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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/forrest-lucas-hammond-pardon-bundy-trump-pence">https://www<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.buzzfeed</span>news.com/article/annehelenpetersen/forrest-lucas-hammond-pardon-bundy-trump-pence</a>#.syD8RwE3w</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><b>the last call Oregon rancher Dwight Hammond Jr. made before heading to federal prison on two counts of arson in 2016 was to a man he hardly knew. Forrest Lucas, who made his fortune on oil engine additives, promised Hammond that he would do whatever he could to get him and his son, Steven, out of prison.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Early Tuesday morning aboard Air Force One, en route to the NATO summit, President Donald Trump signed an official clemency order pardoning the two men.</span> Lucas — a 76-year-old Indiana self-made millionaire with tight ties to the Trump administration — had fulfilled his pledge.</div><div>
</div><div>For nearly two decades, the Hammonds had been engaged in skirmishes with the Bureau of Land Management, an agency that functions as a go-between for ranchers and the federal land they lease for grazing. They pushed back, often threateningly, on regulations regarding the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, which bordered the Hammonds’ grazing allotment, and they set unpermitted fires on BLM land. After a second fire in 2006, the pair were charged with 19 different crimes, but eventually arranged a plea deal for just two charges of arson on federal land, which carried a minimum of a five-year sentence. The judge declared that such lengthy jail time qualified as cruel and unusual punishment, instead sentencing Dwight to three months and Steven to one year and one day. The pair served their time and returned home. But the federal government successfully appealed the sentence, and on Jan. 4, 2016, the Hammonds were ordered to return to prison.</div><div>
</div><div>[US Department of Justice</div><div>Steven Hammond (left) and his father, Dwight Hammond, after their arrest.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The verdict brought Ammon and Ryan Bundy — who, along with their father, Cliven, had been involved in an armed confrontation with BLM officials over the management of their grazing allotment in Nevada — to Eastern Oregon</b>. On Jan. 2, Ammon led several hundred people on a peaceful march through Burns, Oregon, in support of the Hammonds. At the end of the march, he made a declaration: Whoever wanted to take a “hard stand” against the government should follow him — thus launching what would become the 41-day armed standoff at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.</div><div>
</div><div>The Hammonds, however, weren’t there. Nor did they condone what the Bundys and others had done in their name. When the occupation began, they were back on their ranch with <b>Dave Duquette, Lucas’s close associate. </b>When the Hammonds flew back to a hero’s welcome in Burns, Oregon, it was aboard Lucas’s private jet. Lucas, whose company, Lucas Oil, currently holds naming rights for the Indianapolis Colts’ stadium, has made a pro-agriculture, anti-regulation agenda his mission over the past eight years — and had decided that the Hammonds fit into his larger master plan.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">To achieve his goals, Lucas has used a nonprofit he founded, Protect the Harvest — devoted to “working to protect your right to hunt, fish, farm, eat meat, and own pets” — as well as his close ties to Vice President Mike Pence, </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">, whose top adviser is a former employee of Lucas’s. As Duquette puts it, “the access is very good.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>“Most people wouldn’t get involved,” Duquette told BuzzFeed News in early June. <b>“But thank god for Forrest Lucas, because he’s been willing to take on the hard issues.</b>” Among those hard issues: fighting environmental activists, pushing back against regulation, and protecting farmers and ranchers from what they see as federal overreach. That’s why Lucas grew interested in the Hammonds in the first place. “We’re all about affordable food and land use and personal rights,” Duquette explained. The Hammond case “intersects perfectly with the Protect the Harvest mission.”</div><div>
</div><div>Protect the Harvest has built a positive rapport with the ag community by sponsoring scholarships and racetracks and film festivals. But the nonprofit has also benefited by inflaming the community’s anxieties that a time-honored way of life is coming to an end —<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> while eliding the fact that its own lobbying on behalf of corporations and against regulations has hastened the destruction of that lifestyle.</span></div><div>
</div><div>For those active in the agricultural world, Lucas has primarily been known for his strong stance on animal regulation, actively opposing attempts to limit or monitor mistreatment of pets and livestock with laws that would, for example, establish minimum spacing for hen cages or veal calf pens, crack down on puppy mills, or prevent intentional mutilation of Tennessee walking horses. A particular target of his <b>efforts has been the Humane Society of the United States — the national organization that has spearheaded the vast majority of initiatives related to animal regulation, and which Lucas has referred to as “terrorists.</b>”</div><div>
</div><div>Justin Sullivan / Getty Images</div><div>Ammon Bundy (left), the leader of an anti-government militia, prepares to speak to members of the media in front of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters on Jan. 5, 2016, near Burns, Oregon.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Lucas’s agenda is hardly limited to cage sizes and puppy mills, as reflected by his support of the Hammonds and, by extension, the Bundys and others opposed to federal control of public lands. And to get what he wants<b>, Lucas has employed a highly sophisticated lobbying and messaging machine,</b> which does everything from funding opposition to municipal spaying and neutering ordinances to orchestrating “range rights” conferences, streamed live on Facebook to an audience of thousands.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Protect the Harvest has spent millions producing web videos and memes that spread across the dozens of Bundy-adjacent Facebook pages that have popped up in the last decade.</b> It also focuses on messaging to children: There are anti-regulatory Protect the Harvest coloring activity sheets, and a pro-ag Protect the Harvest–branded teaching curriculum available for download on their website.<b> In 2015, Lucas began producing feature-length films — starring Hollywood actors like Sharon Stone, Jon Voight, and Jane Seymour — to promote his strongly anti-regulation agenda.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2015, Lucas began producing feature-length films — starring Hollywood actors like Sharon Stone, Jon Voight, and Jane Seymour — to promote his strongly anti-regulation agenda.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lucas’s film and television production studio, the Corona, California–based ESX Entertainment, currently has five films in production — including Stand at Paxton County described as the story of a rancher and his daughter who “face off against state and local authorities who by questionable means relieve local ranchers of their livestock and way of life.</span>”</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After Trump took office, Lucas made the short list of potential appointees for interior secretary. Although Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke ultimately got the job, he has provided an open door to both Lucas and Protect the Harvest. Meanwhile, Brian Klippenstein, who is still listed as PTH’s executive director, now works as senior adviser to Perdue. Pence’s vice presidency has been a boon for Lucas, who, according to a Protect the Harvest spokesperson, has been friends<b> [funder] </b>with Pence since before he took the office of Indiana governor.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In addition to Lucas’s own role as one of Trump’s agricultural advisers, public records indicate that Lucas met with Zinke in April 2017 to discuss wild horses, grazing access issues, and national monument designations</span>. In October, when Pence flew to attend an Indianapolis Colts game, abruptly leaving when players knelt during the national anthem, he first spent time posing for photos with Lucas and <b>Duquette.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Protect the Harvest also has ties to former <b>EPA chief Scott Pruitt,</b></span><b> </b>who was a featured speaker at a Protect the Harvest event in Indianapolis on Jan. 26, 2016.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Protect the Harvest / Facebook</div><div>Lucas, the Hammonds, and Duquette on Lucas's private plane back to Burns.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Lucas’s investment in the Hammonds — and the Bundys, who’ve been invited to Protect the Harvest–sponsored forums — is a means to an end. They have become symbols of the way many rural Americans feel they’ve been wronged by<b> federal overreach, and Lucas, much like Trump, leverages those feelings to build support for one of his overriding goals: wide-scale deregulation of big business.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div>This is the story of how Forrest Lucas became the behind-the-scenes architect of a multipronged political and propaganda machine — unknown to most Americans, yet with an outsize influence on the current administration and the way millions think of their rural way of life, the industries that shape it, and the government’s role within it.</div><div>
</div><div>“This administration has been pretty good at asking for problems,” Duquette explained. “And then addressing them.” The Hammond pardon is the first such Protect the Harvest “problem” that’s been directly addressed on the national stage. But with Lucas’s direct access to multiple wings of the administration, it’s unlikely to be the last.</div><div>
</div><div>Dave Duquette /<b> Facebook</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lucas, Duquette, and Ramona Hage Morrison at the Department of the Interior.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To understand why an incredibly wealthy man like Lucas would care about the fate of a pair of Oregon ranchers, you have to consider the concept of “the harvest” as Lucas is using it: a stand-in for everything from actual crop yields to what he views as the fundamental right to make a living as one sees fit off the land. In tax filings, <b>Protect the Harvest describes its mission as educational</b>: “to ensure accurate information is communicated to the general public with the rise of various groups threatening to end modern agriculture and hunting in the United States.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>In practice, this “accurate information” has centered on a cluster of issues that are closely tied to Big Ag’s priorities:</b> portraying animal rights activists and environmentalists as out-of-touch liberals bent on ending the rural way of life; characterizing regulation and federal oversight, particularly on public lands, as a means of curtailing American liberty; and advocating for and providing platforms for public figures — such as the Hammonds — to function as symbols of widespread persecution of the ag community.</div><div>
</div><div>That this apparatus was built in just eight years, by a man with little in the way of a visible political profile, is a testament to what a few million dollars can do in our current American ideological landscape. And while Lucas may seem like an unlikely political figure, his “all-American” rise, and the obstacles that defined it, go a long way toward explaining the ardor and anger fueling his cause.</div><div>
</div><div>While Lucas may seem like an unlikely political figure, his “all-American” rise goes a long way toward explaining the ardor and anger fueling his cause.</div><div>At age 76, Lucas has deep brown hair that seems to belie the natural aging process. When he speaks with the press, he tends to wear shirts emblazoned with the Lucas Oil logo of his company, or a race car jersey. He’s the sort of man who’d commission a documentary about his own life — titled<b> American Real: The Forrest Lucas Story </b>— show it at a film festival, and then make it nearly impossible for anyone to view it again. He considers himself an embodiment of the American dream: a boy who, as he tells it, grew up without electricity in rural Indiana but then, over decades of hard work and fair dealings, scraped his way to a multimillion-dollar company.</div><div>
</div><div>Born in 1942, Lucas grew up on a farm in Elkinsville, Indiana — living, as he put it, “pretty much like people lived in the 1800s.” “Most people now could only read about that,” he said, “but I got to see the tail end of it. Most people think it’s kind bucolic, but it’s actually a pretty hard way to go.” According to Lucas, when he was 9 years old, he got his start as an entrepreneur by going door-to-door, barefooted, selling a supposed miracle cure called Cloverine Salve.</div><div>
</div><div>Lucas was, in many ways, a typical farm kid. He’d wake in the morning to take care of the cows and pigs, go to school, and return home to care for them again. At age 15, he left home to work at a cattle ranch in Harrison County, near the Kentucky state line. He graduated high school, then, as he later put it, “went to a long college called hard knocks.” By age 18, Lucas was a married man with a child — and left the ranching life to make a living for his family, hauling dirt, finding odd construction jobs, selling Singer sewing machines, and working a muffler assembly line at night.</div><div>
</div><div>But what Lucas really wanted was a semi. “I’d see these guys going down the road,” he said, “and maybe they were going somewhere. I wanted to get into the truck and go somewhere.” At 21, he pulled together enough money to buy his first semi — the first in what would eventually become a fleet. Two years later, the creek that ran near his childhood farm would be dammed in order to power the nearby city of Bloomington. The entirety of Lucas’s hometown of Elkinton was acquired through eminent domain. His childhood farm was gone, superseded by the needs of those in the city nearby.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Lucas didn’t make his fortune on trucks. He made it on oil additives, created using a “secret formula” that Lucas claims to have discovered almost by accident and which, his company claims, has seemingly miraculous effects on the performance of engines</b>: It reduces wear, lengthens engine life, improves gas mileage, and makes motors run quieter, among other things. Lucas Oil is marketed to car aficionados, gearheads, and truckers with aging rigs.</div><div>
</div><div>Getty Images; Alamy</div><div>
</div><div>In the ’80s, Lucas Oil began putting its logo on race cars as a means of advertising. The Lucases bought a cattle ranch in Cross Timbers, Missouri, that has grown to 15,000 acres, with over 3,000 cattle. They opened an oil processing plant in Corona, California, and a second one in Corydon, Indiana, where they also purchased the local railroad. In 2011, Lucas acquired a television channel, MAVTV, and filled it with races featuring cars emblazoned with the Lucas Oil logo. “I realized several years ago that people were starting to [skip] commercials,” Lucas told Autoweek. “We needed to be in the TV show itself, more so than just be on the car.”</div><div>
</div><div>Lucas began to acquire the entire means of production: He sponsored the cars, he built or bought the tracks, he owned the broadcasting network, and when the production company he’d employed to make commercials went bankrupt, he bought their gear and trained his loading dock employees to operate it, moving to a dilapidated Sunkist factory in Corona. By 2012, at least 700 different racing teams wore the Lucas Oil logo; today, many of those teams have transitioned to wearing the logo for Protect the Harvest. It’s vertical integration, done the Lucas way: first to promote his oil brand, now to promote his ideological one.</div><div>
</div><div>Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.</div><div>
</div><div>“The thing that’s interesting about Lucas — I don’t think anyone realizes what kind of reach he has,” a correspondent for Speed magazine said in 2012. Apart from the racing, Lucas’s name and brand is broadcast into millions of homes every week via nationally televised games at <b>Lucas Oil Stadium. The $121.5 million gambit, which affixes the Lucas Oil name to the stadium where the Indianapolis Colts play until 2028, launched Lucas and his second wife, Charlotte, onto the radar of the Indiana elite. Suddenly, the farm boy was a person to know.</b></div><div>
</div><div>The Indianapolis elite began actively courting his full-time return from California, where he’d been running Lucas Oil for decades. “Forrest would be a big fish in this pond,” then-mayor Bart Peterson told Indianapolis Monthly in 2007. “He would be somebody who would be noticed, because of his roots, and the fact that he’s proud of those roots.” In 2010, the Lucases purchased a sprawling mansion, known as Le Chateau Renaissance, outside of Indianapolis, with the primary intention to use it for fundraisers and benefits. He added a 220,000-square-foot expansion to his Indiana plant, effectively making it the home base for Lucas Oil operations. Seven decades removed from an electricity-less farm in Elkinsville, Indiana, Forrest Lucas had arrived.</div><div>
</div><div>Like many who find their fortunes secure, Lucas decided to throw his newfound influence around. He began donating to political figures — to then-governor Pence, but also to multiple representatives in Missouri, where Lucas ran a cattle ranch. It was there, in 2010, that he took on his first major political fight against Missouri’s Proposition B, colloquially known as the “puppy mill bill.” The bill aimed to limit dog breeding facilities to 50 unspayed/unneutered animals, which would effectively eliminate the “puppy mill” industry in the states where such facilities are most concentrated.</div><div>
</div><div>“We’ve got to go on the offense. We’ve got to start staking out ag turf.”</div><div><b>For outsiders, regulating dog breeding and preventing abuses might seem like an easy call, but to dog breeders, it felt like a threat to their way of life.</b> The fight over Proposition B became a proxy for a much larger battle, between animal rights activists — and HSUS in particular — and the agricultural industry writ large. Prop B ultimately passed with 51.59% of the vote — only to be overturned by the Missouri legislature. The struggle over Proposition B emboldened Lucas. Together with other ag producers, he constructed a blueprint for a larger organization that would promote the interests of agriculture<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. “We’ve got to go on the offense,” Erik Helland, then-majority whip of the Iowa House of Representatives, and one of early architects of this organization, said. “We’ve got to start staking out ag turf.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>In 2012, Protect the Harvest filed paperwork with the FEC to create a political action committee known as the Protect the Harvest Action Fund. </b>Brian Klippenstein — the son of a longtime Missouri state senator, who’d spent the previous <b>five years as then-senator Kit Bond’s chief of staff </b>— became the group’s executive director. While Klippenstein comes from a long ranching heritage, he has the polish and hairstyle of someone who’s spent decades rubbing elbows in DC. According to his Protect the Harvest bio, Klippenstein has “completed over 50 marathons, including over a dozen 50-milers and four single-day 100-milers…all fueled by a high-protein diet centered around nutrient-dense red meat.”</div><div>
</div><div>Source: Pro Publica Nonprofit Explorer</div><div>Protect the Harvest expenditures 2012-2016</div><div>
</div><div><b>Between 2012 and 2016, the latest year for which tax returns are available, Protect the Harvest Action Fund has spent close to $4 million on influence and lobbying activities</b>. (All tax filings are available here.) Since 2012, the vast majority of Protect the Harvest’s PAC money has been directed toward supporting “Right to Farm” legislation and combating initiatives, most of them spearheaded by the HSUS, that Lucas’s group sees as infringing upon agricultural liberty. The language of contemporary Right to Farm amendments guarantees farmers and ranchers the right to engage in their livelihoods and produce food for others. If that sounds vague, it’s purposeful: It’s less intended to address a current threat than future ones. In practice, it helps bolster the feeling that an industry is vulnerable.</div><div>
</div><div>You can get a sense of that perceived vulnerability in a post in ranching publication Drovers, written by cattle genetics specialist Jared Wareham: “Our industry has plead [sic] for a way to help block and then counterpunch anti-ag initiatives and the well-funded organizations that spearhead those efforts,” Wareham writes. “It is unnerving to know that if left unmonitored, these groups could lead initiatives to change the laws of a state or influence the language of those laws so something we have done for a living could be unlawful. If these organizations can win battles in one state, it could easily open the door to successes in other states.”</div><div>
</div><div>And who happens to be defending the industry from this alleged war? Protect the Harvest, which Wareham describes as “the shield of armor we’ve been looking for.”</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Protect The Harvest / Facebook</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Protect the Harvest’s first foray into the fray came in Missouri, where it offered broad media support for a 2014 Right to Farm amendment, copied from a 2012 version drafted in North Dakota. For that campaign, Lucas enlisted then–state senator <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mike Parson, </span>who is now governor, and to whom Lucas has given more than $175,000 in campaign donations.</b> The two men first connected in 2010, during the campaign against Proposition B. After it passed, Parson, whose district included Lucas’s cattle ranch and one of his speedways, sponsored the legislation that effectively defanged the bill. From 2013 to 2015, Parson served as the treasurer of Protect the Harvest, and when Parson ran for lieutenant governor in 2016, Lucas and his wife campaigned alongside him; after he won, he framed a Protect the Harvest poster in his office.</div><div>
</div><div><b>In North Dakota, the Right to Farm amendment had sailed to an easy victory, winning two-thirds of the vote. But in Missouri, it was hotly contested.</b> One public radio story framed it as pitting “farmer against farmer,” leaving little way for small producers to defend against the incursion and growth of larger ones. Protect the Harvest argued, “Our rights don’t come from government. They are God-given freedoms that come with our humanity. However, bureaucrats and activist judges have made it clear that they will not respect those rights unless they are codified in statutes or constitutions.” Together, both sides spent a total of $1.5 million on messaging. The amendment barely passed, eking out 50.12% of the final vote.</div><div>
</div><div><b>A version of the amendment then migrated to Oklahoma, where Protect the Harvest was joined in support by the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association, the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, and the Oklahoma Pork Council. </b>Their opposition, led by HSUS, the Sierra Club, the ASPCA, and the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, argued that the bill, SQ 777, would make it impossible to act if and when ag polluted or otherwise threatened a water source or the land.</div><div>
</div><div>“I work with family farmers from all over the state,” said Adam Price, a representative of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative. “And I can say with absolute certainty that SQ 777 was not conceived with them in mind.” The “yes” argument was crystallized in a television ad created by Protect the Harvest: “Have you seen the ads attacking 777? ALL LIES. Paid for by the same out-of-state animal rights groups that oppose the right to hunt and fish.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>In the end, the Yes side lost by 20 points — the first major defeat for the new wave of Right to Farm legislation and Protect the Harvest. </b>Brian Jones, an attorney who spent a year working for the “no” side, links the amendment’s failure to reactivated memory: “Most people in Oklahoma have an agricultural heritage, meaning their grandparents or parents were farmers,” he told BuzzFeed News. “One of the consequences of the industrialization of ag is that fewer and fewer people are involved in it. Most of what is out there, in the market right now, is Big Ag.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During this same period in the ’90s, there was enormous consolidation in ag production — basically, big farms buying up smaller ones — that marked an end to many farming families’ way of life. “There were some fights about all this back then,” Jones said. “But 777 reraised all these questions: Where did the jobs go? What happened to the people?”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Protect The Harvest / Facebook</div><div>
</div><div><b>In Missouri, Protect the Harvest had effectively mobilized those rural anxieties, papering over the role of larger industrial and legislative forces that had ended that way of life years before. In Oklahoma, that project failed — but their defeat has only served to bolster Protect the Harvest’s argument that outsiders are determined to fight against one’s “right to farm</b>.” (In an email to BuzzFeed News, a spokesman responded to a question about the effects of deregulation on small farms with the following statement: “Protect the Harvest supports all forms of agriculture. Our mission is to educate and inform the public about issues that impact our American traditions, heritage and way of life. There are many overreaching regulations that impact farms, both large and small which ultimately affect the American public as both large and small farms feed our nation.”)</div><div>
</div><div><b>Lucas’s design to “protect” the harvest has largely entailed fighting regulation. Like many conservative operatives, Protect the Harvest views any type of regulation, whether on the hours a long-haul trucker can legally drive or the conditions for raising chickens, as unnecessary and restrictive incursions on free enterprise, but one area of particular interest has been wild horses.</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Back in 2012, Dave Duquette attempted to bring a horse slaughterhouse to his hometown of Hermiston, Oregon, </span>promising much-needed economic stimulus to the area, but local leaders balked at the prospect of the town being equated with a taboo industry. <b>Fast-forward six years, and Duquette is the “equine specialist” for Protect the Harvest.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Duquette, who is rarely without his cowboy hat and a cowboy shirt embroidered with the Protect the Harvest or Lucas Oil logo, has spearheaded Protect the Harvest’s efforts to change the messaging around wild horse management from cruelty to benevolence.</div><div>
</div><div>“It was really scary to be targeted by that machine.” </div><div>“American wild horses are suffering due to overcrowding, which has led to starvation and death,” the opening to a four-part series on Protect the Harvest’s homepage claims. “We have the opportunity and obligation to protect them from long and painful suffering by controlling their numbers.” A 15-minute PTH-produced video, titled “Horses in Crisis,” features an array of sick and starving horses, as well as ranchers and others condemning “horse advocates” for their lack of knowledge about horses on the range. “It’s time to bring facts, reason, and a special perspective to an issue dominated by emotion,” a solemn-voiced narrator says. The overarching message: Those who deal with wild horses on the land should dictate how to manage horses on the land, and not faraway regulators.</div><div>
</div><div><b>That was Duquette’s message in 2015, when he visited Nevada in support of a rancher named Kevin Borba, who had repeatedly and progressively flouted rules governing the treatment of wild horses on his grazing allotment</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Duquette posted a picture of Borba in a Protect the Harvest–branded four-wheeler, out to “document” the “lies” spread by Laura Leigh, who was heading up an experimental fertility control program on the horses. </span>Protect the Harvest created a series of videos framing Borba as a victim of the BLM, whose “mismanagement hurts both the horses and the ranchers whose livelihood are being taken away.” According to Leigh, an initial version of the video, later taken down, included her name, prompting immediate harassment. (Protect the Harvest disputes this claim.) <b>“I was getting a dozen death threats with my morning coffee</b>,” Leigh told BuzzFeed News. “It was really scary to be targeted by that machine.”</div><div>
</div><div>George Frey / Getty Images</div><div>Wild horses are held in a BLM holding/adoption facility after being rounded up from BLM land in the western United States on June 1, 2017, in Delta, Utah.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Lucas has repeatedly referred to HSUS and animal rights activists as “terrorists” intent on “passing laws to ruin America”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> that deliberately impugn the small-time farmer’s way of life. </span>Lucas’s political donations and Protect the Harvest’s messaging around ballot initiatives underlined that ideology. But to make those ideologies even more robust and persuasive required something more effective than political ads. They needed propaganda.</div><div>
</div><div>Propaganda is anything from a pamphlet to a television program that attempts to make an argument for a particular political stance, whether on the right, left, or center — but much of it can be heavy-handed, simplistic, or misleading. When it comes to agriculture and animal rights issues, both sides of the issue produce propaganda. But only one side has its own film studio.</div><div>
</div><div>When Lucas first started producing television programming for his television channel, the focus was vehicles to broaden his company’s name recognition. “We got into the entertainment business to sell oil,” Lucas once said. “And nothing is more entertaining than fast cars, trucks, planes, and boats.” By 2015, his intentions had expanded. “For me, venturing into the film business is not about money, glamour or fun,” Lucas said. “It’s about being able to deliver messages and having a viable vehicle to do so.”</div><div>
</div><div>“For me, venturing into the film business is not about money, glamour, or fun. It’s about being able to deliver messages and having a viable vehicle to do so.”</div><div>But what sort of “messages” did Lucas want to transmit? Protect the Harvest messages.</div><div>
</div><div><b> Last year’s Pray for Rain, starring Jane Seymour, suggests that corrupt environmentalists, in league with shady gangsters, are prolonging the terrible drought afflicting Central California and threatening the livelihoods of desperate local farmers. </b>R<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">unning Wild, also from 2017 and starring Sharon Stone — who also coproduced — depicts a wild horse advocate, whom Laura Leigh believes is loosely based on her, as an evil villain trying to shut down a horse rehabilitation program. The 2016 film The Dog Lover, featuring Lea Thompson, involves a young woman who volunteers with an animal protection group to go undercover at a puppy mill — only to discover that the organization is far more dangerous than the “mill” itself, which, turns out, is actually a kindhearted breeding operation.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>ESX films are regularly panned by critics, do not receive theatrical releases, and go straight to video or VOD.</b> But profits, according to Lucas, are secondary. They’re reaching an audience: ag families who don’t feel that their way of life is represented accurately onscreen, and those who may not know a thing about agriculture but will be called upon to vote or think about the issues represented in the films. Watch The Dog Lover, for example, without much understanding of the dog breeding industry, and it’s easy to believe that “puppy mills” are an idea concocted by manipulative animal rights activists who have no idea what they’re talking about.</div><div>
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</div><div>ESX Entertainment</div><div>
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</div><div><b>The feature films are only one arm of Protect the Harvest’s messaging apparatus. Back in 2014, Lucas commissioned a documentary about his life (produced by advertising company MARC USA), which screened at the Heartland Film Festival</b>. (<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Earlier that month, Lucas’s wife, Charlotte, had drawn national attention for a Facebook post, later deleted, that declared, “I’m sick and tired of minorities running our country! As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think that atheists (minority), muslims (minority) or any other minority group has the right to tell the majority of people in the United States what they can and cannot do here. Is everyone so scared that they can’t fight for what’s right or wrong with this country?”)</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The day after the Facebook post, Lucas — who has previously acknowledged that his workforce is largely composed of immigrants — issued a full-page apology in the Indianapolis Star for his wife’s post, explaining that it <b>did not “reflect the feelings in her heart,”</b> and underlining that Lucas Oil “is proud to have employees, friends, customers, and business partners reflecting ethnic and racial diversity.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Apart from the films, Protect the Harvest maintains a robust Facebook presence: Its page currently has 258,000-plus followers </b>and posts links, petitions, editorials, and memes five or six times a day. The Protect the Harvest website features links to civics workbooks that can be suggested as additions to local curriculum; at the bottom of the first page, a logo declares, “You could be forced to give up your freedom to hunt, fish, and own animals. Learn more at ProtectTheHarvest.com.” For class activities, the workbook suggests observing the judicial branch at work in movies like To Kill a Mockingbird, My Cousin Vinny, or Protect the Harvest’s own The Dog Lover. For kids, there’s a section of downloadable coloring sheets bordered with “PROTECT YOUR PET! PROTECT AMERICA! PROTECT THE HARVEST.COM!”</div><div>
</div><div>In Range magazine — an independently owned quarterly publication full of beautiful rural landscapes and essays about how “the U.S. government has inflicted 40 years of abuse on Nevada’s Hage family” — Protect the Harvest now occupies about half of the ad space, promoting Protect the Harvest films and the Hammond pardon. Partnering with Range, Protect the Harvest has helped fund three “<b>Range Rights” conferences — in Layton, Utah; in Bellevue, Nebraska; and in Modesto, California.</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The two-day conference was founded in 2015 as a way to harness the energy following the Bundys’ Malheur occupation;</b> attendants include a mix of Malheur devotees and local ranchers. In Modesto this April, the attendance hovered around 40, and half the attendees were speakers themselves — but the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> real range rights audience was online, where each of the speeches was streamed in full.<b> Rep. Devin Nunes, </b>once part of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation, attacked the press; the local sheriff emphasized that his officers knew to look the other way when local ranchers had an unlicensed firearm. </span>The daughter of LaVoy Finicum spoke about the legacy of her father, the rancher who was killed by Oregon State Police in what have become heavily contested circumstances, effectively rendering him a <b>martyr for the Bundy movement.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Finally,<b> Ammon Bundy</b> preached the latest chapter in the family’s gospel, emphasizing that environmentalists are “an enemy to humans” practicing their own heretical religion.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The entire event was hosted by Trent Loos, a Nebraska farmer, member of President Trump’s Agricultural Advisory Committee, and one of Protect the Harvest’s most visible activists, united with Lucas in his fierce opposition to HSUS.</span> (<b>When HSUS began using Michael Vick’s role in dogfighting and other forms of animal abuse to make the case for tougher legislation, Loos wrote that Vick was being persecuted for “not ... treating his dog like a kid.</b>”) With his bushy mustache and ranching vest<b>, Loos — who pleaded no contest in 2005 to charges of cattle fraud —</b> looks the part of the cowboy, and will play one in a forthcoming PTH film.<b> In Modesto, Loos took the stage with Nunes. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">As a member of the ag committee, we have a certain level of frustration that we haven’t <b>drained the swamp quicker,</b> t</span>hat we still have old-school bureaucrats in the positions of decision-making,” he said. “So how do we get that fixed? Because obviously there’s a bigger plug in the swamp than anticipated.”</div><div>
</div><div>Juice Images Ltd / Getty Images</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At that point, Protect the Harvest had been working to “unplug” the swamp for well over a year. When journalist Michael Lewis began investigating the transition officials appointed by the Trump administration, he zeroed in on Brian Klippenstein’s USDA role.</span> In an interview with Fresh Air, Lewis described Protect the Harvest as an organization that sees its job “as essentially trolling the Humane Society,” and is “hypersensitive to animal rights people and tries to respond to animal rights activists wherever it can.” USDA employees found Klippenstein’s appointment odd because, as Lewis put it, “one of the things the USDA does is stand up for the rights of animals in animal-people disputes.”</div><div>
</div><div><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Dogfighting, circuses, animal slaughter, animal testing — the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> USDA</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> is charged with documenting and monitoring those operations. In the subsequent weeks, Klippenstein alone took on the responsibilities of a transition team that usually would’ve been entrusted to a team of at least 20.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Through his briefings, he became intent on figuring out which of the existing Department of Agriculture employees had been researching climate change and its ramifications.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The request was denied,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> but Klippenstein made his mark in other ways. He now serves as a senior adviser to Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">, </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">who has overseen the removal of USDA documents detailing past animal inspections, enforcement actions, and annual reports on 7,800 different facilities. </span>The removal was prompted by a lawsuit, filed during the Obama administration, alleging that a report identifying Tennessee walking horse owners as “violators” of anti-soring regulations <b>impinged on their rights to due process and privacy. To address the suit, Perdue has removed all records.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">According to Duquette, Lucas first brought up the idea of a pardon to then-governor Pence before Trump’s election.</span></div><div><b>The move was celebrated by Tennessee walking horse groups</b>, but it has broader beneficiaries: practitioners of industrial agriculture, whose husbandry, living, and slaughter practices are also monitored by the USDA. The lack of publicly accessible monitoring records will make it increasingly difficult to prosecute, legislate, or otherwise regulate current agricultural practices.</div><div>
</div><div>“We’re lucky with the things this administration has been doing,” Duquette told BuzzFeed News. “It’s been really good to deal with, and find problems to fix. That’s probably been the best thing to happen for animal agriculture, the pet industry, and the food supply.”</div><div>
</div><div>This sort of access and influence helps explain how the Hammonds’ appeal made its way to President Trump’s desk. According to Duquette, Lucas first brought up the idea of a pardon to then-governor Pence before Trump’s election. When Lucas and Pence had dinner in May, Lucas brought up the case again, making the argument for a commuted sentence. Soon after, the case was moved to the office of Pence’s chief counsel.</div><div>
</div><div>“You know, it’s ‘a squeaky wheel gets the grease’ deal,” Duquette told BuzzFeed News. “<b>And I know the president needs help from people to highlight injustices.” Since late May, Protect the Harvest’s social media accounts have been in overdrive eliciting popular support for the Hammonds’ cause. Protect the Harvest has also moved to distance itself and their cause from the Bundys, who’ve been grouped with the Hammonds since the days of the standoff.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Indeed, Duquette believes that if the Malheur occupation hadn’t happened, the Hammonds would’ve been pardoned long ago. “I don’t disagree with [the Bundys’] issues, but the tactics are...” he said, pausing for a moment. “I understand the tactics because of their frustration with what they’ve had to deal with over the years.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>During the occupation, Duquette and Trent Loos posed for a photo with Ammon Bundy; </b>while a representative from Protect the Harvest has denied offering material support to the occupiers, Todd Macfarlane — a lawyer, Bundy supporter, and standoff spokesperson — blogged that Protect the Harvest had made “its people, resources and checkbook available.” Protect the Harvest counters that a representative “went to Malheur Refuge one week into the occupation to do an interview with Ammon Bundy.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>But as the Hammond petition made its way to the White House, Duquette told BuzzFeed News that he called Ammon Bundy to let him know that Protect the Harvest would be publicly distancing itself from the Bundy family.</b> Still, the Bundys threw themselves behind the pardon petition, posting multiple links to it. When the news was announced, the Bundy Ranch Facebook page’s post alluded to the connection: “Thank you @POTUS for carrying out justice and pardoning Oregon ranchers Dwight & Steven Hammond. Many ranchers in the West have suffered under the heavy hand of the federal government. These men are great patriots.”</div><div>
</div><div>Pardoning the Hammonds suggests not only that this particular case was mistreated, but that fears of government are warranted.</div><div>Duquette acknowledges that a Hammond pardon will be treated as a win for the Bundys and their supporters. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, he said. “The president would have an outpouring of support in the West, and throughout the Midwest, from all the people that are his base for doing this. It would show a good sign of goodwill for all the people out there.”</div><div>
</div><div>To pardon the Hammonds is to ratify that their case, like so much of what Protect the Harvest lobbies against, is an example of federal overreach — engineered by ignorant outsiders who resent and misunderstand the people who make American life possible.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> As Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte phrased it in a public statement, “President Trump’s decision to pardon Dwight and Steven Hammond is a win for property rights and our way of life.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>But like so many of the issues on which Protect the Harvest’s advocacy pivots, the reality is far less stark. The Hammonds were sentenced for committing arson on federal land. An appeals court vacated that sentence because it did not satisfy the mandatory minimum sentencing requirements, and resentenced them for the mandatory minimum for that crime. Apart from the back-burning, the Hammonds have a long history of taunting BLM management and flouting their regulation. Like the Bundys, the Hammonds have long believed that the federal, public land they pay pennies on the dollar to graze should be considered their own, to manage as they please — including setting fires. The federal government, at least for the time being, disagrees.</div><div>
</div><div>Pardoning the Hammonds suggests not only that this particular case was mistreated, but that fears of government overreach are warranted — and that Trump will continue to act in a way that acknowledges those fears.</div><div>
</div><div>[Protesters on horseback ride above a rally site in Bunkerville, Nevada, April 12, 2014.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">All over ag country, Oregon to Arkansas, small schools are closing their doors. Part of the reason is that the consolidation of agriculture</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> — larger farms gobbling up smaller ones to stay alive — has made it impossible for those onetime small farmers to remain. The population of the small town dwindles, and the schools close, which makes it even less desirable for others to move to that town, provide services, attract jobs, or maintain the “way of life” associated with rural America.</span></div><div>
</div><div>When you look at the Protect the Harvest logo, you don’t see a family. You don’t see a way of life. You don’t see a person at all. You see a combine harvester — one of the primary advances in farming technology that led the agricultural industry to the place it is today. “All of their imagery is of big, beautiful tractors churning through a commodity crop, essentially dripping Lucas Oil,” Ryan Bell, a journalist and close observer of fights around the agricultural way of life, told BuzzFeed News.</div><div>
</div><div>Protect the Harvest and Lucas Oil logos are displayed at Dover International Speedway on May 6, 2018, in Dover, Delaware.</div><div>
</div><div>“But that tractor, that’s what took the community away from ranching. It undercuts a long-term, sustainable agrarian society,” he said. “There’s no need for a big family to work the farm, and no need for the family you have to stick around. <b>T<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">oday, a man might have a thousand acres of corn, and he’s tilling it all alone with a $250,000 combine. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His kid’s gone. And oddly enough, this is exactly the type of person who’s pretty susceptible to Protect the Harvest rhetoric.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>There are dozens of intersecting reasons for the end of the agrarian way of life. Some of them stem from bad legislation, improper federal regulation, and advocacy from groups with little sense of the larger effects of a disruption in the food chain. There is an impending food crisis in the world’s future. To solve it, however — while also preserving the Earth long enough for our descendants to confront that crisis — all sides of the issue need to spend less time creating bogeymen of the others; less time on “offense” or “defense.”</div><div>
</div><div>The production of food may be an industry, but it’s not a game. Whether in the form of government subsidies or a vaunted position within the American imaginary, the harvest has been protected for centuries.</div><div>
</div><div>Taken separately, Protect the Harvest’s initiatives — the feature films, the fight against HSUS, the move to root out those studying global warming, the Right to Farm advocacy, the Hammond pardon — none of it seems, on its face, like a means of protecting business interests. It’s only when examined together, as part of a larger, motivating whole, that Lucas’s actual passion becomes clear. It’s not the small-time farmer. It’s certainly not the harvest. It’s not dogs, or hunting, or horses. Forrest Lucas prides himself on his identity as an all-American man. And nothing is more all-American than unfettered industry, and the profits that flow from it. </div><div>
</div><div>BuzzFeed News Reporter</div><div>Anne Helen Petersen is a senior culture writer for BuzzFeed News and is based in Missoula, Montana.</div><div>Contact Anne Helen Petersen at anne.helen.petersen@buzzfeed.com.</div><div>Ken Bensinger</div><div>BuzzFeed News Reporter</div><div>
</div><div>Contact Ken Bensinger at ken.bensinger@buzzfeed.com.</div><div>also hernandez</div><div>
</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/trump-administration-meat-industry-covid/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/<b>2022/05</b>/trump-administration-meat-industry-covid/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>f</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>ormer President Donald Trump's administration colluded with top-level meatpacking industry executives to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in order to drive up prices and downplay the severity of the emergency,</b> according to an exhaustive investigation released on Thursday by the United States House Select Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.</span></font></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Representative Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina), the House Majority Whip and chairman of the Subcommittee, said in a statement that "the shameful conduct of corporate executives pursuing profit at any cost during a crisis and government officials eager to do their bidding regardless of resulting harm to the public must never be repeated."
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The probe began last year and uncovered a spider web of corruption and flagrant disregard for human life involving American corporate titans and individuals in the highest ranks of the federal government.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Officials at the Department of Agriculture – including Secretary Sonny Purdue and Under Secretary for Food Safety Mindy Brashears – "collaborated" with corporate bigwigs to prioritize profits and production over the safety of employees and the public despite being fully aware of the hazards.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>"Infections and deaths among workers for five of the largest meatpacking companies—Tyson Foods, Inc. (Tyson), JBS USA Holdings, Inc. (JBS), Smithfield Foods (Smithfield), Cargill, Inc. (Cargill), and National Beef Packing Company LLC (National Beef)—were significantly higher than previously estimated, with over 59,000</b> workers for these companies being infected with the coronavirus and<b> at least 269 dying,</b>" the report states.</span>
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The powerful cadre also "engaged in a concerted effort with Trump Administration political officials to insulate themselves from coronavirus-related oversight," it explains.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In one instance, the chief executive officers of the conglomerates told Purdue on a phone call that their <b>workers “should not be entitled to unemployment benefits </b>if they are otherwise able to work through the pandemic” and cautioned against “creat[ing] an incentive, much less a path, for food industry workers to choose unemployment overproducing food.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In that same conversation, they "implicitly acknowledged how dangerous plants were, asking for liability protection against lawsuits if workers were infected on the job."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>There was also an aggressive campaign to skirt "pesky" local, state, and federal regulations that would have kept workers and their products safe and healthy.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Companies lobbied the White House to make clear that—despite concerns by state and local health departments—meatpacking companies should not have to address coronavirus risks if it would impact productivity," the investigation revealed.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Alarmingly, the CEOs managed to successfully lobby Trump to draft and sign an executive order in April of 2020 that "would insulate meatpacking companies from oversight by state and local health departments and provide legal protection against lawsuits for worker illnesses and deaths."</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The edict led to Trump "invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure meatpacking plants 'continue operations.'"</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shortly thereafter, records handed over to the Subcommittee show that "meatpacking industry representatives and companies—Smithfield and Tyson in particular—engaged in constant communications with Trump appointees at USDA, the National Economic Council, and the White House, including calls between <b>Smithfield CEO Ken Sullivan and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>;</b> a joint call with Sullivan, Meadows, and <b>Tyson CEO Noel White; </b>a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> call between White and Vice President Pence’s Chief of Staff Marc Short; </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and a <b>call from Meadows to White asking if White would be willing to meet with President Trump."</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump subsequently "held a call with officers of the meatpacking companies who had lobbied for it on the morning the order was issued."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Trump granted their wish, an effort was undertaken between the administration and the industry to "coordinate closely on messaging concerning the order and its effects, apparently hoping to generate positive press coverage" for the ex-commander in chief.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Worker fatalities, meanwhile, were swept under the rug.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In a particularly egregious example, an outbreak at Foster Farms in Livingston,<b> California</b> that infected "at least" 392 workers and killed eight in August of 2020 prompted the company to "intimidate" the Merced County Department of Public Health from shutting down the plant.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Foster Farms attempts to obfuscate the death count by labeling fatalities as 'resolutions,</b>'" investigators learned. "MCPH officials told the Select Subcommittee that an unidentified person on the call from either Foster Farms or USDA said these cases could be considered <b>'toe tag resolutions,</b>' referring to the toe tag that is often put on a corpse at the morgue. MCPH said that Brashears asked this individual to 'stop' and said they would 'talk about this separately.'"</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Operations at Foster Farms in Livingston were eventually temporarily suspended on August 31st.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/2022.5.12%20-%20SSCC%20report%20on%20Meatpacking%20FINAL.pdf" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Read the full report here</a>.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> </span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PPP rww 720</font></p><p><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://act.pfaw.org/go/83586?t=5&akid=16098%2E2556770%2ERz8EqG" style="font-size: 21.3333px; text-align: -webkit-center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"> Perry Joins Capitol Ministries Project to ‘Disciple’ Local Officials to Right-Wing ‘Biblical Worldview’</font></a></p><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-size: 18px;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Former Texas Gov. and U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry is partnering with a religious-right effort to “disciple” 500,000 local officials into a conservative Christian “worldview” and shape public policies in 40,000 <span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">U.S.</span> localities. Perry’s undertaking was announced in a June letter to supporters of Capitol Ministries from the organization’s president <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/ralph-drollinger/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Ralph Drollinger</a>, whose weekly Bible studies teach members of Trump’s Cabinet and the U.S. Congress that the Bible instructs public officials to support right-wing social, economic, environmental, and criminal justice policies.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I am passionate about Capitol Ministries’ efforts to reach today’s 500,000 elected local government leaders with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and disciple them with the Word of God, so they may form a Christian worldview in their hearts,” Perry is quoted in the Drollinger letter. “<b>I see this effort as critically important. America’s ideological future hangs in the balance.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Drollinger and Capitol Ministries have aggressive expansion plans in multiple directions. Drollinger has previously announced Capitol Ministries’ goal of establishing “discipleship” ministries in <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/group-that-runs-fundamentalist-bible-studies-for-cabinet-congress-growing-beyond-our-wildest-imaginings-globally/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">200 nations</a>, all 50 states, and all 40,000 localities in the U.S. With help from Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Capitol Ministries is expanding its presence among high-level officials in foreign capitals. Perry has become the group’s “spokesman for Local Government Ministries.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">As part of the partnership, Perry has begun emailing local officials offering to send them a weekly Bible study taken from Drollinger’s<b> “Oaks in Office</b>,” <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/a-how-to-guide-for-conservative-christian-public-servants-from-trump-cabinet-bible-study-teacher/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">a guidebook for conservative Christian public officials</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“This is a critical time for our nation,” Perry declared in an <a href="https://capminlocal.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">invitation</a> included with Drollinger’s letter. “Spreading secularism is threatening to smother the very values that our founding fathers based out country upon—values that you and I hold very dear.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Perry wrote that Capitol Ministries’ Bible studies that he participated in as a cabinet member were “in-depth, theologically sound and they drilled deep in Scripture.” He added, “They helped us all understand more about God, biblical truths, and what God expects of us as leaders.</b>”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Drollinger’s letter affirmed that the studies being sent to local officials who respond to Perry’s emails “examine crucial policy issues through the timeless lens of God’s Word”—meaning scripture as interpreted by Drollinger.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Drollinger is not humble about his approach to the Bible, dismissing those who interpret scripture and its demands differently than he does. He has <a href="https://capmin.org/theological-liberalism-in-america/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">demonstrated contempt for liberal Christians</a> and the “social gospel,” and he has described the Catholic Church as “<a href="https://capmin.org/resources/ministry-updates/capitol-ministries-responds-fake-news-la-times-others/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">one of the primary false religions in the world</a>.” He teaches that legislators who do not share his worldview cannot be counted on to do the right thing because, he has <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-cabinet-bible-study-leader-explains-the-depravity-of-non-christian-public-officials/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">written</a>, “the longer a person rejects Christ, the greater his depravity becomes.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Drollinger’s Bible studies, which </span><a href="https://capmin.org/bible-studies/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">are available online</a><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, instruct public officials that the </span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-bible-study-leader-governments-job-is-to-quell-evil-and-punish-sin/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">government’s job is to “quell evil” and punish sin</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">; that “as a lawmaker </span><a href="https://capmin.org/the-bible-policy-capital-punishment/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">it is incumbent on you to stand for the death penalty</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">”; that </span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/leader-of-trump-cabinet-bible-studies-aggressively-expanding-right-wing-proselytizing-to-government-officials/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">entitlement programs lack “any basis of biblical authority</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">”</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">; that </span></b><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/epas-pruitt-hears-from-bible-study-leader-that-radical-environmentalism-is-a-false-religion/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“radical environmentalism” is a “false religion.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">”</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Drollinger recruits only men to run Capitol Ministries Bible studies, because he believes women are not permitted to teach men about the Bible.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In March, Drollinger </span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-prayer-warrior-and-congressional-bible-study-teacher-pray-against-evil-pork-in-coronavirus-bill/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">complained</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> about “evil pork” in coronavirus relief legislation, fretting that </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">unemployment benefits in the bill might be an “impetus to slothfulness” and “antithetical to free-market capitalism.”</span></b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Drollinger, who <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-cabinet-bible-study-pastor-ralph-drollinger-on-the-fallacy-of-christian-nationalism/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">insists that he is not a Christian nationalist</a>, tells Christian public officials that they should refuse to participate in interfaith “syncretistic” prayer breakfasts</b>; syncretism refers to the blending of belief systems. <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/leader-of-trump-cabinet-bible-study-god-only-hears-prayers-of-righteous-christians/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">According to Drollinger</a>, “God only hears the prayers of leaders and citizens who are upright, who live <em style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">righteously</em> through faith in Jesus Christ.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>When Perry was a member of Trump’s cabinet and participating in Drollinger’s weekly Bible studies, other cabinet members called Perry the “<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/bible-study-leader-wants-trump-cabinet-members-to-use-their-positions-to-spread-christianity/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">teacher’s pet</a>,”</b> Drollinger told Intercessors for America’s prayer warriors in 2018. Perry was among the <a href="https://capmin.org/you-have-been-called-to-this-rick-perry-tells-cm-ministry-leaders-from-across-the-globe/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">featured speakers</a> at Capitol Ministries’ global training session for ministry leaders that was held at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. in December.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="" color="#000000"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Drollinger asked IFA’s intercessors to pray that cabinet officials would </span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/bible-study-leader-wants-trump-cabinet-members-to-use-their-positions-to-spread-christianity/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">use their platforms to fulfill the “Great Commission”</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">—the biblical command by Jesus to his followers to “make disciples of all nations.” </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">U.S. Secretary of Agriculture <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/agriculture-secretary-sonny-perdue-helps-trump-cabinet-bible-study-pastor-raise-money-from-agribusiness/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Sonny Perdue</a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and Trump-appointed NASA Administrator </span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-cabinet-members-raise-money-for-effort-to-convert-public-officials-to-fundamentalist-worldview/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Jim Bridenstine</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> have both </span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-cabinet-members-raise-money-for-effort-to-convert-public-officials-to-fundamentalist-worldview/" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">raised money</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> for Capitol Ministries.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Drollinger’s letter asks for financial contributions to support the “massive effort” which, he wrote<span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">,</span> “will impact not only the eternal souls of local political leaders but the very future of the United States.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Perry’s <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-perry-gods-choice-for-president-ends-campaign/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">ill-fated bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination</a> was unofficially launched with a prayer rally <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-response-organizers-say-rick-perry-is-an-answer-to-their-prayers/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">backed</a> by religious-right <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-perry-and-friends-meet-the-supporters-of-the-response-prayer-rally/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">leaders</a> and <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-response-organizers-say-rick-perry-is-an-answer-to-their-prayers/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">many</a> of the “apostles” and “prophets” who are now among Trump’s strongest supporters.</b></font></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-perry-joins-capitol-ministries-project-to-disciple-local-officials-to-right-wing-biblical-worldview/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-size: 16px;"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/ralph-drollinger/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Ralph Drollinger</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/rick-perry/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Rick Perry</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/christian-nation/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Christian Nation</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/church-state/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Church-State</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/capitol-ministries/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Capitol Ministries</a></font></p></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/grotesque-deadly-failure-usda-slammed-for-allowing-millions-of-pounds-of-produce-to-rot-as-food-insecurity-surges/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/grotesque-deadly-failure-usda-slammed-for-allowing-millions-of-pounds-of-produce-to-rot-as-food-insecurity-surges/</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘Grotesque, deadly failure’: USDA slammed for allowing millions of pounds of produce to rot as food insecurity surges</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Migrant workers harvest Beets at Lakeside Organic Gardens in Watsonville, CA on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2013. USDA photo by Bob Nichols.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams April 27, 2020</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With food insecurity on the rise across the U.S. as the coronavirus pandemic continues to drive unprecedented job losses and economic disruption, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is facing backlash from lawmakers, farmers, and advocacy groups for its failure to act with urgency as millions of pounds of produce rot in fields across the nation.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“While other federal agencies quickly adapted their programs to the coronavirus crisis, the Agriculture Department took more than a month to make its first significant move to buy up surplus fruits and vegetables—despite repeated entreaties,” Politico reported Sunday, noting that the USDA’s belated response came “as food banks across the country scramble to meet a massive surge in demand.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On April 17, as Common Dreams reported, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue unveiled the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, a $19 billion plan purportedly aimed at providing relief to farmers and making “mass purchases of dairy, meat, and agricultural produce to get that food to the people in need.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But critics say the federal agency’s plan doesn’t come anywhere close to matching the scale of the crisis, which has fueled calls for a fundamental overhaul of the U.S. food system.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This thing is a joke,” Tony DiMare, owner of the Florida-based produce distribution company DiMare Fresh, told Politico of the USDA’s plan, which includes $3 billion to purchase and distribute surplus produce.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“DiMare’s company… has donated over a million pounds of tomatoes to food banks in his area,” Politico reported, “but he still had to leave some 10 million pounds in the field.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nikki Fried, Florida’s commissioner of agriculture in Florida, told Politico that she asked Perdue a month ago to take action to prevent mass waste of produce but received no response. “Unfortunately, USDA didn’t move until [last week],” Fried said.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As early as March 23, a coalition of produce industry groups wrote a letter (pdf) to Perdue warning that “there is at least $1 billion of perishable commodities without a dedicated destination as a result of the unanticipated closure of foodservice establishments, including restaurants, hotels, schools, and universities.”</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There is no reason these high-quality, nutritious, farmer-grown products should be left in facilities to rot when there are so many American families who are suddenly faced with food insecurity,” the letter stated.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another grotesque, deadly failure. ...</font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">omfg smithfield so dak covid hotspot?!</font></p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-removing-safeguards-on-food-2645756313.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-removing-safeguards-on-food-2645756313.html</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by t <a href="https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/bio/tony-corbo" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); outline: 0px; line-height: 1.5;">Corbo</a></font></p><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2645756313" style="margin-top: -15px; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="body-description" style="clear: both;"><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As the world focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating impact on public health, the Trump Administration has been busy behind the scenes doubling down on its campaign to deregulate Big Ag. At the same time, it is not providing safeguards to food production workers and government inspectors who are being made to work on the frontlines without frontline employee protections.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem1" data-id="1" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-removing-safeguards-on-food-2645756313.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" data-basename="the-usda-is-playing-fast-and-loose-with-meat-inspection-lines-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak" data-post-id="2645756313" data-published-at="1587315122" style=""><h3 data-role="headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The USDA Is Playing Fast and Loose With Meat Inspection Lines During the Coronavirus Outbreak</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is deregulating inspection in some of the largest pork processing facilities by reducing the number of inspectors assigned to the slaughter line. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They turn over critical inspection tasks to untrained company employees, and remove the cap on how fast the line can run. FSIS anticipates that 40 hog slaughter facilities will convert to this method, which is being called the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS). Those 40 facilities process over 92% of all pork in the U.S. Some of the big names in pork processing are pushing for this, such as JBS, Tyson, Smithfield, Clemens, and Quality Pork Processors. In one plant that has been experimenting with the new system, <b>FSIS inspectors have 2.6 seconds to determine whether the company employees have performed their tasks properly. </b>As a consequence, it is not uncommon for hog carcasses to be contaminated with feces, hair, toe nails, and bile to be greenlit for processing into bacon, pork chops, hot dogs, sausage, </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/inspectors-warn-unsafe-pork-could-make-its-way-consumers-under-n1097676" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">and other pork products</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Three lawsuits to challenge NSIS have been filed by unions representing the plant workers, animal welfare groups, and food safety advocates, including Food & Water Watch and the Center for Food Safety.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> FSIS hid critical information from the public when it first proposed the frighteningly minimal system. Food & Water Watch was forced to file separate litigation to obtain crucial, undisclosed information which revealed that NSIS would lead to more contaminated pork entering commerce and could lead to an animal disease — to </span><a href="https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/new-data-shows-new-swine-inspection-system-so-dangerous-it-could-spur-another-zoonotic-pandemic" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">ravage hog herds and/or be transmitted to humans</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Plants that wanted to convert to NSIS had until March 30, 2020 to state their intentions. FSIS still refuses to disclose the names of those plants, leaving consumers in the dark.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem2" data-id="2" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-removing-safeguards-on-food-2645756313.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" data-basename="meat-companies-are-being-given-almost-full-control-over-their-own-inspection-standards" data-post-id="2645756313" data-published-at="1587315122" style=""><h3 data-role="headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meat Companies Are Being Given Almost Full Control Over Their Own Inspection Standards </font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While it is struggling to keep poultry plants properly staffed with inspectors during the pandemic, FSIS has stepped up its approvals of regulatory waivers to chicken slaughter plants that want to increase their maximum line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175 birds per minute.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In the first two weeks of April, FSIS approved 11 such waivers for plants operated by Foster Farms, Tyson Foods (4 plants), and Wayne Farms (6 plants). These plants have all converted to the so-called New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS) in which the number of government inspectors assigned to the slaughter line is reduced and many of their tasks are turned over to company employees. Under traditional inspection, each FSIS inspector is assigned 35 birds per minute to inspect. Under NPIS, there is only one FSIS inspector stationed at the end of the slaughter line. When a plant is granted a line speed waiver, that sole FSIS inspector is expected to examine 3 birds every second — or 175 birds per minute. The waiver process that FSIS uses is done in secret; it is not open to public scrutiny until the FSIS reveals that it has granted the waiver. Since taking office, the Trump USDA has approved 28 new waivers under this process, </span><a href="https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/188bf583-45c9-4837-9205-37e0eb1ba243/waiver_table.pdf?MOD=AJPERES" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">mostly to the big players in the poultry industry.</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Inviting everyone to the new game, FSIS is recruiting cattle slaughter plants to deregulate inspection, too.</b> In late March, <a href="https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/usda-prioritizes-privatizing-beef-slaughter-inspection-over-food-safety-during-pandemic" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">FSIS approved a waiver</a> through its secret process for a Tyson beef plant in Holcomb, Kansas that slaughters up to 6000 head of cattle per day. The waiver is designed to reduce the number of government inspectors assigned to its slaughter line, increasing its line speed. FSIS has not revealed how fast the line will run with this waiver or how many fewer government inspectors will be on the slaughter line, but we know it won't result in safety for consumers.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem3" data-id="3" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-removing-safeguards-on-food-2645756313.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3" data-basename="meat-inspection-deregulation-threatens-food-safety" data-post-id="2645756313" data-published-at="1587315122" style=""><h3 data-role="headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meat Inspection Deregulation Threatens Food Safety</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All of these deregulatory moves are designed to increase production; they are not being done to improve food safety. They will contribute to expanding the industrial agriculture model by promoting the growth of factory farms. It's even more disconcerting that it is occurring in the middle of a national crisis.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the Trump Administration has stepped on the accelerator to deregulate in recent weeks, there are numerous examples around the country of meat and poultry plants being impacted by the spread of the COVID-19 virus. While the news has been focused on urban areas racked by the pandemic, hot spots have also emerged in rural communities in Colorado, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska where meatpacking plant workers have contracted the virus while being forced to work, forcing some plants to curtail or cease operations temporarily.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In those instances where meatpackers have insisted on continuing with business-as-usual even when their employees have gotten sick, it has pitted public health officials against company officials and <a href="https://www.keloland.com/video/sioux-falls-mayor-tenhaken-describes-call-with-leaders-of-smithfield-as-heated-as-covid-19-case-numbers-go-up/4572959/#" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">even USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue</a>.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Plant workers and even government inspectors who work at these plants have not been given adequate personal protective equipment. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It is virtually impossible to practice social distancing in these plants because plant workers and government inspectors work side-by-side in slaughter and processing facilities. When workers protested these conditions, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Vice President Mike Pence had the audacity to urge the workers to continue "to show up and do [their] jobs."</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem4" data-id="4" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-removing-safeguards-on-food-2645756313.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4" data-basename="urge-officials-to-take-action-against-increased-line-speeds" data-post-id="2645756313" data-published-at="1587315122" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 data-role="headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Urge Officials to Take Action Against Increased Line Speeds</font></h3><p /><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Increased line speeds only create more opportunities for contamination and sickness. It's unnecessary and it's putting our health at risk.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://secure.foodandwaterwatch.org/act/demand-congress-stop-allowing-usda-food-safety-waivers?ms=fwws_wb_04162020_usda-removing-safeguards&oms=fwws_wb_04162020_usda-removing-safeguards" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Tell Congress</a> to stop allowing USDA food safety waivers. This is no time to gamble with Americans' health.</font></p><p /></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></p><div class="post-pager js-listicle-pager" data-listicle-style="" data-async_load_parameters="platform=desktop&display_ads=1&settings=%7B%22enter_url%22%3A+null%2C+%22no_post_section%22%3A+null%2C+%22ads_breaks%22%3A+%5B1%2C+1%2C+1%2C+1%5D%2C+%22prevent_last_break_repetition%22%3A+false%2C+%22use_numeration%22%3A+false%2C+%22allow_url_change%22%3A+null%2C+%22ads_order%22%3A+%5B1%5D%2C+%22pagination_order%22%3A+null%2C+%22list_breaks%22%3A+null%2C+%22reorder_voting%22%3A+null%2C+%22cooldown_in_seconds%22%3A+null%2C+%22source%22%3A+%22engine_settings%22%2C+%22next_post_url%22%3A+null%2C+%22up_down_voting%22%3A+false%2C+%22show_columns_on_mobile%22%3A+null%2C+%22numeration_sort%22%3A+-1%2C+%22allow_url_update%22%3A+null%2C+%22use_pagination%22%3A+false%2C+%22body_text_above%22%3A+false%2C+%22use_ads%22%3A+true%2C+%22items_as_posts%22%3A+false%2C+%22multiple_answers%22%3A+null%2C+%22no_redirect%22%3A+null%2C+%22is_guest_voting_allowed%22%3A+null%2C+%22layout_type%22%3A+null%7D" style="display: table; width: 780px;"><p /><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 5px !important;"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; visibility: hidden !important; margin-bottom: -5px !important;"><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-pork-inspection-2644808322.html" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump's Plan to Privatize Pork Inspections Called 'a Recipe for ... ›</font></a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; visibility: hidden; margin-top: 20px !important; margin-bottom: -5px !important;"><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-administration-allows-pork-slaughterhouses-have-fewer-usda-inspectors-n1055451" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump administration allows pork slaughterhouses to have fewer ... ›</font></a></li></ul></div></div></div><div class="tags" style="margin: 20px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">coronavirus</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/covid-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">covid-19</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pandemic" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">pandemic</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/food" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">food</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/food-safety" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">food safety</a> <a class="tagsitem" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/usda" style="text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">usda</a></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">mofo</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">tongass giveaway (blocked by ct?)</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new ew 220</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=f61e383566&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Trump's Plan to Privatize Pork Inspections Called 'a Recipe for Disaster' as Consumer Safety Groups Sue USDA</a>
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a  lawsuit filed Monday against President Donald Trump's loosening of regulations in pork inspection plants aims to stop the rules from taking effect to protect consumers from illness and death.</font></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-basename="particle-1" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-pork-inspection-2644808322.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" data-id="1" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem1"><p /><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the new regulations put forth by the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Trump administration</a>, federal inspectors are no longer responsible for examining the animals before and after slaughter and will see a reduced role on the line.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Food & Water Watch:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1em 0px 1em 25px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(82, 149, 70); padding: 0px 0px 0px 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new rules prevent such inspection and hand over these responsibilities to the slaughter companies themselves. They also surrender federal control over removing contamination from carcasses to slaughter companies without any minimum training requirements for slaughter-plant employees.
</font></blockquote><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Reducing the number of trained federal inspectors and increasing line speeds is a recipe for disaster," Center for Food Safety staff attorney Ryan Talbott said in a statement.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"USDA has an obligation to protect the health and welfare of consumers," added Talbott. "USDA cannot do that when it takes a back seat and lets the slaughter plants largely regulate themselves."</font></p><p /></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-basename="particle-5" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-pork-inspection-2644808322.html?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5" data-id="5" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem5"><p /><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The suit, which targets Trump's New Swine Inspection System (NSIS), was filed by Food & Water Watch, the Center for Food Safety and two supporting members.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There is no gray area here," said Food & Water Watch senior staff attorney Zach Corrigan in a statement. "The new rules curtail the ability of federal inspectors to detect serious food-safety problems and expose those who consume such pork products to serious health threats like salmonella."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a press release from the two groups, the new Department of Agriculture (USDA) rules are "a draconian reversal to the swine slaughter inspection system that has existed in the United States since 1906."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We're suing the crap out of USDA for ... feeding us crap," <a href="https://twitter.com/JackieFilson/status/1216816679570812928" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">tweeted</a> Food & Water Watch communications manager Jackie Filson.<span style="background-color: initial; white-space: initial;">...</span></font></p></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p></div></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wapo</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">full txt</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Science ranks grow thin in Trump administration</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jeff Jorgenson examines young corn plants in May on a partially flooded field he farms near Shenandoah, Iowa. A USDA scientist was working on a tool to help farmers mitigate the impact of flooding and other effects from climate change when the Trump administration moved his agency to Kansas, prompting him to quit. (Nati Harnik/AP)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Annie Gowen, </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Juliet Eilperin, </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ben Guarino and </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Andrew Ba Tran </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jan. 23, 2020 at 12:45 p.m. PST</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Dozens of government computers sit in a nondescript building here, able to connect to a data model that could help farmers manage the impact of a changing climate on their crops.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But no one in this federal agency would know how to access the model, or, if they did, what to do with the data.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That’s because the ambitious federal researcher who created it in Washington quit rather than move when the Agriculture Department relocated his agency to an office park here last fall.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He is one of hundreds of scientists across the federal government who have been forced out, sidelined or muted since President Trump took office.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The exodus has been fueled broadly by administration policies that have diminished the role of science as well as more specific steps, such as the relocation of agencies away from the nation’s capital.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While the administration has come under fire for prioritizing the concerns of industry at the expense of science in government decisions, the cumulative effects are just beginning to appear after three years of Trump in the White House.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some farmers said the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">USDA </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">staff upheaval has made it harder to access information they need.</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Torrential rains last spring dashed the plans of Liz Brownlee, who runs a livestock farm with her husband, to expand her pasture in Crothersville, Ind. Then an unseasonably dry autumn brought 90-degree days that baked the farmers’ seeds.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“With all this uncertainty from climate change, I need the best data possible” to know when to plant, she said. “I’m worried I’m not going to have it.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In the first two years of the Trump administration, more than 1,600 federal scientists left government, according to Office of Personnel Management employment data analyzed by The Washington Post. That represents a 1.5 percent drop, compared with the 8 percent increase during the same period in the Obama administration.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>One-fifth of the high-level appointee positions in science are vacant — normally filled by experts who shape policy and ensure research integrity.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Of those who departed, the numbers were greatest among social scientists, soil conservationists, hydrologists and experts in the physical sciences — chemistry, geology, astronomy and physics.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>At the Environmental Protection Agency, nearly 700 scientists have left in the past three years, according to The Post analysis. The EPA has hired 350 replacements.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Linda Birnbaum, who spent four decades working on toxicology and public health issues at the EPA and National Institutes of Health before retiring in October, said the loss of expertise weakens the government’s ability to make sound decisions.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“It’s going to take a long time for government science to come back. There’s little doubt about that,” said Birnbaum, who serves as an adjunct professor at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She added that NIH has remained well- insulated because it enjoys bipartisan support in Congress.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“But when I look at colleagues in other agencies, especially any agency that has any regulatory role, they’re decimated,” she said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump administration officials dismiss that notion, saying much of the criticism comes from activists outside the federal government.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Interior Secretary David Bernhardt points out that he is the first secretary to enlist a career federal scientist to serve as his scientific adviser.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I’ve got an ideas box, I haven’t seen that,” he said in an interview, referring to complaints that science has been de-emphasized. “I do hear that from advocates and external parties. And, you know, anybody that looks at these things objectively tends to find that they’re without merit.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last year, the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity accused Bernhardt of pushing aside the conclusions reached by career scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding how a pesticide affected endangered species. Eight Democratic senators sought an investigation. Interior’s inspector general concluded there was “no evidence” Bernhardt abused his position.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump called climate change a “hoax.” Once in office, he began dismantling much of President Barack Obama’s climate plan. He has installed industry figures in regulatory roles and rolled back scores of rules and policies that he considers harmful to the fossil-fuel industry. Trump’s actions spurred scientists into the streets, joining protesters for a March for Science rally on the Mall in 2017 and again in 2018.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Many scientists who work for the U.S. government or rely on its funding say the changes brought by the Trump administration are being felt across the country.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After historic rainfall last spring swept away livestock and grain in the Midwest, crop planting was delayed by weeks. Andrew Crane-Droesch, 38, a researcher at the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service, started work on a data tool that could predict months in advance the impact of, say, heavy rainfall on crop prices or planted fields. He hoped that knowledge could help farmers, commodity traders and government disaster planners prepare.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">But when Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue moved forward with his controversial plan to relocate the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture — two key research agencies — to Kansas City, Crane-Droesch headed for the exit.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He joined two-thirds of affected employees in his division who either retired or found other jobs rather than move to the greater Kansas City region. At the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which oversees $1.7 billion in scientific funding for researchers, nearly 8 of every 10 employees have left.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Crane-Droesch, who took a health-research job in Philadelphia, said there’s no one left at the USDA who has the time or the know-how to run the model he created or to finish the project.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“All that work was for naught, and they nuked the account,” he said. “Even if they hired somebody for my portfolio — which I don’t think they did — it would take that person quite a while to get up to speed, just as it took me several years.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The move to Kansas City has also meant dozens of reports and millions in research funding have been delayed or scuttled as the Agriculture Department scrambled to keep up with departures.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The agency has been forced to hire back 21 retired employees on temporary contracts, to stanch its losses.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>But experts on bee pollination, organic farming, commodity markets and trade are gone, setting back research that has been in process for months or even years.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“They never tried to refute our work; they tried to bury it by getting rid of the people who produced the work,” Crane-Droesch said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">To restore the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service to their size under the Obama administration, the USDA would have to hire more than 400 people. One USDA official said the department has “well over 150 active recruitments in process between both agencies.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Current and former employees interviewed said they felt the move to Kansas City was intended to diminish research areas such as trade policy, farm income and climate change; Perdue is a climate skeptic who recently described the problem as “weather patterns, frankly.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A USDA spokesman defended the move, saying that Perdue believes the agencies can better serve “customers” — farmers, ranchers, academic institutions and agribusiness — by relocating to Kansas City, “a hub for all things agriculture in America’s heartland.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The department estimates it will save $300 million over 15 years from employment and rent in Kansas City.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">EPA pursues regulatory rollbacks, despite criticism from its scientific advisers</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some federal researchers said they left the Trump administration after concluding their work was being undermined.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Dan Costa, who worked at the EPA for 34 years before stepping down as director of its air, climate and energy research program in January 2018, said the tipping point for his retirement came when an EPA spokesman undercut a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that the agency had funded.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The study found that long-term exposure to levels of soot and smog lower than current national standards can cause premature death among older Americans. Such a finding suggests that current standards don’t adequately protect public health, which would have implications for industries that pollute. An unidentified EPA spokesman attacked the study in an interview with the Washington Times, an act Costa called “scientifically unethical.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Peter Van Doren, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Insitute, said in an interview that scientists need to remember that they don’t set policy.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“When nerds and politicians disagree, nerds lose,” he said. “Scientists think, ‘We are smart, and we ought to decide.’ But we don’t get to decide.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Elsewhere in the government, political appointees have delayed grants for scientific work.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey, Director James Reilly “felt that he needed to personally look at every grant that went out,” according to Bernhardt’s science adviser William Werkheiser, who served as Reilly’s deputy before joining the secretary’s office. The process stalled grants at the agency’s climate adaptation science centers for more than six months....</span></div></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/the-monopolization-of-milk/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/the-monopolization-of-milk/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The monopolization of milk</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Claire Kelloway / Washington Monthly November 21, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Earlier this year, both The New York Times and National Public Radio reported that Chinese retaliatory tariffs in Trump’s trade war were accelerating the loss of U.S. dairy farms. In the first half of 2019, dairy exports to China were down 54 percent from the previous year, at a time when dairy farmers rely on exports to market a surplus of milk that’s driven milk prices below most farmers’ break-even point for nearly four years.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Meanwhile, Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture has told dairy farmers that the only way to stay afloat in these tough times is to get big, or get out, while promising new markets for U.S. dairy products in the yet-to-be-ratified U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">These declarations reflect a powerful conventional wisdom about the plight of America’s farmers, namely, that agricultural consolidation is inevitable, and that American farmers must export their way to profitability. But that conventional wisdom, which is shared even by some leading voices in the Democratic Party, is seriously out of focus. Although trariffs and technology play a role, they are hardly the main factors in the dairy crisis.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One critical reason dairy farms feel pressure to consolidate is because milk retailers, buyers, and, processors have spent years consolidating around them—and neither the Trump nor previous administrations have done much to stop it. Now, a merger between major milk monopolists threatens to deal another blow to ailing dairy farmers, and its not clear if federal enforcers will do anything to stop it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week, America’s largest dairy processor, Dean Foods, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced that it was in advanced talks to sell to America’s largest cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA). These two goliaths are a case study in how unchecked mergers beget abusive monopolies that harm both farmers and consumers. But because Dean has filed for bankruptcy, this otherwise questionable union could avoid antitrust scrutiny under the failing firm defense, which allows for mergers when one firm would otherwise go out of business. In other words, two monopolists may soon join forces to create an even bigger monopoly.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DFA is the amalgamate of a three-way cooperative merger in late 1997 and Dean Foods rose to prominence by buying up regional milk brands since the 1980s. Today, DFA has a near monopoly in many regional markets, and controls roughly 30 percent of all raw milk in the U.S., handling more than two and a half times as much milk as the next largest co-op. At the same time, Dean sells 12 percent of all fluid milk and claimed to be five times larger than its next competitor in 2013.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As detailed by Leah Douglas in the Washington Monthly last year, these giants have been accused of colluding against the interest of dairy farmers and consumers for years. Two groups of farmers have settled multi-million-dollar antitrust claims with DFA, and another has spun-off a case to seek more damages in court. On the consumer end, Dean Foods reached an antitrust settlement with grocery chain Food Lion in 2017 over allegations thatthe firm avoided competing with DFA-owned National Dairy Holdings to raise retail milk prices.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Dean Foods-DFA merger would make this otherwise illegal collusion perfectly legal, since our antitrust laws permit collusion once it occurs within a single corporation. “The more DFA expands downstream into fluid milk processing the greater the leverage it’s going to have in a variety of ways,” Peter Carstensen, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School and former Department of Justice antitrust attorney, told me. So-called “‘tacit’coordination becomes much more possible because … that will be an internal corporate [decision].”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The merger means that dairy farmers have even fewer processors competing to buy their milk. “As a producer, I’m concerned about DFA making this large a purchase,” said Charles Untz, a farmer and former DFA board member. “It puts a lot of the control of the fluid market in the hands of one co-op. That sends a little fear as far as the milk price goes, because they can literally dictate what they pay for milk.”</font></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">family</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/house-democrats-are-failing-to-protect-americas-farmers-from-trump/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">House Democrats are failing to protect America’s farmers from Trump</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/jeffhauser/" title="Posts by Jeff Hauser" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Jeff Hauser</a>, <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/eleanoreagan/" title="Posts by Eleanor Eagan" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Eleanor Eagan</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/the-washington-monthly/" title="Posts by The Washington Monthly" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Washington Monthly</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Times are tough for American farmers. Everything from corporate consolidation to falling commodity prices is making it harder to get by. Strange, then, that the person most responsible for safeguarding…</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>House Democrats are failing to protect farmers from Trump — here’s how</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Jeff Hauser, Eleanor Eagan / Washington Monthly October 20, 2019</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Times are tough for American farmers. Everything from corporate consolidation to falling commodity prices is making it harder to get by. Strange, then, that the person most responsible for safeguarding their wellbeing,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> <b>Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, </b>brought the following message to a gathering of Wisconsin dairy farmers: “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out. I don’t think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability.” In other words, he was telling the farmers: you’re probably screwed and there’s nothing you can do about it.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Contrary to Perdue’s claims, the deaths of small farms are not a result of natural forces</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> They are a consequence of explicit policy choices that have allowed for the rampant consolidation and disinvestment that are crushing rural communities. Only two decades ago, there were 600 companies that sold seed. Today, there are only four. It’s no wonder that the cost of seeds and plant corn has risen 329 percent in that time period, with similar increases for other crops.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>
</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Perdue hasn’t just failed to recognize the root causes of farmers’ pain; he has actively aided the forces responsible for it.</b> From his first days in office, he has turned the full power of the USDA against farmers and rural communities on behalf of Big Agriculture, betraying one of the constituencies most vital to Trump’s 2016 win.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">None of this should surprise anyone. What should be genuinely shocking, however, is that Congressman Collin Peterson, a Democrat from Minnesota and the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, has been practically silent about these attacks.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Over the past nine months, he has only convened one full committee hearing. And while his panel heard testimony from Perdue in February, Peterson has yet to call him back despite his committing numerous transgressions since, including his continued efforts to impose work requirements on access to food stamps and pressing ahead to relocate the department’s research wing out of D.C.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peterson, who declined our request for comment, has failed to fulfill his obligation to protect farmers and rural communities. That is not only bad on the substance, but it is a missed opportunity for Democrats to win back support among American farmers, who overwhelmingly pulled the lever for Trump in 2016.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In recent years, consolidated agribusinesses have translated their rising profits into formidable political power. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They have successfully weakened or killed many measures that would have limited their control over farmers’ lives and livelihoods,<b> including fighting laws that would give farmers the right to repair their own equipment, something that overzealous copyright protections have prevented them from doing</b>. When these and other nasty practices get too much attention, Big Ag<b>wields its considerable weight to silence critics, whether that means getting a newspaper cartoonist fired or suing the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to close a public comment period on a proposed merger.</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Over the past few decades, Democrats have too often either supported the policies that got us here, or fallen short in resisting them. In 2008, Barack Obama made fighting consolidation a feature of his agricultural policy platform. But once in power, he failed to act decisively on those promises</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. His administration hesitated to enact proposed regulations that would have made it easier for contract farmers to sue packing and processing companies for unfair practices. Then, it found itself unable to move forward once Republicans took the House in 2010.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As with most things, however, the Trump administration has taken a bad problem and made it worse. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice approved a merger between two agricultural industry giants, Monsanto and Bayer, allowing for the creation of a new behemoth. And those Obama-era contracting rules? They were eventually approved in 2016, but Perdue promptly scrapped them after taking power. Worse yet, Perdue’s USDA has walked back enforcement of many of the remaining rules to protect contract farmers.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is all without mentioning what’s at the forefront of people’s minds when they think about Trump’s impact on farmers: trade policy. Yet as these examples should make clear, the harm this administration is inflicting on farmers goes well beyond trade.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Unfortunately, House Democrats have done little to draw attention to Trump’s deleterious agricultural policies When they do respond by holding a hearing, like over the decision to move the USDA’s Economic Research Service to Kansas City, they fail to confront those responsible for their actions, or take definitive actions to stop them.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Meanwhile, in the same time span that Peterson only convened one full committee hearing, Agriculture’s six subcommittees have held a combined 19 hearings, seven of which involved testimony from USDA officials. The Committee has issued zero subpoenas to corporate or governmental actors.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peterson should reverse course and start from the top. The USDA is a big department with a diverse set of important responsibilities, ranging from protecting farming and rural economies, to ensuring food safety and administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There have been other ways Perdue has materially hurt farmers and others working in the industry. In addition to cancelling the aforementioned Obama era contracting rules, Perdue announced, in 2018, that the USDA would begin to allow poultry processing plants to increase line speeds, putting already vulnerable workers at even greater risk of injury.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump has also failed to nominate an undersecretary of rural development almost three years after taking office, meaning there is no dedicated advocate for rural communities empowered to support rural businesses, utilities, housing, broadband, and more in the federal government.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But that’s not all. The USDA is also making meat more dangerous for consumers by<b> allowing pork processing plants to perform their own inspections.</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b> </b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Indeed, the USDA’s chief veterinarian from 2016 to 2018, Pat Basu, refused to sign off on the system and left the agency in protest</b>. Basu recently said, “Look at the FAA. It took a year or so before the crashes happened. This could pass, and everything could be okay for a while, until some disease is missed, and we have an outbreak all over the country.” It seems like Basu might make for an interesting witness at a Agriculture Committee hearing.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democrats need to perform meaningful oversight of the Trump administration’s assault on American farmers. Impeachment doesn’t obviate the need for skeptical oversight. It underscores it. Oversight is, put simply, a basic fulfillment of Congress’ governing obligations. It can uncover abuse, create pressure for change, and facilitate the development of much needed policy alternatives. And, as an added bonus, the political upside seems clear.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This strategy might seem somewhat unorthodox. It contravenes the gospel that Democrats can only win agricultural districts by espousing a quiet, inoffensive centrism. But that would cede control of the political debate to Trump. If Democrats only play on the president’s terms, the conversation will always shift away from the real issue.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democrats must therefore redefine the debate on agriculture policy through rigorous oversight. In rural America, they have to demonstrate their willingness to take on political corruption of all shades, and to challenge corporate America’s chokehold over the political process.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet Democrats have been surprisingly unwilling to take on one of the most unifying issues across the electorate: how the system is rigged to hurt ordinary people and boost big corporations.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has created an opportunity for Democrats to take up this message in virtually every area of policy, but now especially with farmers. House Democrats have a unique opening to prove to rural voters that they are serious about taking on structural inequities. All they have to do is highlight and push back against the administration’s efforts to enrich corporations at the expense of small farmers. In other words, they have to simply do their jobs.</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Department of Agriculture </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=fa40e68085e4854f6d98fdb8f49ea034d6c301a057bc24eca55d57f80606d43fac175468bde2881406156312d2126b18ea1d09209b5ede27" title="launched an absurd" style="" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">launched an absurd</a><span style="" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> pro-Trump podcast; the first guest was Fox contributor Sarah Sanders.</span></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/trump-cabinet-official-delivers-devastating-message-to-small-scale-farmers/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/trump-cabinet-official-delivers-devastating-message-to-small-scale-farmers/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">if <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wisconsin is as much of a battleground state in the 2020 presidential election as many pundits are predicting it will be, President Donald Trump will need a heavy voter turnout in the rural areas of the state. And Sonny Perdue, secretary of agriculture in the Trump Administration, didn’t give Wisconsin’s dairy farmers a lot to be optimistic about this week when he told reporters that small dairy farms probably have a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.startribune.com/trump-farm-secretary-blames-china-for-trade-wars/561869562/?refresh=true" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">rough road ahead of them.</a></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue spoke to journalists after an appearance at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin on Tuesday. And he warned that dairy farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet by milking smaller herds.</font></p><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div id="story_page_incontent_p2_target" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 15px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The secretary of agriculture warned, “In America, the big get bigger, and the small go out. I don’t think in America we — for any small business — we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fifth-generation Wisconsin dairy farmer Jerry Volenec, the Star Tribune reported, left the World Dairy Expo feeling that Perdue gave him plenty of reason to feel pessimistic. Volenec told reporters, “What I heard today from the secretary of agriculture is there’s no place for me. Can I get some support from my state and federal government? I feel like we’re a benefit to society.”</font></p><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-4" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="lightbox-inline-form-b00052c7-64de-4049-944f-8160479112fb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another Wisconsin-based dairy farmer, Darin Von Ruden — who serves as president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union — stressed that he has a problem with dairy farming being dominated by giant corporations and small dairy farmers being put out of business. Von Ruden, who operates a 50-cow organic farm, told reporters, “Do we want one corporation owning all the food in our country?”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Trump’s big farmer grift: He’s giving millions to the rich while starving the poor</b></font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/trumps-big-farmer-grift-hes-giving-millions-to-the-rich-while-starving-the-poor">https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/trumps-big-farmer-grift-hes-giving-millions-to-the-rich-while-starving-the-poor</a></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Written by Jim Hightower / Creators Syndicate<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>August 15, 2019</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Donald Trump loooooves farmers. We know this because he says so. “Farmers, I LOVE YOU!” he declared in December. And we’ve learned that whenever The Donald says something, it’s true — even when it’s not.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">These days, he’s loving farmers to death. Trump has ignored the obvious need to get monopolistic price-fixing bankers, suppliers and commodity buyers off their backs. And he’s ineptly playing tariff games with China and other buyers of U.S. farm products, causing exports and farm prices to tumble. The result is that our ag economy is tumbling into a deep ditch, slamming farm families and rural America with a rising tsunami of bankruptcies.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Adding crude insult to economic injury, Trump’s doofus of an ag secretary, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Sonny Perdue</span>, laughed at farmers, branding them “whiners” for opposing his majesty’s disastrous policies.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">So, needing a political “I love you” gesture, Trump has been sending big bouquets of money to some of his beloved farmers. Our money. Lots of it — $28 billion so far, in what he cynically (and comically) calls the Market Facilitation Program, otherwise known as a taxpayer bailout.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>But TrumpLove turns out to be highly selective, with more than half of the government payments going to the biggest farm owners.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Department of Agriculture initially announced a $125,000 limit on the amount any one farm could get, but every Trump deal seems to have a gimmick in it to give a special break to the slickest operators. The slickum in this deal is that assorted members of a family can claim to be owners of the same farm and be eligible for bailout money, even if they do no actual farming and live in New York City! Thus, one Missouri farm family got $2.8 million worth of subsidy love from Trump, and more than 80 families topped half a million in payments.</span></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, the great majority of farmers — 80% of eligible grain farmers — got zilch from Donald the Dealmaker. The smaller producers who are most endangered by his export collapse got less than $5,000. So Trump’s “Market Facilitation” is squeezing the many who are most in need while helping a few of the largest get even bigger.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">While the Trumpistas are presently trying to plow a multibillion-dollar subsidy into big grain farms, they’re shockingly stingy when it comes to our society’s moral responsibility to make sure the least-wealthy among us get an adequate level of food. Their latest effort in the practice of mass minginess is to try literally taking food off poor children’s plates. Using a tangle of federal red tape, Trump ideologues and bureaucratic minions are intervening to prevent states from providing food stamp assistance to millions of their people.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">According to federal rules, to qualify for food aid, a family of three should have an income under $27,000 a year. But with rents, utilities, health care and even food prices constantly rising, millions of Americans can’t make ends meet on such a low income. Thus, 40 states have stepped in to loosen that income restriction so families at least get the minimum nutrition humans need. Far from being welfare moochers (as far-right-wing extremists screech), these recipients overwhelmingly are working families, children, the elderly and Americans with disabilities. The benefit is hardly lavish; it averages only $127 a month, but even this modest outlay has proven enormously successful in mitigating poverty.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Congress actually authorized states to make such pragmatic income adjustments in a 1996 revamp of the law. But look out! Here comes</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Sonny Perdue </font><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">again, rising up on his hind legs to proclaim that naughty state officials are using that authority as a “loophole” to circumvent Trump’s federal authority. So Sonny and Donnie are demanding that a whole new bureaucracy of food stamp “eligibility police” be set up to monitor the assets of hard-hit people who’re just trying to get adequate food on their tables. This nonsense will cost tens of millions of our dollars to harass the poor in an autocratic hope of nabbing a couple of hungry families who have a dime more in assets than miserly Trumpistas claim they should have.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">What we have here is government by plutocratic authoritarians who’ll gleefully dole out millions to a wealthy family and then just as gleefully go out of their way to deny food to millions of poor families.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Populist author, public speaker and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes “The Hightower Lowdown,” a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America’s ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org. COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></div><div><p class="yiv0977056817headline3" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click1.e.alternet.org/qnshfjdydbntnfrrtvsddtdrrvtrygpchbdnsmjmfhhs_xbbvdcsctdrbrjgphgr.html?a=&b=1115&c=21989&d=2" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Farmers hit back after Department of Agriculture chief mocks those harmed by Trump trade war as ‘whiners’</font></a></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-style: italic; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some laughed at the agriculture secretary's joke, but other farmers…</font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=211b7c7291&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Top Scientist Quits USDA, Says Trump Admin Tried to Bury Study Linking Climate and Nutrition</font></a></font></font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/agriculture-usda-blm-move-dc-climate-trump-protests-science-e8e534ec12fc/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://thinkprogress.org/agriculture-usda-blm-move-dc-climate-trump-protests-science-e8e534ec12fc/</font></a></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">719</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Employees and Democratic lawmakers are pushing back on the Trump administration’s plans to relocate hundreds of positions within two agencies outside of Washington, D.C. — a move some see as an effort to clamp down on science.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While the planned moves of both the <b>Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) </b>and parts of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) differ in their scope and rationale, resistance to both plans has shaped up similarly.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Critics are expressing concern over the motivations behind the efforts, which would lead to a mass-exodus of agency experts unwilling to relocate. This would spur a science brain drain in line with President Donald Trump’s crackdown on reports and research from within his own government.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These decisions… are meant to displace seasoned scientists and regulators who have honorably served Republican and Democratic Administrations alike,” said Sen. <b>Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) </b>in a statement to ThinkProgress responding to both the BLM and USDA relocation plans. Van Hollen sits on the Interior and Environment Appropriations subcommittee.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Responsible for administering public lands, BLM has become a battleground under the Trump administration as the White House has rolled back the boundaries of national monuments and advocated for fossil fuel drilling on U.S. acreage.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, the bureau is sparking controversy again. Administration officials confirmed this week that the overwhelming majority of BLM positions in D.C. are set for relocation. Around 84% of BLM staffers will be asked to relocate by the end of next year to areas outside of the nation’s capital, mostly to western states.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That announcement comes a month after Secretary Sonny Perdue mandated that over 500 USDA employees move en masse to Kansas City — located in both Missouri and Kansas — by Sept. 30, and gave them a deadline of July 15 to respond.<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: inline !important;" /></font></font></font></p><div class="related-contentbody" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 513px; display: inline !important;"><h3 class="related-contenttitle" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 2rem; margin: -7px 0px 0.5em; display: inline !important;"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: inline !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: inline !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: inline !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">[Lack of demand hasn’t stopped Trump from opening tons of land </font></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3></div><div class="related-contentwrapper" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /></font></font></font><div class="related-contentbody" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 513px;"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; 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text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><h3 class="related-contenttitle" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 2rem; margin: -7px 0px 0.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; 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text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-interior-oil-gas-drilling/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">to oil and gas drilling</font></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3></div></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the case of BLM, the Interior Department (DOI) plans to concentrate many of the positions in Grand Junction, Colorado, in addition to a range of western states stretching from Arizona to Alaska.<b> Joe Balash, DOI assistant secretary for land and minerals, called the decision “demonstrably cost-effective”</b> in a July 16 letter to Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Interior and Environment.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Trump administration argues that the move would both cut expenses and shift workers closer to the public lands they focus on, an argument supported by many Republicans including Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), who sits on the Natural Resources Committee.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Democrats immediately raised objections. Udall said he had “serious reservations” about the move, as did his subcommittee counterpart in the House, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN). Democrats in both chambers of Congress indicated this week that they feel the plan is largely an effort to push out the D.C.-based senior staff who do not want to relocate.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Many of those employees are experts in their field, including scientists. “It’s a way for them to get rid of a lot of professional staff here in Washington,” <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060749573" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">said</a> Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) in a statement.</font></font></font></p><div class="related-contentwrapper" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /></font></font><div class="related-contentbody" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 513px;"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><h3 class="related-contenttitle" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 2rem; margin: -7px 0px 0.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-interior-scientist-calls-out-culture-of-fear-censorship-and-suppression-under-trump-2b8813e95b18/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Former Interior scientist calls out ‘culture of fear, censorship, and suppression’ under Trump</font></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3></div></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many BLM employees are already located in other parts of the country and support for moving the bureau has been somewhat bipartisan over the years. But the latest push for relocation by the Trump administration coincides with a heated clash between USDA and its employees.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Given until this past Monday to make their decision, scores of USDA workers have opted out of moving. Of the employees with the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), more than half declined to relocate, <a href="https://www.politico.com/morningagriculture/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">according to Politico</a>.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ERS workers in particular argued that the move would disrupt their work and efforts to publish important scientific reports. NIFA, meanwhile, is responsible for grant funding that touches climate, economic, and agricultural work that uses D.C. as a home base.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many USDA employees have also argued that the move is politically motivated. ERS has <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2019/07/03/integrity-nonpartisan-data-farmers-policymakers-risk-usda-move/1639874001/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">recently released reports</a> critical of Trump’s escalating trade war with China and its impact on farmers.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Experts also worry the move is a warning shot with implications for climate science. An investigation by Politico last month found that USDA <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/agriculture-department-climate-change-1376413" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">has repeatedly sought to bury</a>studies showing the danger of climate change. That report noted that some scientists see the ERS move as a foreshadowing of wider repercussions for research that doesn’t align with the administration’s broader “energy dominance” agenda.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">USDA workers have fought through their union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), to dispute the move, but the department has rejected those efforts. Moreover, there is concern that other departments could face similar moves, like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, both of which are under DOI’s jurisdiction.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Democrats asserted that they are looking into measures to combat the relocations, emphasizing that the move could be costly to taxpayers in addition to dramatically shifting the wealth of knowledge offered by current government staffers.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lawmakers indicated they might seek to halt the relocation by blocking its funding in the upcoming appropriations bill that covers both the DOI and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A group of senators, including Van Hollen, have meanwhile introduced legislation to keep ERS and NIFA in the D.C. metro area, a move that was made before the BLM move was announced.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This Administration is acting to undermine the subject-matter experts at many of our federal agencies,” said Van Hollen, who added that his office would “continue to use every tool available to push back against these actions.”</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article has been updated to note that only USDA would be impacted by the Senate legislation due to timing.</font></span></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></font></font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/7/1/1868871/-Climate-Change-USDA-Scientists-to-be-fired-in-2-weeks-DANGER"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/7/1/1868871/-Climate-Change-USDA-Scientists-to-be-fired-in-2-weeks-DANGER</font></a></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">also trms 2x</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); letter-spacing: 0.125px;">Why  is he wanting to fire Scientists who study climate change?  ( According to Rachel and other reports. </span><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/government-scientist-blocked-from-talking-about-climate-and-wildfires/" target="blank" style="letter-spacing: 0.125px; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">www.scientificamerican.com/…</a></font></font></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; letter-spacing: 0.125px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then we have the Food and Drug inspectors who have a problem thanks to the orange dung.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; letter-spacing: 0.125px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> USDA inspects food, and meds. </font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; letter-spacing: 0.125px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/01/these-usda-employees-face-stark-choice-move-kansas-city-or-be-fired/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.829211fa46ea" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">www.washingtonpost.com/...</a> </font></font></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 30px 60px; margin: 20px 0px; border: none; width: 660px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247); z-index: -1; letter-spacing: 0.125px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Agriculture Department is offering employees a rare choice: accept a forced transfer to a post 1,000 miles away or be fired.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump administration’s plan to move two agencies from the District to the Kansas City area includes a document with two blank boxes on it, sent to employees on June 13. Check one, it instructs: Accept the transfer by July 15 or “be separated by adverse action procedures.”</font></font></font></p></blockquote><p class="is-empty-p" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 22px; letter-spacing: 0.125px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 30px 60px; margin: 20px 0px; border: none; width: 660px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247); z-index: -1; letter-spacing: 0.125px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">William Jolly, a research ecologist with the agency's Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula, Mont., was supposed to give a 30-minute presentation titled "Climate-Induced Variations in Global Severe Fire Weather Conditions" at the International Fire Congress in Orlando, Fla., next month. The event is hosted by the Association for Fire Ecology (AFE).</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The travel denial follows reports last week that U.S. EPA blocked three scientists from making presentations at a conference in Rhode Island featuring climate change. Critics accused the Trump administration of stifling the dissemination of taxpayer-funded science.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></font></font></p></blockquote><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></div></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 19.2px; background-image: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Protecting_Factory_Farming_from_Regulation" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></font></font></p><h2 style="font-family: " sf="SF" compact="Compact" display="Display" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bad: forest agency proposes to “streamline” environmental rules</font></font></font></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 19.2px; background-image: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font></font></font></p><ul style="margin: 1em 0px;"><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Forest Service (part of the Dept. of Agriculture) has proposed new rules to speed up permits for logging, mining, and road-building projects on public lands.</font></b></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/emc/nepa/revisions/index.shtml" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Read the proposed changes here, at the USFS website.</font></a></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue </span>said the changes are needed to fast-track “treatment” for millions of acres of federal forest,</b> <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2019-06-12/us-forest-service-aims-to-speed-up-logging-infrastructure-projects" style="">reports Reuters via U.S. News and World Report.</a></font></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Years of costly analysis and delays are not an acceptable solution,” said Perdue, to lowering the risks of catastrophic wildfires in western forests.</span></font></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These risks exist in part because of climate-change-driven rising temperatures, along with many years of drought in western states.</font></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The other major factor is decades of fire suppression, a scientifically-outmoded practice dating from the early 20th century (to preserve forests for commercial logging), that has left forests loaded with fuel: thick brush, dead trees, downed wood on forest floors.</font></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some projects that would be fast-tracked under the reworked rules are unremarkable, like clearing brush from roadsides, or doing prescribed burns to lower forest fuel loads.</font></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the revised rules would also fast-track some mining and commercial logging projects, by exempting them from the comprehensive environmental reviews required by a keystone environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act.</font></b></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Going around NEPA would also give the public less chance to weigh in, pro or con, on these projects, because some public comment periods are timed to the release of those environmental reviews.</font></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This move “comes after other efforts to loosen forest management regulations fell flat in Congress last year,” <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article231482868.html" style="">notes the Sacramento Bee</a>.</font></font></font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federal agencies and some industries complain about “analysis paralysis” when it comes to environmental studies, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/12/731713229/trump-administration-seeking-to-overhaul-forest-management-rules" style="">but as NPR reports,</a> “a bigger holdup is budget cuts, particularly in the Forest Service, where money has been diverted away from wildlife, habitat and forestry programs to pay for the skyrocketing costs of wildfire suppression.”<em> </em></font></font></font></p></li></ul><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">3/19</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue proposed a rule that would gut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), making it harder for people to put food on their tables.</strong></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/23/politics/usda-agriculture-department-emails-food-industry-lobbyists/index.html</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></div><div><div class="elleafmedia elleafmedia--sourced-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><p class="zn-bodyparagraph speakable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="el-editorial-source" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility">(CNN)</cite>From suggestions for members of a science committee to emails sent "on the sly" and thoughts for the secretary's speeches, new internal emails from the US <b>Department of Agriculture show big food industry lobbyists are working hand-in-glove with agency staffers.</b></font></font></font></p></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph speakable" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The newly released emails were obtained by the nonpartisan independent <b>Project on Government Oversight via a Freedom of Information Act request</b> and shared exclusively with CNN. Though exposing no apparent legal violation, they offer a window into how some top USDA political appointees -- former lobbyists themselves -- are in frequent contact with their old employers and others who are lobbying the agency, and how those lobbyists are seeking to influence the agency on issues large and small.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph speakable" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The USDA, under the Trump administration, has moved to roll back a series of regulations opposed by industry, to the chagrin of health and food safety advocates. The emails show how the agency is very willing to work with industry lobbyists, even accepting and using talking points for one of Secretary Sonny Perdue's speeches.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 32px 0px -5px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-weight: 500; line-height: 40px; padding: 0px; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue speech</font></font></font></h3></div><ul class="cn cn-list-hierarchical-xs cn--idx-5 cn-zoneAdContainer" data-layout="list-hierarchical-xs" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In January, a representative from the lobbying group National Grocers Association sent a USDA official talking points for a speech the secretary would give to the group the next month.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyread-all" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We're thrilled that Secretary Perdue will be speaking at the NGA Show in a couple of weeks. In advance of his speech during our opening general session on Sunday February 11 I wanted to share a few themes that may be appropriate for him to mention given the audience that will be in the room," wrote Greg Ferrara, executive vice president of public affairs for the association.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The email was sent to USDA policy adviser and former industry lobbyist Kailee Tkacz.</b> She responds, "Thank you for sending this along, will get to our comms team and keep you posted. Good stuff!'  Four days later, Perdue's speechwriter emailed Ferrara at the National Grocers Association, "Greg, I am working on remarks for Secretary Perdue for the NGA show. I would like to talk with you for a few minutes about the event. Kailee forwarded your e-mail with suggested themes. Is there a good time to give you a call and what is best number? Thank you for your help."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the talking points offered by Ferrara is a discussion of how rural grocers "are often the only food store for miles in rural America, committed to sticking it out, not because they are getting rich, but because they live in these communities and know without a grocery store the community will suffer. They are not driven by Wall Street, but rather by Main Street and are an essential part of what makes American great."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his February speech to the association, Perdue echoes the talking points, telling the grocers that "your stores many times are the only stores available for food for miles around, and we don't acknowledge that very often, but I ... appreciate you sticking it out. I appreciate you sticking it out not because you are certainly getting rich in doing that, I understand that you're not ... there for the money, you're living there because you know it is supportive to the community ... you're not driven by Wall Street, certainly, you're driven by Main Street, and you are making a difference there where you serve."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">USDA Communications Director Tim Murtaugh told CNN by phone that "in that case, the speechwriter liked the phrasing and the rhetoric there and just elected to use it." Asked whether that's a normal practice for the agency's speechwriter, Murtaugh added, "What's the big deal? It's just the description of the role of small grocer stores."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a written statement Murtaugh added that "it is a common practice among speechwriters the world over to gather information from the organizers of events, including specific topics of interest, to be incorporated into prepared remarks. In one passage highlighted by CNN, the speech merely employed complimentary language that the National Grocers Association uses to describe its own members."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The National Grocers Association told CNN that providing these types of talking points is "normal practice," it does this "as a courtesy for most speakers who address our organization" and said "how a speaker uses the background information ... is entirely up to their discretion."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But Republican speechwriter Landon Parvin, who has written for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, discussed the email and the speech with CNN and said the practice is not normal.</b></font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I wouldn't say it's normal," Parvin said. "I would worry about the optics. The optics aren't good."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parvin explained that groups traditionally do discuss topics of interest with the speechwriter, but he says sentences in a Cabinet secretary's speech should not closely mirror those found in lobbyists' talking points. "You don't want to get the speaker in a situation where it looks like they are quoting a lobbyist."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Roughly 10 minutes of Perdue's 23-minute speech paralleled the lobbyist talking points. Perdue paraphrased most -- but not all -- of the themes the lobby group laid out in its talking points.</b></font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The speech also included portions that did not come from the talking points about the administration's agenda.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ethics groups say the agency should be deciding what the secretary says in his speeches -- not industry.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The federal government should be creating the talking points for a Cabinet head, not a trade association. This makes it look like the agenda is being set by lobbyists," said Norm Eisen, of<b> Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington</b>. "President Trump ran on draining the swamp, but government agencies are continuing to pursue the special interest agenda. This is a profound betrayal of Trump's drain-the-swamp promise."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 32px 0px -5px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 40px; padding: 0px; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Sodium and potassium committee</font></font></font></h3></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another email exchange shows USDA officials and industry representatives discussing the names of people whom industry would like to see serving on a committee looking into the health effects of consuming sodium and potassium. The emails show industry's behind-the-scenes efforts to influence the outcome of a critical study, and the USDA appearing receptive to the industry's influence.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has formed a 14-person committee to study how much salt and potassium is safe for Americans to eat. The study is known as the review of the Dietary Reference Intakes for sodium and potassium. The USDA is one of six sponsors for the committee and its study.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Emails from late January show that USDA official and former industry lobbyist Tkacz, other top USDA appointees and a team from Food Directions, which has lobbied for the National Restaurant Association and Grocery Manufacturers Association, got together for an in-person meeting. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Following that meeting, the group's s</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">enior director of food policy writes to USDA'S Tkacz, "As promised, attached to this email is the list of potential names and bios, all of whom, we feel, would bring more balanced perspectives to the DRI committee in order to ensure robust debate of all of the science.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> This updated list includes the two additional names I mentioned in the meeting."</span></font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The industry has complained there aren't enough industry voices on these sorts of advisory panels. The email suggests the lobbyist is seeking USDA support for particular industry-friendly candidates for the committee.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Marion Nestle, visiting professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell, says she's not surprised by the email communications: "We have a very industry-friendly government right now."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nestle says sodium is a controversial topic in the food industry: "Salt is in junk food. It's in restaurant food. The industry has a vested interest in having salt in the food supply." But their interests may be at odds with public health interests. Nestle says for that reason "it's important to keep industry out of scientific advisory committees about diet, because industry has a vested interest."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The National Academy of Sciences said in an email, "Suggestions can come from any interested party, so it is possible for sponsors to submit recommendations," but would not say specifically whether USDA had done so, noting that "details regarding committee nominations received are kept confidential."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CNN asked whether the USDA recommended any of the 14 individuals currently studying the issue. USDA Communications Director Murtaugh told CNN, "No one from the list was recommended for the committee by USDA, and none of them was named to the committee."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 14 people currently serving on the committee all appear to be either scientists or academics.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The National Academy of Sciences says on its website that "a committee is not finally approved until a thorough balance and conflict-of-interest discussion is held at the first meeting and any issues raised in that discussion or by the public are investigated and addressed."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CNN reached out to Tkacz. The USDA responded on her behalf, saying the agency "did nothing" with the industry-provided list.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations at the Project on Government Oversight, finds the email from Food Directions troubling.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It's still an industry attempt to influence the committee's makeup and the scientific advice it would ultimately provide. But the attempt likely happened too late after the die had been cast and membership was decided," he said.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 32px 0px -5px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-weight: 500; line-height: 40px; padding: 0px; font-feature-settings: " kern="kern" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The snack industry</font></font></font></h3></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On January 9, Tkacz, a former director at SNAC International, the international trade association of the snack industry, wrote an email marked "high" importance to Jessica Hixson, a lobbyist with SNAC, Tkacz's former employer. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);">"I have a random question for you," the email starts. Tkacz explains that Perdue might be traveling near Snyder's and Utz facilities in the coming weeks in Hanover, Pennsylvania. Snyder's of Hanover is a snack food distribution company and Utz is, according to its website, the largest independent, privately owned snack brand in the United States.</span></font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tkacz wrote, "I am trying to put in the plug in he should pop by one or both of these facilities for a tour. I don't want to get everyone excited at the companies yet in case it doesn't happen, but I am curious if you could on the sly get me data on their export numbers so I can make the case for the Secretary to visit?"</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Later in January, Perdue headed to central Pennsylvania to promote the farm bill. He made a stop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which is a short distance from Hanover, but the agency says he did not end up visiting Snyder's or Utz.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Karen Perry Stillerman, with the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the email illustrates a USDA employee working behind the scenes with her former employer in what looks like a "blatant intervention on behalf of companies Tkacz once lobbied for."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ethics experts point to a law that says government employees are required to "act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The agency's communications director defended the emails: "When planning the Secretary's trips to states, it is common for USDA staff to contact agriculture-related businesses in order to consider them as locations to visit."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ed Schafer served as USDA secretary under President George W. Bush. While he doesn't believe the email communications between the two were an ethical violation because he doesn't see a potential visit providing economic gain for the companies, Schafer told CNN, "I would prefer if my trips were not arranged involving lobbyists. I'd prefer my staff to consult with and arrange trips through local USDA offices and state agriculture departments."</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schafer said relying on state and local governments over lobbyists is the preferred way to operate because lobbyists have narrow agendas.</font></font></font></div><div class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.66667; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The USDA, again responding on behalf of Tkacz, said she "was familiar" with the Snyder's and Utz locations because she came to USDA "with knowledge she learned while working elsewhere" and that she is complying with ethics rules, so "there is no conflict of interest."</font></font></font></div></div></ul></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></div><div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAAQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QFSgAMAB6BAgAEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/23/politics/usda-agriculture-department-emails-food-industry-lobbyists/index.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/23/politics/usda-agriculture-department-emails-food-industry-lobbyists/index.html&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QFjAAegQIABAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Emails show the swamp stretches to the Agriculture Department ...</font></a></font></font></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30" style="font-style: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/23/politics/usda...emails-food...lobbyists/index.html</font></cite></font></font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="f" style="">Aug 23, 2018 - </span>From suggestions for members of a science committee to emails sent "on the sly" and thoughts for the secretary's speeches, new internal ...</font></span></font></font><div class="TXwUJf" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Missing: <s>corn</s> ‎<s>syrup</s> ‎<s>ucs</s></font></font></font></div></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAkQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QFSgAMAF6BAgJEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/usda-sonny-perdue-siding-industry-over-science-report-concerned-scientists" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/usda-sonny-perdue-siding-industry-over-science-report-concerned-scientists&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QFjABegQICRAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">USDA secretary accused of siding with industry over science in new ...</font></a></font></font></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30" style="font-style: normal;">https://www.theguardian.com/.../usda-sonny-perdue-siding-industry-over-science-rep...</cite></font></font></font><div class="action-menu 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size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H99QNJdqHfkJ:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/usda-sonny-perdue-siding-industry-over-science-report-concerned-scientists+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:H99QNJdqHfkJ:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/usda-sonny-perdue-siding-industry-over-science-report-concerned-scientists%2B%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QIDABegQICRAE" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H99QNJdqHfkJ:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/usda-sonny-perdue-siding-industry-over-science-report-concerned-scientists+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:H99QNJdqHfkJ:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/usda-sonny-perdue-siding-industry-over-science-report-concerned-scientists%2B%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QIDABegQICRAE" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="f" style="">Apr 4, 2018 - </span>A Union of Concerned Scientists report said <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sonny Perdue</span> was ... <span style="font-weight: bold;">UCS</span> said Perdue's low profile belied the magnitude of changes he had sought. ... The director of <span style="font-weight: bold;">food</span> policy for the <span style="font-weight: bold;">corn syrup</span>industry's <span style="font-weight: bold;">lobbying</span> body, Kailee ...</font></span></a><div class="TXwUJf" style=""><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H99QNJdqHfkJ:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/usda-sonny-perdue-siding-industry-over-science-report-concerned-scientists+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:H99QNJdqHfkJ:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/usda-sonny-perdue-siding-industry-over-science-report-concerned-scientists%2B%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QIDABegQICRAE" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Missing: <s>snack</s> ‎| ‎Must include: ‎</font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=%22snack%22+Food+and+Corn+Syrup+Lobbyist+at+USDA+sonny+perdue+ucs&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8Q5t4CMAF6BAgJEAc" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">snack</a></font></div></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAgQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QFSgAMAJ6BAgIEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><span class="sFZIhb b w xsm" style="font-weight: bold; cursor: auto; margin: 0px 3px 0px 0px; float: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[PDF]</font></span><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/04/betrayal-at-the-usda-report-ucs-2018.pdf" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/04/betrayal-at-the-usda-report-ucs-2018.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QFjACegQICBAC" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Betrayal at the USDA - Union of Concerned Scientists</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30" style="font-style: normal;">https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/.../betrayal-at-the-usda-report-ucs-2018.pdf</cite></font><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" 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href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uJIblzDRnXwJ:https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/04/betrayal-at-the-usda-report-ucs-2018.pdf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:uJIblzDRnXwJ:https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/04/betrayal-at-the-usda-report-ucs-2018.pdf%2B%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QIDACegQICBAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" 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href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uJIblzDRnXwJ:https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/04/betrayal-at-the-usda-report-ucs-2018.pdf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:uJIblzDRnXwJ:https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/04/betrayal-at-the-usda-report-ucs-2018.pdf%2B%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QIDACegQICBAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="f" style="">Apr 20, 2018 - </span>In this report, the Union of Concerned Scientists (<span style="font-weight: bold;">UCS</span>) examines the farm and <span style="font-weight: bold;">food</span>policy record of the Trump ad- ministration; its secretary of agriculture, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sonny Perdue</span>; and ..... which represents the interests of the nation's largest <span style="font-weight: bold;">corn syrup</span> ... American Sugar Alliance and the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Snack Food</span> Association;.</font></span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAcQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QFSgAMAN6BAgHEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/food-agriculture/unhealthy-food-policy/betrayal-usda-2018" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/food-agriculture/unhealthy-food-policy/betrayal-usda-2018&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QFjADegQIBxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Betrayal at the USDA (2018) | Union of Concerned Scientists</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0Gbx_IPIKxQJ:https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/food-agriculture/unhealthy-food-policy/betrayal-usda-2018+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:0Gbx_IPIKxQJ:https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/food-agriculture/unhealthy-food-policy/betrayal-usda-2018%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QIDADegQIBxAE" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Instead, under Secretary <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sonny Perdue</span>, it's more like the Department of ... a former <span style="font-weight: bold;">lobbyist</span> for the<span style="font-weight: bold;">Corn</span> Refiners Association and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Snack Food</span> Association, was ...</font></span></a><div class="TXwUJf" style=""><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0Gbx_IPIKxQJ:https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/food-agriculture/unhealthy-food-policy/betrayal-usda-2018+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:0Gbx_IPIKxQJ:https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/food-agriculture/unhealthy-food-policy/betrayal-usda-2018%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8QIDADegQIBxAE" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Missing: <s>syrup</s> ‎| ‎Must include: ‎</font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Snack+Food+and+Corn+%22syrup%22+Lobbyist+at+USDA+sonny+perdue+ucs&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijjO3jyZ_dAhUBL6wKHbwNAP8Q5t4CMAN6BAgHEAY" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">syrup</a></font></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://corporatepresidency.org/the-corporate-cabinet-secretary-of-agriculture-sonny-perdue/">https://corporatepresidency.org/the-corporate-cabinet-secretary-of-agriculture-sonny-perdue/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" center="center"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporate Connection: Big Agriculture</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">George Earvin “Sonny” Perdue, the secretary of agriculture, was governor of Georgia from 2003 to 2011, after a career as a farmer, veterinarian, agribusinessman and state legislator. <a href="https://politics.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/pick-sonny-perdue-outlines-divestiture-plans-ahead-senate-vote/rmfgiQjNuXdUFrabV13GZP/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">Before taking office</a>, he held ositions at <u><a href="http://investigatemidwest.org/2017/03/14/business-ties-made-public-for-trumps-usda-pick-sonny-perdue/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">eight</a></u> different companies, including Perdue Partners, an export consulting company that Perdue founded along with his first cousin David Perdue, now a U.S. senator. Perdue’s time as governor was marked by many ethics controversies involving his private businesses.</font></p><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 1.4em 1.6em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over the course of his career, Perdue has collected <u><a href="https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=6416704&default=candidate" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">donations totaling over $950,000</a></u> from the agricultural sector.</font></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue collected at least <u><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/us/politics/sonny-perdue-georgia.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">$25,000 worth of gifts</a></u>, including ones from tobacco company Altria and railroad company CSX, despite an <u><a href="http://sonnyperdue.georgia.gov/gov/exorders/2003/jan/01_13_03_01.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">executive order</a></u> signed by Perdue requiring state employees to work for the benefit of the public rather than for financial or personal benefit.</font></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue had a net worth of <u><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-will-pick-sonny-perdue-to-lead-agriculture-233820" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">$6 million</a></u> and his businesses were worth $2.8 million in 2006 when he ran for governor of Georgia.</font></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When elected governor, Perdue <u><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/donald-trump-sonny-perdue-agriculture-235982" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">refused</a></u> to put his businesses in a blind trust.</font></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As governor, Perdue <u><a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/local/perdue-draws-ethics-focus/5gmKYUEhmcuCb5jWr7iKjP/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">met</a></u> with state employees in the Georgia Ports Authority in Savannah to discuss the growth of Perdue’s private business. Perdue’s spokesman said that the governor was merely obtaining information that was available to any business, but state ethics law says a government official cannot engage in business with the government.</font></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2005, the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, then called the State Ethics Commission, <u><a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/ethics-questions-trump-appointee-sonny-perdue/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">fined Perdue</a></u> after he used an airplane owned by his family business for campaign purposes and failed to report it.</font></li></ul><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.4em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After becoming secretary of agriculture, Perdue has filled the office with staff members who have ties to agribusiness and taken actions that support agribusiness and harm small farmers. They include:</font></p><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 1.4em 1.6em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kailee Tkacz, an advisor to Perdue and other U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials, is a <u><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/corn-syrup-lobbyist-helping-set-usda-dietary-guidelines-2649307" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">former lobbyist for the Corn Refiners Association</a></u>, a trade group that consists of the four biggest corn syrup producers in the United States.</font></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rebeckah Adcock, who leads the deregulation team at the USDA, is a former pesticide industry lobbyist. While in office, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/business/trump-regulations-usda-lobbyists.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">she met with</a> her former employer, CropLife America, the pesticide industry’s trade group.</font></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under Perdue, the USDA has <u><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/business/rebeckah-adcock-usda-lobbying-pesticide.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">rolled back regulations</a></u> on school lunches, exempting some processed foods from meeting whole grain standards, delaying a low-sodium limit and allowing schools to serve low-fat flavored milk. These new measures are less healthy for school children but more beneficial for the processed food industry.</font></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue proposed the “<u><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/phillempert/2018/02/23/ag-secretary-sonny-perdue-its-time-to-think-and-ask-others-about-snap-before-you-say-anything/#5e240299485a" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">America’s Harvest Box</a></u>” of prepackaged food to reduce the cost and number of people on food stamps. The program would make it harder for recipients to obtain fresh food and would hurt food suppliers economically.</font></li></ul></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-nutrition-program-2559010874.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-nutrition-program-2559010874.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U<span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">SDA Focus on Nutrition Program 'Integrity' Is a Smokescreen</span></font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2559010874" data-authors="Union of Concerned Scientists" data-headline="USDA Focus on Nutrition Program 'Integrity' Is a Smokescreen" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Sarah Reinhardt</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Department of Agriculture has <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2018/03/29/usda-expands-focus-program-integrity-across-all-nutrition-programs?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">announced it will hire a new "chief integrity officer"</a> to oversee federal nutrition programs such as the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Women, Infants and Children</a> (WIC), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps).</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The integrity of SNAP in particular has been a popular topic among those in the Trump administration, including<b> <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/04/betrayal-at-the-usda-report-ucs-2018.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">USDA Sec. Sonny Perdue</a>, who argue that SNAP enables a "<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-24/trump-farm-bill-outline-emphasizes-work-as-a-food-stamp-goal" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lifestyle of dependency</a></b>" and seek major program reforms in the upcoming <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/solutions/strengthen-healthy-farm-policy/the-farm-bill.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Farm Bill</a>. But these arguments have been conjured from very little science and a whole lot of smoke—and have the effect of distracting the public from more pressing issues at hand.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SNAP is among the nation's most effective and efficient programs</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Monitoring any government program is necessary to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent effectively, and the USDA does so through its <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/quality-control" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">quality control process</a> and <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/pressrelease/2013/fns-001213" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">periodic reports</a> on fraud and abuse. In fiscal year 2011, as part of the Obama administration's Campaign to Cut Waste, the USDA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an extensive review of <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/pressrelease/2012/004212" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">more than 15,000 stores</a> for compliance with SNAP program rules. The results of these assessments, combined with USDA participation data, tell us the program is working as intended, and with remarkably few problems.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SNAP fraud1—<a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/fraud/what-snap-fraud" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">broadly defined</a> as exchanging benefits for cash or falsifying participant or retailer applications to illegally obtain or accept benefits—happens relatively infrequently, though it's difficult to measure. The USDA's most recent <a href="https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/ops/Trafficking2012-2014-Summary.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">report on the topic</a> estimated that it affected about 1.5 percent of all SNAP benefits received between 2012 and 2014. This represents a slight increase since the <a href="https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/Trafficking2009_Summary.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">early 2000s</a> (1.0 to 1.3 percent between 2002 and 2011), but remains substantially lower than <a href="https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/ops/TraffickinginFSP.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in the 1990s</a>, when reported rates were as high as 3.8 percent.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Compare this to some of the other federal programs contained in the Farm Bill—like crop insurance. Back in 2013, former USDA secretary Tom Vilsack <a href="https://brownfieldagnews.com/news/usda-working-on-crop-insurance-fraud/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">voiced concerns</a> about the integrity of crop insurance programs due to error and fraud rates that exceeded those of SNAP. As with SNAP, illegal activity is largely uncovered by way of criminal investigations. According to the Department of Justice, recent convictions and sentences connected with the federal crop insurance program have included the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edky/pr/paris-man-indicted-crop-insurance-fraud-wire-fraud-and-money-laundering" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">indictment of a Kentucky agricultural producer</a> for insurance fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering; an <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndia/pr/lake-city-farmer-sentenced-more-year-federal-prison-after-pleading-guilty-three-felony" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Iowa farmer</a> who received more than $450,000 in crop insurance proceeds illegally; a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdla/pr/bastrop-man-sentenced-9-years-prison-defrauding-usda-over-fake-farm-benefit-scheme" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Louisiana farmer </a>who created shell farms to receive more than $5.4 million in subsidy payments; and a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edky/pr/wallingford-woman-indicted-crop-insurance-fraud" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Kentucky crop insurance agent</a> whose clients received nearly $170,000 in indemnity payments for false claims. And those are just the cases from the last six months. Unlike SNAP, no chief integrity officer has been assigned to monitor fraud and abuse in the program.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So yes, we should be striving for continuous improvement in the operation of all federal programs. But explaining why SNAP in particular has come under such intense scrutiny requires some historical and political context—and a good understanding of who might benefit from maintaining old narratives</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">T<strong>he rise, fall and flatline of SNAP fraud</strong></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Though President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/short-history-snap" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Food Stamp Act</a> into law in 1964, the program began to gain popularity in the 1970s, when participation doubled from 5 million to 10 million over the course of the decade. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As participation increased, the USDA began to discover </span><a href="http://time.com/4711668/history-food-stamp-fraud/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">incidents of abuse</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, eventually revealing a widespread pattern of illegal activity that would plague the program for the next twenty years. Reported rates of fraud at this time were between </span><a href="http://time.com/4711668/history-food-stamp-fraud/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">10 and 20 percent</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The widespread abuse lent itself to growing public disapproval of the food stamps program and, accompanied by racist and classist rhetoric around so-called "<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/welfare-queen-myth/501470/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">welfare queens</a>," fueled substantial <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/04/us/food-stamps-program-it-grew-reagan-wants-cut-it-back-budget-targets.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">program reform</a> by the Reagan administration in the early 1980s.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But what likely ushered in drastic improvements in rates of fraud and abuse was the <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/short-history-snap" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">introduction of new electronic benefit transfer (EBT) systems</a>, which fully replaced paper food stamps in 2004. In addition to requiring a 4-digit PIN number, EBT cards create a record of each purchase, increasing the ease with which agencies can identify and document illegal use.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That brings us, more or less, to the efficient and effective program that we've seen for the last decade.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite how well SNAP works, politicians have continued to frame it as a program that suffers from rampant misuse and illegal activity. For those seeking <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/presidents-budget-would-cut-food-assistance-for-millions-and-radically" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">drastic budget cuts</a> and reforms, that negative narrative grants permission to discredit both the program and those who use it—and one needs to look no further than President Trump's <a href="https://splinternews.com/trump-is-resurrecting-the-myth-of-the-welfare-queen-1819508904" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">welfare reform proposals</a> or Speaker Paul Ryan's comment about the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/03/18/paul-ryan-poverty-dog-whistles-and-racism/?utm_term=.b9c9d1954f2d" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tailspin of "inner-city culture"</a> to know that the legacy of the welfare queen is alive and well.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speaking of integrity…</font></strong></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To get a sense of where this is all headed, keep your eyes on USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue—if you can. He's been making some quick pivots lately.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At a May 2017 <a href="https://agriculture.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=3876" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture</a> hearing, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/23/usda-bracing-for-significant-cuts-to-food-stamps-crop-insurance-rural-programs.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Perdue stated</a> that "SNAP has been a very important, effective program," and that the agency was considering no changes. "You don't try to fix something that isn't broken."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Less than a year later, the secretary has voiced his support for a number of proposed program changes, including <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/usda-looks-to-tighten-food-stamp-work-requirements" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">stricter work requirements</a> for adults without dependents. Not unlike the recent announcement aimed at nutrition program integrity, these proposals are often grounded more in political ideology than fact. USDA's own data shows that most SNAP participants who can work do work—<a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/most-working-age-snap-participants-work-but-often-in-unstable-jobs" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">albeit in unstable jobs</a>—and <a href="https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/snap/nondisabled-adults.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">counters the notion</a> that participants stay on the program for long periods of time.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the House releases its draft of the Farm Bill, which may happen as early as this week, Perdue's response (or lack thereof) could provide insight on the policy proposals he's prepared to support. More than likely, he'll continue to endorse the positions of his party—but then again, we've been surprised before.</font></p><ol class="ee-ol" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fraud and abuse should be distinguished from <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/quality-control" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">error rates</a>, or improper payment rates, which capture how often SNAP participants receive underpayment or overpayment of benefits. (The overwhelming majority of SNAP errors are attributed to unintentional error by recipients or administrative staff.) Program error rates have also experienced substantial declines in recent years: they reached an all-time low of <a href="https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/snap/2013-rates.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2 percent in 2013</a>, down from <a href="https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/snap/2003-rates.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">6.6 percent in 2003</a>. And though a <a href="https://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/27601-0002-41.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2015 USDA OIG review</a> of the quality control process found understated error rates in some states, the resulting corrective actions target state agencies—not individual SNAP participants.</font></li></ol></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/agriculture-secretary-sonny-perdue-helps-trump-cabinet-bible-study-pastor-raise-money-from-agribusiness/">http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/agriculture-secretary-sonny-perdue-helps-trump-cabinet-bible-study-pastor-raise-money-from-agribusiness/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and former Rep. Michele Bachmann were the featured speakers at a Tuesday evening fundraising dinner for <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/capitol-ministries/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Capitol Ministries</a>, the group that sponsors weekly Bible studies for members of the House and Senate and President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Also offering testimony on behalf of this “special type of ministry” was Rep. Jeff Denham, whose relationship with the group goes back to his days in the California legislature. The show was emceed by Frank Sontag, a Los Angeles-based Christian radio host who voices the audio versions of the <a href="http://capmin.org/bible-studies/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">written Bible studies</a> that Capitol Ministries publishes every week.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hundreds of people packed an event tent at the massive World Ag Expo in Tulare, California, the heart of the state’s agriculture industry, to hear Perdue, Bachmann and Capitol Ministries’ founder and leader Ralph Drollinger. Tulare is a reliably Republican area of the state, now represented in the U.S. Congress by Rep. Devin Nunes, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/devin-nunes-russia-california-236666" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">a local boy from a farm family</a>. At the event, tables were sponsored by wealthy farming families and an array of agriculture-related businesses, along with Bank of America and local branches of Wells Fargo.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">During the pre-dinner reception, video screens alternated between slides acknowledging event sponsors and endorsements of Capitol Ministries by state and national politicians, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Republican U.S. Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, Steve Daines of Montana, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some sponsors may be supporters of Capitol Ministries’ mission of encouraging public officials to embrace conservative Christianity. Some may have bought tables based on personal and professional connections to Capitol Ministries board member and event host Rob Hilarides, who heads a dairy operation in the area. Some may appreciate Drollinger’s teachings that <a href="https://capmin.org/bible-teach-regards-property-rights/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">“God is a capitalist</a>” and that because of excessive environmental regulations in the U.S., “the economic benefits God intends from private property ownership have been greatly diminished.” And some may have given to express support for the Trump administration’s <a href="http://foodpolicyaction.org/state-of-the-plate/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">rollbacks</a> of regulations governing their industry.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Perdue told Capitol Ministries’ sponsors that he is “the beneficiary” of their “investment,” saying he hoped the Capitol Ministries fundraiser would become an annual event. Perdue talked about how God had guided his life and career moves, from the time God told him to give up his veterinary practice and go into agribusiness to his election as Georgia’s first Republican governor. Like Bachmann, Perdue gave an altar-call-like pitch for people to give their lives to God.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue has been hosting the Wednesday morning Bible studies for members of Trump’s Cabinet at the Department of Agriculture—Bachmann said 11 of the 15 Cabinet members participate—though Drollinger has <a href="https://www.welt.de/kultur/article170140247/Meet-the-preacher-who-teaches-the-Bible-to-the-US-Cabinet.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> they will move into the White House for security reasons, making it easier for Vice President Mike Pence to attend and Trump to drop by.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Drollinger is on a mission to recruit public officials at all levels of government to his conservative version of Christianity and his particular fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. Part of Drollinger’s pitch for his ministry is that Religious Right groups have spent too much time lobbying public officials to change laws. Capitol Ministries focuses instead on “the most influential component in the legislative process: the people who make the decisions and create the statutes.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drollinger says he doesn’t lobby, but he does instruct public officials that the Bible mandates adherence to right-wing policy positions on a wide range of issues, including <a href="https://capmin.org/bible-teach-regards-property-rights/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">environmental regulation</a>, <a href="https://capmin.org/the-bible-policy-capital-punishment/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">the death penalty</a>, abortion, LGBTQ equality and more. He says it is <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-bible-study-leader-governments-job-is-to-quell-evil-and-punish-sin/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">the government’s job to quell evil and punish sin</a>. He teaches that care for the poor is meant to be a job for the family and church, not the government, and that <a href="https://capmin.org/theological-liberalism-in-america/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">entitlement programs have no “biblical authority.”</a> And he says that once “righteous” people hold positions of power in government, they should <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-cabinet-bible-study-pastor-says-its-libelous-to-call-him-a-christian-nationalist-hmm/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">hire</a> only other “righteous” people.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Drollinger, whose height hints at his time as a college and professional basketball player, cites as inspiration the network of ministries that have focused on evangelizing athletes. And he grounds his target-the-leaders strategy theologically in the example of the apostle Paul, who he says preached in regional capitals and sought to convert political leaders because of the number of people they can influence.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Capitol Ministries is intensifying its efforts to reach state and local officials in the U.S., a project they’ve dubbed <a href="https://capmin.org/ministries/civic-reach/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">CivicReach</a>. Its goal is to partner with local churches to identify and train local leaders “to build discipleship Bible studies to reach everyone from municipal judges and mayors to city and county commissioners to dog catchers.” Bachmann, who is now a member of Capitol Ministries’ board, said that many local leaders will want to move into higher office, and Capitol Ministries hopes they’ll take the group’s worldview with them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Capitol Ministries is also expanding its reach around the globe, an effort that made up a big part of Drollinger’s and Bachmann’s pitches for more financial support. Drollinger said that the group has ministry leaders in 24 foreign capitals, and that the eight regional directors now in place around the world are moving “faster than we can keep up.” He talked about preparing to start <a href="https://capmin.org/resources/ministry-updates/great-reports-from-cm-europe/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">a new Bible study in the European Parliament</a> as a way to open doors throughout Eastern and Western Europe, and said the group is even looking into Baghdad, “enemy territory, spiritually speaking.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Bachmann, who closed out the evening, did what a board member is meant to do in that situation, making a hard pitch for contributions to support the group’s work at state and local levels, in Washington, D.C., and globally. “There are huge doors that are about to be opened internationally,” she said, urging the audience to pray with their spouses about how much they can give.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Speakers at the event were thrilled about having Trump and Pence in the White House. Bachmann called it “a new day in Washington, D.C.” Even the evening’s entertainer, Christian singer Lincoln Brewster, gushed about how grateful he is that “Jesus has not been uninvited to the White House, but that he’s in fact being asked to be there, and to really be the true leader of this great nation.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drollinger, who shares Trump’s tendency to refer to critical news articles as <a href="https://capmin.org/resources/ministry-updates/capitol-ministries-responds-fake-news-la-times-others/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">“fake news,”</a> told a reporter that <a href="https://www.welt.de/kultur/article170140247/Meet-the-preacher-who-teaches-the-Bible-to-the-US-Cabinet.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Trump reads his written Bible studies</a> and sends him trademark Sharpie-written notes praising the studies, adding, “I just love the guy.” At the California event, Drollinger told attendees how his ministry started in Sacramento and moved to Washington, D.C., about eight years ago with a Bible study for members of the House of Representatives. When some of the group members were elected to the Senate, he started a study there as well. And then, Drollinger told dinner attendees, another door opened:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; hyphens: none; background: rgb(239, 243, 243); padding: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0.75em 2em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">And then, all of a sudden Trump got elected, and Pence chose the best out of our House and our Senate Bible studies, to where we had 12, I think now, 12 of the Cabinet members are strong believers, and they said, come with us, we’d like to start a ministry in the White House Cabinet.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">At the fundraiser, Bachmann talked about the importance of public officials having their faith and worldview shaped by Drollinger’s teaching:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; hyphens: none; background: rgb(239, 243, 243); padding: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0.75em 2em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">We are grateful for every man and woman who comes to Christ, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that their mind has been fully transformed and knowledgeable about the issues, and that’s where Ralph and Danielle [Drollinger, Ralph’s wife] come in. The teaching is deep, the teaching is consistent, the teaching is solid. And I can tell you from personal experience: Members of the House, members of the Senate, members of the Cabinet, are transformed by this work.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Those personal transformations, said Bachmann, will lead to a “transformed nation.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s worth pausing for a moment to note that Bachmann and other speakers refer to Drollinger and his wife in a way that could suggest to a casual listener that they are partners in teaching the Bible studies. But Drollinger <a href="https://www.welt.de/kultur/article170140247/Meet-the-preacher-who-teaches-the-Bible-to-the-US-Cabinet.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">interprets</a> the Bible to say that women should not teach men, which is why the leaders being recruited and trained to teach Bible studies to public officials at local, state and international levels are <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/leader-of-trump-cabinet-bible-studies-aggressively-expanding-right-wing-proselytizing-to-government-officials/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">all men</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drollinger is not particularly open to other interpretations of scripture. He has <a href="https://capmin.org/resources/ministry-updates/capitol-ministries-responds-fake-news-la-times-others/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">called Roman Catholicism</a> “one of the primary false religions in the world.” He has written that liberal Christians are “<a href="https://capmin.org/liberal-theologys-struggle-modern-archaeology/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">simpletons</a>.” In <a href="https://capmin.org/theological-liberalism-in-america/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">a September 2017 Bible study</a>, he wrote that the Social Gospel, a major strain of American Christianity in the 20th century, is a “perversion” or “corruption” of biblical teaching, and “not Christianity whatsoever.” As for Christians in Congress who do not share his conservative theology and right-wing politics, Drollinger wrote, “I believe the biggest deception on the Hill today is this: the religion of the Social Gospel proffers itself as being ‘Christian’ when it isn’t even close to being biblical.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last July, Drollinger <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/leader-of-trump-cabinet-bible-study-god-only-hears-prayers-of-righteous-christians/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">warned public officials</a>, “Do not be deceived by syncretistic ‘prayer breakfasts’: God only hears the prayers of leaders and citizens who are upright, who live righteously through faith in Jesus Christ.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"> </font></p></div></div><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Tags:</strong> <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/michele-bachmann/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Michele Bachmann</a><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/ralph-drollinger/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Ralph Drollinger</a><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/sonny-perdue/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Sonny Perdue</a><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/church-state/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Church-State</a><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/trump-adm/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Trump Adm</a><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/capitol-ministries/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Capitol Ministries</a></font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TRUMP’S USDA LANDING TEAM LOOKS LIKE IT’S ‘KLIP’ AND ZIP: USDA, the federal department that most directly serves rural America — one of the key voting blocs that propelled President-elect Donald Trump to victory — has had little contact with his landing team — the transition team’s crack crew responsible for collaborating with agency staff to ensure a smooth handoff from the Obama administration, reports Pro Ag’s Helena Bottemiller Evich. Inauguration Day is little more than a month out and yet it’s questionable whether the Trump transition has even fielded a landing team — as in a group of transition officials working together — at the federal government’s sixth-largest department, which has more than 100,000 employees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of Monday, one Trump transition volunteer, Brian Klippenstein, began showing up at USDA. Klippenstein, known to many as “Klip,” is executive director of Protect the Harvest, a group that advocates for safeguarding animal agriculture and was founded by oil executive Forrest Lucas (who was considered for Interior secretary early in the transition’s search process).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before Klippenstein arrived at USDA this week, the sole person named to the landing effort was Joel Leftwich, the Senate Agriculture Committee’s Republican staff director. But Leftwich has been in limbo for weeks, as questions swirled about how involved in the transition he should be, particularly since Senate Ag will be tasked with confirming many key USDA appointments in the coming months, multiple sources told POLITICO. As a result, Leftwich hasn’t been showing up at USDA regularly, and it isn’t clear how much of a role he is playing in the transition effort. The Senate Agriculture Committee deferred questions to Trump transition officials, who did not respond to requests for comment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At four other large federal agencies, however, the Trump transition has dispatched landing teams consisting of more than a handful of people.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>webodec3  Brain Control<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Explore Account Logout Support Download</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Franklin Ctr for Gov't and Pub IntegrityAm Crossroads GPSWebofDCeitGLOBAL WARMINGDENIERFUNDER$FRONTSPOLITICIANSINDUSTRIE$LOBBYIST$MEDIAFLACKSHACKSDIRTY TRICKSREVOLVING DOORALecKoch-alypseOFFENSIVEKid KillersLucas Oil forrestperdue, sonny Govalec, gopperdue, sonny Govalec, api, CoC, Denier, Exxon, frack, koch, wlfALEC2Governor2014, Denier, gopdavid Sengop, kochstoneridge gp1994 Newt Revo, CFG, coal, Denier, energy, inhof, koch, rove, tobacco, xlChambliss, Saxby Senabramoff, chevrn, coal, Denier, energy, flanked, gop, inhof, koch, rove, texasCornyn, J Sen1%, 2016 election, Agda21, Denier, energy, mercr, TPCruz, T Sen2alec, B2, jpm, picGeo Group2016 election, Christian, dci, Denier, gop, nraGrassley, C SenAgda21, alec, Christian, coal, gop, poor, So, TPGeorgiaalec, Brbrt, gop, pic, trmpImmigration</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Search</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">perdue, sonny GovEdit</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trump calls him working farmer but he is chem seller?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON — In Sonny Perdue’s telling, Georgians were growing weary of the corruption and scandals in their state when he took over as governor in 2003 — a time when he gave his own version of a “drain the swamp” pledge.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“My first goal as governor is to restore public trust in state government by changing the culture of state government,” Mr. Perdue told a leadership conference at Kennesaw State University in April 2003. “Our form of government depends on a mutual bond of trust between the people and their government. But people have become cynical about their government.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Mr. Perdue, a Republican who is awaiting confirmation to serve as President Trump’s agriculture secretary, became a target of frequent criticism that he was failing to honor his own ethics pledge during his eight years as governor. The criticism centers on the fact that, as Mr. Trump has, he continued to own or help run his family business ventures — four farming-related companies — while serving as governor.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Perdue is one of the last cabinet members awaiting Senate confirmation. No date has been set for his confirmation hearing; a holdup in the release of paperwork accompanying his nomination by the federal Office of Government Ethics has been blamed for the delay. The office must examine Mr. Perdue’s proposal to avoid conflicts of interest while running the U.S.D.A., as the department is known, which may include selling off some of his farming assets.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Continue reading the main story</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before his tenure as governor ended in 2011, 13 complaints had been filed against Mr. Perdue with the State Ethics Commission, which on two occasions ruled that the governor had violated state ethics laws. The commission took the unusual step of fining Mr. Perdue while he was governor.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There were numerous other questions, including some about the role of Mr. Perdue’s personal lawyer — also a state legislator — in pushing a bill through the legislature that included a special provision that gave Mr. Perdue $100,000 in state tax relief.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And, when his tenure as governor was coming to a close, Mr. Perdue met with Georgia officials who oversee the state’s ports to discuss use of a terminal for a family business, according to documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Soon after he left office, in fact, he opened a new company that specialized in exporting products through Savannah.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When you are a public official you are supposed to be acting entirely on behalf of the public and not for self-gain,” said Yasha Heidari, former senior legal counsel to the State Ethics Commission. “Looking at his record, as both an attorney and a citizen of the state, I had serious concerns.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Photo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a written statement, a spokeswoman for Mr. Perdue rejected that assessment, saying that the frequent criticism he faced while governor was largely politically motivated. “There hadn’t been a Republican governor in Georgia for 135 years,” the statement said. “Governor Perdue was the David who slew the Democrats’ Goliath.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/us/politics/sonny-perdue-georgia.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-picks-sonny-perdue-for-agriculture-secretary/2017/01/18/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-agriculture/2016/12/trumps-usda-landing-team-looks-like-its-klip-and-zip-217913</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TRUMP’S USDA LANDING TEAM LOOKS LIKE IT’S ‘KLIP’ AND ZIP: USDA, the federal department that most directly serves rural America — one of the key voting blocs that propelled President-elect Donald Trump to victory — has had little contact with his landing team — the transition team’s crack crew responsible for collaborating with agency staff to ensure a smooth handoff from the Obama administration, reports Pro Ag’s Helena Bottemiller Evich. Inauguration Day is little more than a month out and yet it’s questionable whether the Trump transition has even fielded a landing team — as in a group of transition officials working together — at the federal government’s sixth-largest department, which has more than 100,000 employees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of Monday, one Trump transition volunteer, Brian Klippenstein, began showing up at USDA. Klippenstein, known to many as “Klip,” is executive director of Protect the Harvest, a group that advocates for safeguarding animal agriculture and was founded by oil executive Forrest Lucas (who was considered for Interior secretary early in the transition’s search process).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.ecowatch.com/perdue-usda-trump-2201425989.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Jonathan Kaplan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Sonny Perdue, a long-time agribusiness leader, Democrat-turned-Republican state legislator, two-time governor of Georgia to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Faced with a warming planet, increasing water scarcity, collapsing bee populations and other environmental challenges, the USDA needs a leader who will promote planet-friendly farming practices more than ever. Sonny Perdue is not an obvious champion for sustainable farming and he has made some troubling statements about climate change, but we look forward to learning more about his values and commitment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With his hands at the controls of the USDA, Perdue would influence how food is grown, inspected, labeled and sold. The agency's 100,000 plus employees also manage a network of programs aimed at preventing hunger in the U.S.; buy much of the food served up to millions of public school children; manage food aid to nations abroad; try to anticipate, prevent and eradicate the arrival of invasive species and crop pests; promote rural development and renewable energy; and manage our national forests. The USDA also regulates food labels and claims, like USDA Organic, which have played a powerful role in growing the good food movement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For those of us focused on the environment, the billions spent each year by USDA to promote more environmentally friendly farming practices is a particular priority. The USDA has significant discretion in how these funds are spent and can choose to promote farming practices that work in harmony with the natural environment (e.g. using beneficial insects to control crop pests) or practices that effectively subsidize conventional industrial agriculture. Perdue would also likely be influential in establishing the next 5-year U.S. farm policy or Farm Bill, which helps shapes the nation's agriculture.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An internet search finds little track record by Perdue on these issues. However, he recently penned a disturbing opinion piece in which he lambasts "liberals" for exaggerating the climate relevance of extreme weather events. He writes "It's become a running joke among the public and liberals have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science because their arguments have become so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Looking further back, however, we do find a few instances where Perdue has expressed interest in environmental stewardship:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the Governor of Georgia, he announced a conservation easement tax credit on Earth Day in 2006 aimed at conserving open space and farmland from sprawl.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2007 he encouraged water conservation, saying "Our state is blessed with a wealth of natural resources, but the drought has shown us that they are not unlimited. The stewardship of energy, land and water resources is vital to the lives of our state's citizens. Most importantly, conservation is the right thing to do, in times of scarcity or abundance."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He convened a "Governor's Energy Policy Council" in 2005 that issued a report recognizing the importance of climate change and recommending state action to address it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His current agribusiness venture, Perdue Partners, sells a long list of conventional agricultural products, but there are a few organic products included; non-GMO conventional soybeans are also available "grown on contract."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To be clear, these are quite thin as environmental credentials. But compared to other cabinet nominees and to President-elect Trump himself, perhaps Perdue seems less hostile to the environment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the Obama Administration, the USDA pledged to reduce agricultural global warming pollution in the U.S. by 120 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per year by 2025—providing the same benefit as taking 25 million cars off the road annually. The agency's plans for doing this mostly entail implementing its existing programs. Here at the Natural Resources Defense Council, we'd hoped the next administration would be able to do significantly better. Before Sony Perdue is confirmed as Secretary of Agriculture, Americans need to know a lot more about his commitment to protecting natural resources and the environment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jonathan Kaplan is the director of the Food & Agriculture Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">alternet worst gov 2006</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Georgia: Sonny Perdue</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue is by no means the best known Southern Governor (that claim to fame probably goes to Jeb Bush or to Haley Barbour, featured in our sidebar). His story is an amazing one, from how he got elected to his presiding over a period of resurgence in Georgia that is less conservative and more wingnut fringe.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The race bait and switch: During his campaign for Governor, Sonny Perdue criticized the incumbent Roy Barnes for changing Georgia's state flag to remove the Confederate Battle Flag. Some observers credit this move with his victory. Following his election, he held a referendum on replacing the Barnes flag, but didn't include Confederate Battle Flag imagery as an option.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Education malpractice: Perdue backed, passed, and signed [13] a version of the 65% Distraction [14] requiring that Georgia schools spend 65% of their budgets "in the classroom." The proposal is nothing more than political fluff that ignores such necessary school expenses as nurses and schoolbuses. Perdue made it a centerpiece of his education agenda.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Economic boondoggles: Flustered by economic flight out of Georgia (spurred, perhaps, by bad education policy and questionable racial politics?), Perdue felt pressure to deliver. So after Ford and GM pulled up their stakes, Georgia's Governor landed $400 million [15] in incentives for Korean automaker Kia to build a plant in Georgia. The plant is expected to create 2,500 jobs at a cost of $160,000 a piece to the state.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative robots: In addition to passing poorly thought-out rightwing ideas like the 65% Solution (see above), Perdue's election to the Governor's office was quickly followed [16] by Georgia's establishment as ALEC's prime state, moving multiple model bills, including asbestos tort deform and legislation to shut down Atlanta's living wage ordinance.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scapegoating immigrants: In a time of immigrant scapegoating, Perdue and his rightwing allies in Georgia have taken the cake -- passing a bill that threatens immigrants [17] while basically letting employers, especially unscrupulous ones, off the hook. While happily claiming that they've passed the harshest measure in the country, Perdue smiles and says that "Georgia's government is not, and this bill is not, anti-immigrant [18]." Right. It's just in favor of immigrant exploitation. That's a big difference.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/story/35688/america%27s_worst_governors</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">George Ervin "Sonny" Perdue III[1] (born December 20, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 81st Governor of Georgiafrom 2003 to 2011. Upon his inauguration in January 2003, he became the first Republican Governor of Georgia since Reconstruction.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contents  [hide] </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1 Personal life and education</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 Political career</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2.1 State Senator</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2.2 Governor of Georgia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 Controversies</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.1 Land ownership</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.2 Praying for rain</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 Electoral history</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4.1 As State Senator</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4.2 As Governor of Georgia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Personal life and education[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue was born in Perry, Georgia. He currently lives in Bonaire, an unincorporated area between Perry and Warner Robins. His father was a farmer and his mother was a teacher. Perdue has been known as Sonny since childhood and prefers to be called by that name (he was sworn in and signs official documents as "Sonny Perdue").</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue is the first cousin of U.S Senator David Perdue.[2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue played quarterback at Warner Robins High School and was a walk-on at the University of Georgia, where he was also a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity (Beta-Lambda chapter).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue served in the Air Force, rising to the rank of Captain before his discharge.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1971 he earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.) from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine and worked as a veterinarian before becoming a small business owner, eventually starting three small businesses.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue and his wife, Mary, were married in 1972. They have four children (two boys and two girls) and twelve grandchildren (five boys and seven girls) and have also been foster parents for eight children.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to flying, Perdue is also an avid sportsman.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue made a cameo appearance as an East Carolina football coach in the movie We Are Marshall, large portions of which were filmed in Georgia.[3]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Governor of Georgia[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue resigned in December 2001 and devoted himself entirely to running for the office of Governor. He was elected Governor of Georgia in November 2002, defeating Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes, 51% to 46% (a Libertarian candidate took 2% of the vote[5]). He became the first Republican governor of Georgia in over 130 years.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perdue was re-elected to a second term in the 2006 general election. His Democratic opponent was Lieutenant Governor Mark Taylor. Libertarian Garrett Michael Hayes was also on the ballot. Perdue won handily, with nearly 58% of the vote.[6] Perdue was constitutionally ineligible to seek a third consecutive term as Governor in 2010.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two primary objectives in Perdue's administration was on reforming state government and on improving education. Perdue advocated reforms designed to cut waste in government, most notably the sale of surplus vehicles and real estate. (Prior to Perdue's becoming governor, no state agency had even compiled an inventory of what assets the state owned, much less managed them.[citation needed]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In education, Perdue promoted the return of most decision-making to the local level. After Perdue took office, Georgia moved out of last place in SAT scores in 2003 and 2004. Although it returned to last place in 2005, Georgia rose to 49th place in 2006 in the combined math and reading mean score, including the writing portion (new that year).[7] The high school class of 2006 recorded the sharpest drop in SAT scores in 31 years.[8]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Having campaigned for governor, promising to let the citizens of Georgia vote to determine their flag, Perdue signed legislation for a flag referendum in 2004. The choices given to Georgia voters were a modified version of the First National Flag of the Confederate States of America with the Georgia State Seal prominently displayed inside the circle of the 13 stars, or the version of the flag created in 2001 by the Roy Barnes administration. (The nickname of this flag was the Barnes flag or Barnes rag). Perdue angered some Georgians when the 1956 flag was not a choice on the ballot after promising throughout his campaign that the '56 flag design would appear in any referendum. However, Perdue was faced with a Democratic House that would not consider having the 1956 flag on the referendum and he needed support for the new tobacco tax he wanted to pass.[citation needed]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a March 5, 2008, proclamation by Governor Perdue, "Among those who served the Confederacy were many African-Americans, both free and slave, who saw action in the Confederate armed forces in many combat roles. According to the Georgia government's website on Confederate History Month, they also participated in the manufacture of products for the war effort, built naval ships, and provided military assistance and relief efforts..."[9]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Governor Perdue's tenure included the most severe floods in Georgia's recorded history,[10] which resulted in Perdue declaring a state of emergency in 17 counties.[11] Disaster preparedness has been a focus of the administration, with Governor Purdue having worked with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to implement Ready Georgia, a campaign launched in 2008 to increase disaster preparedness throughout the state.[12]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of September 2007, Governor Perdue remained relatively popular. Perdue had a 56% approval rating, while 35% disapproved, according to Strategic Vision.[13]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Controversies[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Land ownership[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In mid-2003, Perdue purchased 101 acres (0.41 km2) of land next to his Houston County home, for $303,000, after negotiating directly with the owner. The purchase was done using a limited liability company named Maryson LLC, a corporation formed on July 23, 2003.[14] Maryson's registered agent was Stephan Holcomb, a Houston County dentist. Perdue appointed Holcomb, a neighbor of the governor's sister in Houston County, to the state Board of Dentistry in 2003. The lawyer who organized Maryson LLC was state representative Larry O'Neal (R-Warner Robins), the chairman of the Ways & Means committee of the House.[15] Perdue paid the 2003 tax bill on the property after it was acquired by Maryson, Houston County tax records show.[citation needed] In May 2004, the land was transferred from Maryson to Perdue's own name.[14] The transfer price was recorded at $305,000. Maryson was dissolved on July 9, 2005, a year after the sale.[15] Perdue did not disclose the property or any interest on his financial disclosure forms for calendar years 2003 and 2004, as required by Georgia law.[14] Five days after Maryson was incorporated in 2003, O'Neal also incorporated a partnership for Perdue and his wife, Mary, called Perdue Plantation LLC, according to the Secretary of State's Office. This partnership also was not listed on Perdue's 2004 financial disclosure report. The Secretary of State's Office said an official is required to report ownership or a fiduciary position in a company.[15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Praying for rain[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In November 2007, while Georgia suffered from one of the worst droughts in several decades, Perdue, along with lawmakers and local ministers, prayed for rain on the steps of the state Capitol. This came shortly after Alabama Governor Bob Riley issued a proclamation declaring a week in July as "Days of Prayer for Rain" to "humbly ask for His blessings and to hold us steady in times of difficulty." The Atlanta Freethought Society opposed the rain prayer saying in a statement, "The governor can pray when he wants to. What he can't do is lead prayers in the name of the people of Georgia."[16]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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