pictures show a large house with a swimming pool, a tennis court and a putting green. A short walk away is a heliport that’s owned by Drummond Co., according to government records.

Environmentalists are Drummond’s most vocal critics in Alabama. One is John Wathen, who was named by the New York-based Waterkeeper Alliance as the creek keeper, or protector, of Hurricane Creek, a watershed southwest of Birmingham where Drummond once mined coal. Wathen, 61, says Drummond Co. is a major threat to the fish, turtles, mussels and snails that live in the state’s 77,000 miles of rivers and streams. Birmingham native E.O. Wilson, the Harvard University biologist who won the Pulitzer Prize twice for books on science and nature, did his graduate work on Hurricane Creek in the 1950s.

Streams ‘Are Gone’

Standing in a graveyard in the hamlet of Adger -- a spot that affords the best view of Drummond’s Shannon mine -- Wathen watches dump trucks unload waste rock onto a ridge-like pile.

“The streams that are out there are not polluted,” Wathen says in his Alabama drawl. “They’re gone.”

Drummond Co. says on its website that it has reclaimed more than 60 sites after mining them, restoring soil and replanting trees. On the land from one restored mine, Drummond built a residential development with a golf course.

Alabama is no coal powerhouse. It ranks 15th in the U.S. in production. Yet much of its coal is metallurgical, the high-quality coal from which coke is made for use in steel production. Heman Drummond worked in the mines as a young man before starting his own company in 1935. He took out a $300 loan, backed by three mules, from Walker County Bank, according to Drummond Co.’s website. When Heman died in 1956 at the age of 50, leaving the company to his children, Drummond had about $1 million in annual sales, according to Alabama’s Engineering Hall of Fame.

30 Countries

It was Garry Neil who vaulted the regional miner into international markets. After earning a civil engineering degree from the University of Alabama in 1961, he went to work full time in the family business. In 1969, he negotiated a five-year, $100 million export deal with Japanese trading company Ataka & Co., now part of Itochu, Drummond’s partner in Colombia. He became CEO four years later, leapfrogging his older brothers. Drummond Co. now sells its coal in more than 30 countries.

In 1976, Drummond signed a 15-year contract with Alabama Power, a unit of Southern Co., to deliver 2 million tons of coal a year to the utility, according to Drummond’s website. It filled it by stripping coal from the Alabama hills with machines like Mr. Tom.

Federal Indictment

With power and money came scrutiny. In 1979, a federal grand jury indicted Garry Neil, two other Drummond executives and three Alabama lawmakers in an alleged scheme to influence the legislators by, among other things, providing them with prostitutes. After an 11-week trial, Judge Frank McFadden dismissed the case without letting it go to the jury. Today, McFadden declines to comment on the matter and suggests looking up his rulings in the docket. However, the entire record of the case has been sealed, according to the U.S. District Court in Birmingham.

The Drummond family spends tens of thousands of dollars on political donations in election years. In the 2012 cycle, Garry Neil alone gave $67,800 to candidates and political action committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. The company is the third-biggest donor to U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, behind power generator Southern Co. -- still a big Drummond customer -- and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Bombing Railway

In the 1980s, Garry Neil started prospecting in Colombia. Making money there meant mining amid a civil war. Soon after Drummond opened his first mine in 1995, the FARC started bombing the railway that carries coal to Drummond’s Caribbean port. In 1999, according to Collingsworth’s complaint, Drummond began paying the paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) for protection. In court documents, Drummond Co. denies making any such payments.

Other companies have acknowledged paying the AUC. Chiquita Brands International Inc. in 2007 pleaded guilty to U.S. charges that it paid the AUC more than $1.7 million to protect its banana plantations from 1997 to 2004. The payments were illegal because the U.S. had designated the AUC a terrorist organization in 2001. Chiquita agreed to pay a $25 million fine. No executives were charged.

AUC gunmen first arrived in the town of Becerril, about 15 miles from one of Drummond’s mines, in 1997 or 1998, according to Victoria Sanchez, 32. She fled in 2003 after a death squad took her father from his house and murdered him. He was a butcher with no connection to the Drummond union.

Death Squad

Yameris Herrera, 45, also ran for her life in 2002 after the murder of her father, a farmer, and her uncle. Herrera’s mother discovered their tortured bodies after returning to the family farm from a trip to town. Her husband had been cut to pieces. Her brother’s head was severed.

“They thought all the farmers were guerrillas,” Herrera says in an interview in Bogota.

Sanchez and Herrera are among 600 plaintiffs in Collingsworth’s lawsuit, all people who lost family members to the AUC’s reign of terror in towns along the rail line, a campaign that the complaint said was heavily funded by Drummond. Collingsworth says he hopes to win his latest fight by using the testimony of the AUC members who have given depositions under Colombia’s 2005 Justice and Peace Law, which rewards those who confess to their crimes with reduced sentences.

‘Lethal Force’

Alcides Manuel Mattos Tabares, alias Samario, is one who’s talked. In a deposition given in March 2012, he said Drummond Co. paid his AUC unit to provide security along the rail line.

“We used lethal force,” Mattos said in his deposition. “We would just kill anyone who was said to be a guerrilla around those parts.”

In January, Jaime Blanco Maya, who had run a food concession at Drummond Co.’s mines, was convicted in Colombia of arranging for the AUC to kill Drummond union leaders Locarno and Orcasita. He was sentenced to 38 years in prison.

In a 2009 motion to dismiss Collingsworth’s complaint, Drummond Co. denied any link to any of the killings anywhere in Colombia. The company never hired the AUC to do anything, its lawyers said. And in a June 2012 deposition, Garry Neil said he had little to do with the South American operations.

“I was never in charge of anything in Colombia,” he said.

So far, there have been no convictions in Gustavo Soler’s murder, says Nubia, his widow. She supports herself by giving manicures and pedicures in people’s homes. She says that after Garry Neil Drummond reneged on his promise to pay for her kids’ education, she paid for it herself by selling cattle and jewelry.

“It’s 12 years without justice,” she says.

-- With assistance from Margaret Newkirk in Atlanta, Andrew Willis in Bogota and Mario Parker in Chicago. Editors: Anita Sharpe, Michael Serrill

To contact the reporters on this story: Anthony Effinger in Portland, Oregon ataeffinger@bloomberg.net; Matthew Bristow in Bogota at mbristow5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Serrill in New York atmserrill@bloomberg.net; Anita Sharpe in Atlanta at asharpe6@bloomberg.ne

--

wsj  Colombia Fines Drummond for Dumping Coal

Government Slaps Alabama Mining Company With $3.6 Million Penalty for Incident, Which It Failed to Immediately Report to Authorities

By DAN MOLINSKI

Updated Dec. 19, 2013 4:04 p.m. ET

BOGOTA—Colombia's government Thursday handed Drummond Co. a $3

--

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drummond_Company

Drummond Company, Inc. is a privately owned company based in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, involved in the mining and processing of coal and coal products. The company was founded in Jasper, Alabama in 1935 by H. E. Drummond, and remains under the management of his sons.^[1]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Overview
• 2 Controversy in Colombia
• 3 See also
• 4 References
• 5 External links

Overview

:{

The company also owns Alabama By-Products Corporation, also known as ABC Coke, located in}: Tarrant, Alabama. The company also owns Rancho La Quinta Country Club in La Quinta, California.Drummond operates the Shoal Creek mine in northwestern part of Jefferson County in Alabama and the Pribbenow and El Descanso mines near La Loma in the Cesar Department in northern Colombia. Both mines produce bituminous coal. Output from Shoal Creek is sold to Alabama Power under long-term supply contracts. Production from Pribbenow, comprising almost 50% of all coal mined in Colombia, is exported to 11 countries.

Drummond announced in July 2010 that it had hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch in its plans to look for a strategic partner to expand its El Descanso mining operations in northern Colombia.^{[citation needed]}

Controversy in Colombia

The multinational has been sued at least three times for receiving support from paramilitary groups in Colombia who are involved in human rights violations against the civilian population and the murder of union leaders.The American Department of Justice has not found sufficient evidence and ruled in favor of the company which says it has never supported any action of illegal groups.^[2]

In February 2013, journalist Alejandro Arias reported with photographic evidence dumping of hundreds of tons of coal to the sea by the company in January of the same year. Based on this evidence the Colombian Government temporarily suspended some operations of the company in Santa Marta where the incident occurred. ^[3]

See also

• Estate of Rodriquez v. Drummond Co.

References

1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Drummond Company on Yahoo Finance
2. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ Corte Federal de EE.UU falla a favor de Drummond dos demandas de sindicatos colombianos
3. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ El periodista que puso en jaque a la Drummond, Semana (Colombia)

External links

• Drummond Company website
• Colombia Fines Drummond for Dumping Coal

==

Rep. Robert Aderholt

AL-4

"I fall into the second group of people who believe, as do many very credible scientists, that the earth is currently in a natural warming cycle rather than a man-made climate change. Many scientists believe that natural cycles of warming and cooling have existed since the beginning of Earth. If we take the current models of climate prediction and apply those same models to what actually happened in the last thirty years, the models are shown to be very flawed. In addition, what knowledge we do have of a warming period in the Middle Ages cannot be explained by current models which are focused on greenhouse gas reductions."[source]

1995 - 2016 Total Receipts:	$12,339,906
1995 - 2016 Total Spent:	$11,419,342
Debts:	$0
Last Report:	Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Top 5 Contributors, 1995 - 2016

...view more data

Top 5 Industries, 1995 - 2016

...view more data

Source of Funds

	Individual Contributions	$6,193,718	(50%)
	PAC Contributions	$4,787,169	(39%)
	Candidate self-financing	$609,980	(5%)
	Other	$749,040	(6%)

==

Republican War on Vegetables

Experts say to cut down on meat for the sake of our health and the environment. Republicans react like 3-year-olds.

By Lindsay Abrams / Salon June 26, 2015

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/republican-war-vegetables

New recommendations released earlier this year by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), an independent group of doctors and nutritionists, say we should cut down on meat for the sake of our health and the environment. In response, congressional Republicans are throwing a temper tantrum.

But because “you can’t make us eat more fruits and vegetables” sounds kind of petulant, they’re pretending their objections are all about the science.

The report, which informs the Dietary Guidelines for Americans that are updated every five years, found that “a diet higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in calories and animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with less environmental impact than is the current U.S. diet.” This is the first time the sustainability of our dietary choices has been taken into consideration by the DGAC; according to the report, it is “essential to ensure a healthy food supply will be available for future generations.”

Yet the move has predictably been met with hostility, particularly on the part of the meat industry, which accused the recommendations of being “flawed” and “nonsensical.”

Republicans agree. This past Wednesday, the House approved two spending bills that would completely alter the way the government is permitted to adapt the DGAC’s evidence-based recommendations. They do so by raising that standard of evidence: the agencies that form the Dietary Guidelines, they say, can only rely on the very strongest science in these matters. The DGAC rates its evidence on a three-level scale — “strong,” “moderate” and “limited” — and the science supporting a plant-based diet was deemed “moderate”: too low, by the bills’ standards, to be relevant.

The bills are, in effect, a giant roadblock to progress pushed through under the guise of reasonability. That’s because the term “strong,” as defined by the DGAC, is an extremely difficult ideal to obtain — it’s only when a large number of studies are able to reach near-uniform conclusions that any piece of evidence will be granted that classification. According to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, straightforward health advice included in past guidelines, like “try to spend less time sitting in front of the T.V.” and “eat less fast food,” would fail to quality under the new standards House Republicans are demanding. This new directive to “eat more fruits and vegetables,” for that matter, also seems pretty common-sensical.

“Research evolves and we expect it to change,”panel chairman Barbara Millen told the Associated Press in defense of recommendations that rely on “moderate” evidence. “That doesn’t negate the importance of a large body of consistent data that may have limitations of a certain kind.”

The riders, along with a similar bill passed last week by a Senate subcommittee, also require that the guidelines “shall be limited in scope to only matters of diet and nutrient intake” — that excludes consideration of whether one’s diet is actively harming the environment, as well as policy recommendations for how the dietary and fitness advice should be implemented. But hey, at least our hamburgers would be safe.

Just what is it that has Republicans crying, “Let them eat steak?” It’s likely, in part, a Ron Swanson-style attempt to preserve the “classic” American meat and potatoes diet. Surely, it is apiece with a pattern of redefining nutrition to fit an agenda that extends back to Reagan’s infamous (only somewhat apocryphal) “ketchup is a vegetable” controversy. And as Ariana Eunjung Cha writes at the Washington Post,it’s probably not a coincidence that the majority of the meat industry’s political contributions go to the GOP.It’s safe to say the outcry isn’t actually about the science, because as anyone who’s following the climate change “debate” knows well, Republicans are happy to reject even the most rigorous of scientific evidence when it challenges their ideology.

But the argument for why we should consider cutting down on meat in favor of plants has become more and more convincing, and it defies a number of food myths that vegetarians (ahem) are constantly having to answer for: most prominently, the idea that you can’t get enough protein without meat. In a recent talk held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Foods Institute, Stanford University scientist Christopher Gardner and food systems consultant Arlin Wasserman destroyed that misconception: Plant-based foods, they told a somewhat surprised audience (of food and nutrition folks, no less), are more than capable of meeting human requirements for the essential amino acids. When put on the spot, that same audience was at a loss as to how much protein the average American requires per day — the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) is about 50 grams. Yet we consume, on average, twice that amount: a full 50 grams of unnecessary excess that aside from being unhealthy is hastening climate change and contributing to a whole host of other environmental problems.

It’s well-known by now that meat, as a food source, is inefficient. But what was most shocking about Gardner and Wasserman’s presentation was just how big of an impact cutting down on meat — not, crucially, cutting it out altogether — could have. If Americans started sticking to the RDA of protein — more than enough to meet their needs — andthey sourced 25 percent of that protein from plants, they said, the equivalent savings in carbon dioxide emissions would constitute 27 percent of the U.S.’s greenhouse gas reduction goal. It would be, to put it another way, the equivalent of “turning off the U.K.”

That’s an astounding benefit, even if it isn’t one that’s likely to resonate with Republican leadership. But when anyone fights this hard against something this simple, it’s worth asking whose interests they’re really trying to protect.

Lindsay Abrams is a staff writer at Salon, reporting on all things sustainable. Follow her on Twitter @readingirl, email labrams@salon.com

==

proposal has prompted an outcry from the meat lobby, which has argued that the Obama administration is going too far in efforts to guide what Americans eat. "Hands off my hot dog," is the rallying cry of the North American Meat Institute's Change.org petition.

Now Congressional Republicans are pushing back with two bills that would make the government consider only nutrition and diet when considering the advisory committee's advice. While the proposed legislation doesn't address the meat issue directly, it changes the threshold for the science that the departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services should use when they issue their official recommendations at the end of this year.

Let's be clear: The bills say the recommendations should be supported by only the strongest science. The plant-based diet advice from the committee is based on "moderate" evidence. The Senate version was approved by a subcommittee last week, and the House version was approved by the appropriations committee on Wednesday.

Rep. Robert Aderhold (R-Ala.) told the Associated Press that the goal of the legislation "should not be to 'dumb down' the standards but instead increase the science certainty of each guideline."

It isn't a coincidence that individuals and political action committees associated with big meat companies including Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods tend to give most of their contributions to Republicans. "The industry is a strong supporter of the GOP, and has given the party more than three-quarters of the $10 million of its contributions made since the 1990 election cycle," according to Center for Responsive Politics Opensecrets.org project.

ref wapo 6/15

==

wiki

Robert Brown Aderholt^[1] (born July 22, 1965) is the U.S. Representative for Alabama's 4th congressional district, serving since 1997. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district includes most of Tuscaloosa, as well as the far northern suburbs of Birmingham and the southern suburbs of Huntsville and Decatur.

Aderholt is a member of the Tea Party, and has taken very conservative stands on issues such as abortion, tax reform, defense spending, and same sex marriage.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Early life, education and career
• 2 Political positions
  • 2.1 Tax reform
  • 2.2 Regulatory reform
  • 2.3 Anti-abortion
  • 2.4 Defense
  • 2.5 Family values
  • 2.6 Climate change
• 3 U.S. House of Representatives
  • 3.1 Committee assignments
  • 3.2 Caucuses
  • 3.3 Bills sponsored
• 4 Political campaigns
  • 4.1 2010 campaign
  • 4.2 2012 campaign
• 5 Electoral history
• 6 Personal life
• 7 Notes
• 8 Citations
• 9 References
• 10 External links

Early life, education and career

This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately. (August 2013)

Aderholt was born in Haleyville, Alabama, to Mary Frances Brown and Bobby Ray Aderholt.^[2] He still lives there today. Aderholt's father, a part-time minister for a small group ofCongregational churches in northwest Alabama, was a circuit judge for more than 30 years. He attended the University of North Alabama and then Birmingham-Southern College where he graduated. During college, Aderholt was a member of Kappa Alpha Order. Aderholt received his J.D. from the Samford University Cumberland School of Law and practiced law after graduation.

Aderholt was active in the Republican Party when it barely existed in Alabama.^{[citation needed]} In 1992, Aderholt was appointed Haleyville municipal judge. In the same year, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. and in 1995 become the top aide to Governor Fob James. With that experience, he won the Republican primary in the race to succeed 15-termDemocratic incumbent Tom Bevill, who retired from Congress in 1996. Aderholt also endorsed a candidate for circuit judgeship in Blount County, Steven King. Though the move was controversial, King won the judgeship. Aderholt was subsequently criticized by many for endorsing someone that was not from his own district.

Political positions

Tax reform

Aderholt is a signer of Americans for Tax Reform’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge.^[3] saying he will not raise taxes on any tax bracket. Aderholt is actively involved in the pro-life movement.

Regulatory reform

In December 2011, Aserholt voted in support of H.R. 10, the "Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act," which would have required Congressional approval for any "major regulations" issued by the executive branch but, unlike the 1996 Congressional Review Act, would not require the president's signature or override of a probable presidential veto.^[4][5]

Anti-abortion

During the “March for Life” rally in Washington on Jan 22, 2010, he said, “The issue of abortion and the sanctity of life is something that I feel strongly about and I encourage my colleagues to look for ways to curb and stop abortions in the United States, while compassionately educating on this important issue.”

Defense

He does not support reducing the defense budget to close the American deficit, and in May 2012 said "cuts to defense budgets - the federal government's primary Constitutional responsibility - shouldn't be the relief valve for uncontrolled domestic program spending".^[6] Aderholt opposes government spending to stimulate economic growth. He voted against the $787 Billion Stimulus Package in February 2009.

Family values

Aderholt is a supporter of the Second Amendment and was endorsed by the NRA in the 2010 General Election.^[7] He is opposed to same sex marriage and has received high ratings from traditional family based interest groups such as the Family Research Council, the Traditional Values Coalition, and American Family Association.^[8]

Climate change

During the 2013 111th Congress Aderholt voted for the amendment by Rep. Scalise (R-LA)^{[Notes 1]} which would "require that Congress be allowed to vote on any executive regulation that would impose any tax, price, or levy upon carbon emissions... effectively prevents the executive branch from levying any form of carbon tax without Congressional approval. Since a carbon tax would be tremendously destructive to the economy as a whole, this measure would hopefully make such a tax unlikely to pass."^[9] Key .Aderholt opposed regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, and in December 2008 helped write a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which stated, "I am opposed to any attempt to impose greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act on the agricultural industry."^[10] Aderholt was against the policies promoted by the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference as well as the US proposed Cap and Trade Bill, part of what he argued was an "unrealistic carbon emissions reduction mandate." that would result in a loss of American jobs. He agreed with the Global warming petition project^[11] that, "[t]here is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate."^[12]

U.S. House of Representatives

Committee assignments

• Committee on Appropriations
  • Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies
  • Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies
  • Subcommittee on Homeland Security (Chairman)
• Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Caucuses

• Republican Study Committee
• Tea Party Caucus
• Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans

Aderholt's voting record is generally conservative. However, his votes on economic issues has been generally based on the concerns of his district rather than an overarching ideology. He has been notable in his support of quotas on steel imports and sponsored a bill assessing additional antidumping duties on foreign steel in 1999. He reached out further to industrial unions with his vote against PNTR with China.^{[citation needed]} Aderholt's most notable success has been the continued protection of the sock industry, based out of Fort Payne, Alabama. He voted against the free trade agreements with Chile, Morocco, and Singapore, but supported the US-Australia FTA. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, Aderholt has secured a significant amount of highway and sewer funding for the 4th District. Aderholt voted in favor of a joint resolution to withdraw the United States from the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2000 and 2005.^[13][14] He is involved with the NASA Space Launch System and has urged to increase funding for the programs based in Alabama.^[8]

Aderholt is a staunch supporter and confidant of "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore, whose home is in Gadsden, the longtime political center of the district. Moore joined Aderholt when Aderholt introduced the Constitution Restoration Act, controversial legislation which would remove issues regarding the First Amendment to the Constitution from the reach of the Federal Courts.

Aderholt voted in favor of the Central America Free Trade Agreement, but has since stated that he relied on promises by the Bush White House that were not kept.

On November 4, 1999, Aderholt voted in favor of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act,^[15] which some economists, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, believe helped create the 2007 financial crisis.^[16][17]

Bills sponsored

Sponsor HR 3808: Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010, 111th Congress

The bill was cosponsored by Reps. Bruce Braley (D., Iowa), Michael Castle (R., Del.), and Artur Davis (D., Ala.).

H.R. 3808 Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010 - To require any Federal or State court to recognize any notarization made by a notary public licensed by a State other than the State where the court is located when such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce.

Apr 27, 2010: This bill passed in the House of Representatives by voice vote. A record of each representative’s position was not kept.

Sep 27, 2010: This bill passed in the Senate by Unanimous Consent. A record of each senator’s position was not kept.

Oct 8, 2010: Vetoed by President.

H.R. 2017 Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012

May 26, 2011: Introduced

June 2, 2011: Passed House with amendments

September 26, 2011: Passed Senate with amendments

September 30, 2011: Became Public Law 112-33 ^[18]

Political campaigns

As the Republican nominee, Aderholt faced a considerable challenge against State Senator Bob Wilson Jr., who called himself a Democrat "in the Tom Bevill tradition". This was a seriously contested race, receiving a deal of national coverage and significant support from the Republican Party. Newt Gingrich personally visited the district during the campaign. Aderholt won narrowly, 50%-48%, and hasn't faced serious opposition since.

2010 campaign

See also: United States House of Representatives elections in Alabama, 2010#District 4

Aderholt was re-elected unopposed.^{[citation needed]}

2012 campaign

Further information: United States House of Representatives elections in Alabama, 2012#District 4

Aderholt was reelected in the November election where he beat State representative Daniel Boman, the Democratic nominee.^[19] In 2012 Aderholt raised $1,207,484.98 for his campaign, but spent only $963,859.15. Parker Towing was his largest contributor, providing $24,000.00. $493,856, 41% of his contributions came from large individual contributions. $583,000, 48% came from PACs.^[8]

Electoral history