Food & Water Watch

Berman target, w nrdc and SClub

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">=</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">ref food & ww</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/who-supports-fracking">
</a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/who-supports-fracking">http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/who-supports-fracking</a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div class="u-smallText" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">11.21.14</div><div class="u-smallText" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="authors" style="box-sizing: border-box;">By Alison Grass</div></div>The science is in: climate change is a threat, and fracking worsens climate change. Fracking also brings many other well-documented problems, including water contamination, air pollution and adverse health effects. Clean, safe energy solutions are available, such as wind and solar power, energy efficiency technologies and conservation policies. To harness these solutions, we must remake the U.S. energy system -- but the oil and gas industry stands in the way.The oil and gas industry has captured U.S. energy policy. To see that U.S. energy policy continues to serve the industry’s bottom line, it has erected a huge money machine to push a pro-fracking agenda at all levels of government. Whether it’s lobbying the halls of Congress or spreading misinformation in the media, the following groups are helping the oil and gas industry manipulate public opinion so it can continue drilling and fracking for fossil fuels. Here is our list of some of the main players helping to push fracking on the American public.<h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 52px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trade Associations</h2><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANGA was formed in 2009 by a group of 27 independent natural gas companies to lobby for an industry-friendly climate bill.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANGA “… <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://anga.us/about-us#.VAdb4GRdX7E" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">works</a> with industry, government and customer stakeholders to promote increased demand for and continued availability of our nation’s abundant natural gas resource … ”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANGA lobbies for natural gas interests and spends millions of dollars on advertising and public relations aimed at convincing people to carry out its agenda.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANGA spent <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/07/30/30climatewire-stream-of-new-lobbying-money-helped-climate-61474.html?pagewanted=all" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$300,000</a> on lobbying in the early stages of the failed climate bill in 2009, to push for natural gas incentives.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In 2012, ANGA gave $50,000 to a group called Longmont Taxpayers for Common Sense, the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2012/10/24/big-oil-weighs-in-big-in-longmont.html?page=all" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">largest donation</a> to help keep a local fracking ban off of the ballot in Longmont, Colorado.</li></ul></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In one of its most egregious public relations stunts, which can be seen in its 2012 IRS 990 form, ANGA gave $1 million to help fund “<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://blog.littlesis.org/2012/06/13/fracking-industrys-answer-to-gasland-devised-by-astroturf-lobbying-group-and-political-ad-agency/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Truthland</a>,” a short film devised by the oil and gas industry to respond to the 2010 documentary “Gasland.”</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">American Gas Association (AGA)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">AGA is a natural gas utility trade association that advocates for the use of natural gas and “represents companies delivering natural gas to consumers …”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">AGA’s president and CEO, Dave McCurdy, is a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma. Among McCurdy’s <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.pipelineandgasjournal.com/dave-mccurdy-brings-strong-credentials-aga" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">priorities</a> at AGA is to expand the use of natural gas for transportation, so as to serve the AGA membership’s interests in increasing demand for natural gas.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">AGA is credited with positioning natural gas as a “<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/01/24/407765/natural-gas-is-a-bridge-to-nowhere-price-for-global-warming-pollution/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">bridge fuel</a>” decades ago. This positioning has allowed natural gas to be viewed as part of the solution to climate change, but climate pollution stemming from natural gas dependence is a major threat.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">American Petroleum Institute (API)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">API is “the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and gas industry.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">API uses its financial power to back <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.thenation.com/blog/171529/saudi-led-oil-lobby-group-financed-2012-dark-money-attack-ads" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">several</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.republicreport.org/2012/coalition-for-american-jobs/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">dark money groups</a>, including the Coalition for American Jobs, a 501(c)(6) group, which was set up by API lobbyists and is also supported by the chemical industry to air political ads for supportive candidates.</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Since 2008, API has been led by its president, oil <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=12412" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">lobbyist</a> Jack Gerard. Under Gerard’s leadership, API has invested heavily in public relations campaigns, like its <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.energyandpolicy.org/american_petroleum_institute_s_vote_4_energy_campaign" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Vote4Energy </a>advertisements that inundated televisions during the 2012 presidential election.</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">According to the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/15/16596/who-needs-lobbyists-see-what-big-business-spends-win-american-minds" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Center for Public Integrity</a>, in 2012 API spent $85.5 million to four PR and advertising firms including $51.9 million to just one firm—Edelman, which calls itself “the world’s largest public relations firm.” The API is Edelman’s biggest client.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">A bulk of API’s <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/jack-gerard-the-force-majeure-behind-big-oil/2012/04/06/gIQA1hjC0S_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">advertising</a> and lobbying is done under names of its front groups: Energy Nation, Energy Citizens, EnergyTomorrow and America’s Energy Forum.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">API’s front groups aggressively employ <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/GP%20API%20letter%20August%202009-1.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">astroturf campaigns</a> to give the appearance of grassroots support by organizing rallies and spreading misinformation to promote its agenda.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">IPAA is a national trade association that represents companies focused on exploration and production of oil and natural gas.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">IPAA is responsible for creating Energy In Depth (EID), an industry-biased media outlet designed to respond to hydraulic fracturing criticism.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In 2011, DeSmogBlog revealed an IPAA <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/HFUnderFire.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">leaked memo</a> from 2009 that stated: “For months, IPAA’s government relations and communications teams have been working around-the-clock on a new industry-wide campaign — known as “Energy In Depth (<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.energyindepth.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">energyindepth.org</a>) — to combat new environmental regulations, especially with regard to hydraulic fracturing.”</li></ul></li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The MSC is a trade association working to promote drilling and fracking for shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The MSC comprises a large number of companies and law firms with stakes in expanded drilling and fracking for natural gas in the region, and across the country.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">One of the MSC’s associate members, Aqua America, the second largest U.S. investor-owned water company, sells water to shale drillers.</li></ul></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The MSC’s <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://marcelluscoalition.org/about/executive-committee/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Executive Board</a> is run by industry employees from Range Resources, Williams, XTO Energy, CONSOL Energy, EOG Resources and numerous other companies profiting from fracking.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The group spends big money on public relations initiatives, has funded <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://blog.littlesis.org/2012/06/13/frackademics-timothy-considine-analyst-or-advocate/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">industry-biased</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140512/NEWS04/405120303" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">fracking studies</a> and has given money to colleges.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Many of Pennsylvania’s elected officials, regulators, lobbying groups and law firms have direct ties to the natural gas industry and the MSC.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">For example, in 2010, the MSC brought on former <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.prwatch.org/news/2010/08/9321/tom-ridge-joins-marcellus-shale-coalitions-natural-gas-gold-rush" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Department of Homeland Security Secretary</a> and <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://marcelluscoalition.org/2011/07/update-on-the-msc-gov-ridge-partnership/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Pennsylvania Governor </a>Tom Ridge for a year as a strategic adviser under a $900,000 contract, shared by his two consulting firms.</li></ul></li></ul><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 52px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Astroturf Campaigns and Front Groups</h2><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">American Clean Skies Foundation (ACSF)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">While ACSF benignly describes itself as “an independent nonprofit working for cleaner energy in the U.S. transportation and power sectors,” it is, at best, an astroturf group that works to advance the natural gas industry.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">ACSF was co-founded in <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.cleanskies.org/about/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">2007</a> by Aubrey McClendon, the former Chesapeake Energy CEO who was <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/09/us-eig-chesapeake-mcclendon-idUSBRE8471H020120509" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">stripped of his chairmanship</a> in 2012 after it was revealed that major financial backers of Chesapeake issued personal loans to McClendon in order for him to take personal stakes in the company’s wells.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Although McClendon stepped down from the ACSF board in 2013, its <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.cleanskies.org/about/board-bios/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">leadership</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=145507916&ticker=TEXC" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">still</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.phillipsmurrah.com/attorneys/jim-roth" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">has</a> ties to oil and gas industry interests.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">One way that ACSF exerts its influence is through its financial backing of academic studies — funding so-called “<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://public-accountability.org/wp-content/uploads/industry_partner_or_industry_puppet.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">frackademia</a>” — such as the high-profile 2011 MIT study, The Future of Natural Gas, led by Ernest Moniz, now U.S. Secretary of Energy.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In 2011, before the report was released, Moniz was appointed to a profitable position on the Board of Directors of ICF International, a consulting firm with strong ties to the oil and gas industry.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Moniz also served on the NGP Energy Technology Partners advisory board for several years (although it is unclear whether or not he was compensated), in addition to his many other professional <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.propublica.org/article/wealth-of-business-connections-ernest-moniz" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">ties</a> to the energy sector.</li></ul></li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">America's Energy Forum</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">America’s Energy Forum, launched in 2008 by the American Petroleum Institute (API), is a lobbying group.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In a presentation by API, the target audience of America’s Energy Forum is described as: “Politically influential third parties — 'grasstops' — including ‘political family’ members of local, state, federal lawmakers and federal candidates.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">API says that the mission of America’s Energy Forum is to: “Orchestrate new public policy outcomes for the industry by surrounding lawmakers with the most politically persuasive grass-top constituents supporting energy issues.”<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">For <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20140127/ARTICLES/140129695?tc=ar" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">an example</a> of how the group operates, in early 2014 America’s Energy Forum managed to write, and have a North Carolina mayor sign, a letter of support for oil exploration off the state’s coast.</li></ul></li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Big Green Radicals</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">On March 6, 2014, Big Green Radicals, an industry front group, launched an attack on Food & Water Watch, and two other activist groups, with a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.biggreenradicals.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/BGR-WSJ-Ad.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">full-page ad</a> in The Wall Street Journal, a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRzVnPuZT8Q&feature=youtu.be" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">90-second commercial</a> online and a website calling us a “big green radical.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Big Green Radicals is led by PR flack/lobbyist <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://bermanexposed.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Rick Berman</a>, a man nicknamed “ <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://bermanexposed.org/broadcast-clips" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Dr. Evil</a>.” He has been the force behind many industry front groups pushing the interests of tobacco companies, payday lenders and casinos, and is often hired by companies to attack consumer and public interest groups.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Berman runs an advertising firm, Berman and Company, which shares office space with many of his industry-driven nonprofits, devised to appear like <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/hidden-interests-dr-evils-payday" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">grassroots</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.architectmagazine.com/architecture/astroturf-organization-turns-to-green-building-leed-exposed_o.aspx" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">advocacy</a> groups or independent research institutions.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Big Green Radicals is a project of Berman’s Environmental Policy Alliance.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) greenwashes the public with the delusion that widespread drilling and fracking can be done safely and sustainably, as long as the industry follows the CSSD’s drafted voluntary guidelines and <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://037186e.netsolhost.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/CSSD-Performance-Standards-3-13R.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">performance standards</a>.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">These “standards” are the basis for the CSSD’s <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/https://www.sustainableshale.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Master_News_Release.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">certification scheme</a>, which it <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2014/01/21/what-leed-did-for-buildings-this-could-do-for-shale-gas-production/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">shamelessly</a> likens to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program for recognizing green building design. For $30,000, applicants that meet certain standards are rubberstamped and the company can flaunt that it has met certain “sustainability” criteria.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Launched in March 2013, the CSSD was formed by a group of 11 companies, foundations and nonprofits: Chevron, CONSOL Energy, EQT, Shell, PennFuture, Group Against Smog and Pollution, Pennsylvania Environmental Council, Clean Air Task Force, Environmental Defense Fund, The Heinz Endowments and William Penn Foundation.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In reality, the CSSD is a portal for the oil and gas industry to exert its influence and help “<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://public-accountability.org/2014/08/anatomy-of-an-industry-front-group/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">scrub the image</a>” of drilling and fracking.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">CEA poses itself as a grassroots organization, claiming that it works as “<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://consumerenergyalliance.org/about-consumer-energy-alliance/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">the voice of the energy consumer</a>” and that it “provide[s] consumers with sound, unbiased information on U.S. and global energy issues.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">However, HBW Resources — an oil and gas lobbying firm — formed CEA in the late 2000s, and an IRS 990 form shows that CEA is run out of <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2012/261/658/2012-261658339-096be961-9O.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">HBW Resources’ Houston office</a>; many of the listed CEA staff are also employed at HBW Resources.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">CEA has been a staunch advocate of the Keystone XL Pipeline, of drilling offshore from Florida to Maine and of fracking.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In 2011, CEA funded a public relations <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.celdf.org/community-organizing-pennsylvania-organizing-campaigns-peters-township" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">campaign</a> that helped defeat a fracking ban ordinance in Peters Township, Pennsylvania.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">More than once, CEA president David Holt, also a managing partner at HBW Resources, has written articles attacking Food & Water Watch, alleging without support that we are misrepresenting the risks and harms from fracking. Science makes clear the significant risks and harms.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">However, CEA is misleading the public by claiming that it is a grassroots group. Its <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://consumerenergyalliance.org/about-consumer-energy-alliance/members/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">members</a> consist of industry trade associations and oil and gas companies, while it receives funding from oil and gas industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Energy Citizens</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Energy Citizens is one of the American Petroleum Institute’s (API’s) front groups and has a presence in every congressional district in the United States.</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Energy Citizen’s mission is to “identify, recruit, educate, engage, and mobilize citizens to voice support, participate in the energy-policy debate, and affect change at all levels of government” in order to fulfill oil and gas industry interests.</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">API describes its Energy Citizen membership base as mostly males with “nationalistic tendencies,” who consider themselves “eternal pragmatists,” “very religious” and “right of center,” and who “Love Sports — in particular Motorsports.”</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">According to a 2012 presentation by API’s Director of External Mobilization, the target audience for Energy Citizens is “Voters without a direct connection to the oil and natural gas industry.”<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">A leaked memo, however, exposed that in 2009, Energy Citizens planned <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/5922:energy-in-depth-counterinsurgency-tactics-and-astroturf-energy-citizens" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">astroturf rallies</a> against climate change legislation that year, rallies that were fully organized from the top down and paid for by API, other industry lobbyists and API member companies, so that employees of those companies would participate.</li></ul></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">The <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/GP%20API%20letter%20August%202009-1.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">memo</a> noted: “API will provide the up-front resources to ensure logistical issues do not become a problem. This includes contracting with a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns, corporations and interest groups. It also includes coordination with the other interests who share our views on the issues, providing a field coordinator in each state, conducting a comprehensive communications and advocacy activation plan for each state, and serving as central manager for all events.”</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Energy Citizens propagates its agenda by using the web to “educate, activate, and organize,” while also attending Vote4Energy rallies, holding roundtables and participating in hearings.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Energy In Depth (EID)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">EID acts as a PR arm for the oil and gas industry.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">EID uses <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/5922:energy-in-depth-counterinsurgency-tactics-and-astroturf-energy-citizens" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">pseudo-grassroots</a> tactics to build opposition against fracking activists, and it aggressively attacks any group, person or media outlet that displays concerns about or objections to fracking, in order to discredit them.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Among its tactics, in 2011 <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/10/gas-lobby-bribery-public-meeting_n_874903.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">EID bribed citizens</a> into testifying at public hearings in Pennsylvania on the industry’s behalf by offering free Pittsburgh Pirates tickets, paid airfare or bus transportation, and meals, in an effort to fill the space with pro-industry members of the public.</li></ul></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In response to “Gasland,” IPAA and EID spearheaded the pro-fracking short documentary “<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://blog.littlesis.org/2012/06/13/fracking-industrys-answer-to-gasland-devised-by-astroturf-lobbying-group-and-political-ad-agency/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Truthland</a>.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">EID’s “Contact Us” page on its website <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.desmogblog.com/%E2%80%98energy-depth%E2%80%99-was-created-major-oil-and-gas-companies-according-industry-memo" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">used to</a> describe itself as, “… a project of America’s small, independent oil and natural gas producers…” Conversely, major fracking companies have <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/12/11921/%E2%80%9Cenergy-depth%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-reporters%E2%80%99-guide-its-founding-funding-and-flacks" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">heavily funded EID</a>.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">As an IPAA memo noted: “The ‘Energy In Depth’ project would not be possible without the early financial commitments of: El Paso Corporation, XTO Energy, Occidental Petroleum, BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, API, IPAA, Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.”</li></ul></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">EID’s influence is extensive. For example, former EID spokesperson John Krohn is now employed with the U.S. Energy Information Administration.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Energy Nation</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Energy Nation, one of the American Petroleum Institute’s front groups, is a fleet of fracking advocates made up of current and former oil and gas industry employees, vendorsand their families.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Although backed by major oil and gas interests, Energy Nation attempts to rally itself like a grassroots organization. As illustrated in this <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/API%20on%20Empowering%20Employee%20Advocates.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">presentation,</a> the group strongly fosters employee mobilization to get current and former employees to be active “brand ambassadors.”</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">Energy Tomorrow</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Energy Tomorrow is <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/jack-gerard-the-force-majeure-behind-big-oil/2012/04/06/gIQA1hjC0S_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">central </a>to the American Petroleum Institute’s misinformation projects.</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">A key method of disseminating its propaganda is through TV advertisements, in which Energy Tomorrow spokesperson Brooke Alexander — a former soap opera actress — hypes the “benefits” of natural gas jobs.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Environmental Policy Alliance</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Environmental Policy Alliance — “EPA”! — is a project of the Center for Organizational Research & Education, formerly known as the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BermanCORECCF.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Center for Consumer Freedom</a>, and has the same registered address as Rick Berman’s PR firm Berman and Company.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Environmental Policy Alliance says it is “ … devoted to uncovering the funding and hidden agendas behind environmental activist groups and exploring the intersection between activists and government agencies.” In reality, the group is operating on its own financial interests, not the public interest:<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In July 2014, the Environmental Policy Alliance launched a snarky and misleading advertisement in Colorado to counter fracking activists who have been campaigning to get anti-fracking ballot measures on the November ballot.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wuKMID3Gq4" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">ad spot </a>mocks, insults and ridicules fracking activists, claiming that activists’ opposition to fracking is rooted in asinine assumptions, ignorant of science — even though science makes clear the significant risks and harms.</li></ul></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In June 2014, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://bermanexposed.org/node/482" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Anastasia Swearingen</a>, who works for Rick Berman and the Environmental Policy Alliance, published two pro-fracking <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/58061863-82/lands-blm-energy-federal.html.csp" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">newspaper</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/nevada-being-denied-right-join-energy-boom" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">op-eds</a> attacking the Bureau of Land Management for not yet opening up federal lands to fracking and drilling.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Swearingen’s op-eds are based on findings from a University of Wyoming study authored by Timothy Considine, a notorious figure in the world of frackademia, who has led industry-skewed studies funded by the Marcellus Shale Coalition and American Petroleum Institute.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In March 2014, five days after Swearingen published an op-ed attacking LEED certification in USA Today, the paper added <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/03/09/environment-carbon-climate-change-pollution-column/6027923/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">an editorial update</a> stating that it found out that she was “… employed by public relations firm Berman and Co., not the Environmental Policy Alliance.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The editorial update went on to say: “The Environmental Policy Alliance, a tax-exempt group, has no employees and is housed at the same address as Berman, which controls the recently created group, according to Berman spokeswoman Sarah Longwell.”</li></ul></li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">United Shale Advocates (USA)</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">On March 20, 2014, the Marcellus Shale Coalition launched a new initiative in Pennsylvania, United Shale Advocates, “focused on ensuring that [they] advance common sense, predictable policies that encourage investment and job growth across the Commonwealth.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">This group, with its noticeably patriotic abbreviation (USA) is billed by the MSC as “a movement to tie together those interested in Pennsylvania energy and it’s a platform for them to engage further.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">As previously mentioned, the MSC is a consortium of major oil and gas industry players and their special brand of “grassroots” organizing, which should really be called “gasroots” organizing.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">On May 6, 2014, “USA” hosted a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to oppose any efforts to impose taxes on the oil and gas industry in the state, and in support of fracking jobs and further development of the Marcellus Shale in Harrisburg.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Vote4Energy</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Launched on January 1, 2012, Vote4Energy is another American Petroleum Institute astroturf campaign, which staged fake citizen support with commercials that highlight “real Americans” who are “energy voters.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Activists <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/upcoming-american-petroleum-institute-vote-4-/blog/38291/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">revealed</a>, after responding to the Vote4Energy casting call sent out on behalf of API, that the campaign initiative was an election-related advertising package with CNN, tied to the network’s political coverage for maximum political influence.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://checksandbalancesproject.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/apicommercialcasting.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">casting call</a>, sent on December 1, 2011, stated:<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">“We are writing to you because we need all ages and races to express their views in a Commercial Spot on American Made Energy!”</li></ul></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The call listed five qualifications that they were seeking, including:<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">“You are willing to go on camera and state your beliefs” and;</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">“You are comfortable portraying YOURSELF! They want REAL PEOPLE not Actors!”</li></ul></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Yet several people were kicked out if they didn’t agree to read API’s script verbatim.</li></ul><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 52px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Astroturf Propaganda</h2><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Truthland"</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">“Truthland” is a short film conceived by the oil and gas industry as a rebuttal to “Gasland.” Its name, however, is an oxymoron, as the film is rather misleading.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The film, released in 2012, initially had its web domain registered to Chesapeake Energy Corporation.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">It was eventually changed so that it was registered to MFL Holdings, ATTN TRUTHLANDMOVIE.COM, care of Network Solutions, but LittleSis (a project of Public Accountability Initiative) was able to save a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://blog.littlesis.org/2012/06/13/fracking-industrys-answer-to-gasland-devised-by-astroturf-lobbying-group-and-political-ad-agency/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">cached screen shot</a> of its domain when it was registered to Chesapeake.</li></ul></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">According to the movie’s website, it is a project of Energy In Depth and IPAA, and according to an EID document acquired by LittleSis, Fred Davis, a Republican media strategist, produced “Truthland.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Biased appearances were also made by: Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission member and fracking advocate, Terry Engelder; former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary, John Hanger; and former Pennsylvania DEP Deputy Secretary for Mineral Resources Management, J. Scott Roberts.</li></ul><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“FrackNation”</h3><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">“FrackNation,” a pro-fracking documentary, was released in 2013 in response to “Gasland 2” — with its public debut at the same time as Matt Damon’s “Promised Land.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The people behind “FrackNation” claim that it is an independent, grassroots-funded film, free from financial backing from the industry. But that doesn’t mean it is <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/03/exposed-fracknation-deploys-tobacco-playbook-response-gasland-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">without its biases</a>.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Once described as “stars of the Republican Party,” the producers/directors of “FrackNation” are climate change-denying couple Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, who have significant ties to powerful right-wing entities.<ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">McAleer and McElhinney’s first two films received money from <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/05/28/fracknation-part-two-koch-industries-ties-bind" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Donors Trust/Donors Capital</a>, a nonprofit that siphons money into the climate change denial agenda and has financial ties to the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-billionaires-secretly-fund-attacks-on-climate-science-8466312.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Koch Brothers</a>.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In a 2012 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, McAleer referred to environmentalism as “outsiders coming in and treating people like children.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">McAleer and McElhinney are reportedly “proud” that film critics compared one of their early films, “Mine Your Own Business,” to “pornography” and “Nazi propaganda.”</li></ul></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">“FrackNation,” endorsed by countless oil and gas groups, also spotlights several industry persons, a former Big Tobacco champion, and climate change deniers, dubbed as “independent experts.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">DeSmogBlog has described how “FrackNation” <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/03/exposed-fracknation-deploys-tobacco-playbook-response-gasland-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">takes a page from the Big Tobacco playbook</a> and tries to turn clear scientific concerns into a matter of opinion, or into a “he-said, she-said” debate.</li></ul></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">=</div> =omfg smithfield so dak covid hotspot?!<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-removing-safeguards-on-food-2645756313.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-removing-safeguards-on-food-2645756313.html</a>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><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;">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.<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"><h3 data-role="headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The USDA Is Playing Fast and Loose With Meat Inspection Lines During the Coronavirus Outbreak</h3>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. 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, FSIS inspectors have 2.6 seconds to determine whether the company employees have performed their tasks properly.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, <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>.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. 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 <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>. 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.</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"><h3 data-role="headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Meat Companies Are Being Given Almost Full Control Over Their Own Inspection Standards </h3>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. 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, <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>Inviting everyone to the new game, FSIS is recruiting cattle slaughter plants to deregulate inspection, too. 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.</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"><h3 data-role="headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Meat Inspection Deregulation Threatens Food Safety</h3>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.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.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>.Plant workers and even government inspectors who work at these plants have not been given adequate personal protective equipment. 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, Vice President Mike Pence had the audacity to urge the workers to continue "to show up and do [their] jobs."</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">Urge Officials to Take Action Against Increased Line Speeds</h3>Increased line speeds only create more opportunities for contamination and sickness. It's unnecessary and it's putting our health at risk.<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.</div><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;"><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;">Trump's Plan to Privatize Pork Inspections Called 'a Recipe for ... ›</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;">Trump administration allows pork slaughterhouses to have fewer ... ›</a></li></ul></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">new ew 220</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><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>
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</div><div>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.</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">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.According to Food & Water Watch:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 0px 1em 25px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(82, 149, 70); padding: 0px 0px 0px 25px;">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.
</blockquote>"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."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."</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">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."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."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.""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....</div><div></div></div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/02/09/food-water-watch-attacks-natural-gas-climate-pr-problem">https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/02/09/food-water-watch-attacks-natural-gas-climate-pr-problem</a>no lnx twtReport Attacks Industry Campaign to Fix Natural Gas’s Climate PR Problem
By Dana Drugmand • Sunday, February 9, 2020 - 04:00
From the cover of Food and Water Watch's report, Fracking's Bridge to Climate Chaos.A new report from advocacy group Food and Water Watch argues that fracking and continued reliance on natural gas is detrimental to addressing climate change. The report, which calls out the fossil fuel industry’s misleading narratives around natural gas, comes at a time when progressive members of Congress like Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are introducing a bill to ban fracking and when the industry is ramping up its public relations push around gas.
According to Food and Water Watch’s (FWW) report, greenhouse gas emissions reductions from the power sector over the past decade are not as great as the gas industry claims. FWW researchers found that combined emissions from coal and gas power plants declined 10.4 percent over the last decade. If emissions continue to decline at this roughly 10 percent pace, the report says, they will not reach zero until 2100.
The report examines data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), an academic emissions inventory, and a recent Cornell University study. FWW developed a model that evaluates life-cycle emissions of power production, including methane emissions from coal and natural gas production, processing, transportation, and end use. The organization’s analysis is also based on a comprehensive synthesis of methane leak research.

The methane emissions from natural gas, the data shows, are significant and have a greater climate impact than the carbon dioxide emitted at gas power plants. While natural gas burns cleaner than coal in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, a key problem with gas is that it is composed almost entirely of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years in the atmosphere.
And all too often before it’s ever burned, methane leaks out of oil and gas operations. According to the report, methane leaks are inevitable and occur throughout every stage of the supply chain. That finding has been backed up by research including a 2018 study in the journal Science that found oil and gas operations leaking 60 percent more methane than previously estimated by the EPA. 
“Even if every coal plant was decommissioned by 2030 and replaced by gas-powered electricity, greenhouse gas emissions would still continue to rise,” Food and Water Watch states. “And if natural gas remains the dominant energy source through 2050, annual greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector will be higher in the coming decades than they are today.” Electricity generation accounts for only about one-third of natural gas consumption, according to the report, with the remaining 65 percent going into plastics production and providing heat in buildings. Methane emissions from these uses, Food and Water Watch says, are obscured by the industry’s touting of gas’s role in reducing power-sector emissions as coal declines. 
The report also argues that replacing coal with gas plants locks in a system reliant on fossil fuels. “Supporting infrastructure like refineries and pipelines creates a fossil-oriented inertia that delays climate action,” the report states. This view that gas perpetuates fossil fuel dependence is contrary to the idea that gas is a “bridge” to a renewable energy future.
Origins of the Bridge Fuel Narrative“The bridge fuel sales pitch was invented by the American Gas Association [AGA] in 1988 and has had a lasting impact on the gas narrative,” the Food and Water Watch report states. The report cites a 2017 paper by sociology scholar Dr. Anthony Ladd, who writes, “First crafted by the American Gas Association in 1988 to help ‘green’ the public image of the natural gas industry — just as the first scientific warnings about global warming were emerging — the clean energy bridge fuel discourse has been innovatively used to champion the use of natural gas, as well as nuclear power, based on their lower CO2 emissions than coal or oil.”
Ladd’s historical accounting of AGA originating the bridge fuel claim is confirmed by Washington Post archives from 1988: “Michael German, vice president of planning and analysis for the American Gas Association, refers to natural gas as a bridge fuel — the least harmful alternative while the world looks for other, longer-lasting solutions to the ‘greenhouse’ effect.”
A natural gas vehicle fueling station labeled "clean energy."]In 1992, former Enron chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay wrote to President Bush, referencing gas’s role in reducing CO2 emissions: “Natural gas is our cleanest fossil fuel and through its increased use in electric power generation could play a major role in reducing CO2 emissions and delivering lower electricity prices to consumers.”Stanford research and science historian Ben Franta, who studies the history of climate science denial and fossil fuel disinformation campaigns, told DeSmog that the industry’s promotion of gas as “clean” is rooted in efforts to avoid regulations restraining fossil fuel use.
“I do recall from my archival research that by the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, fossil fuel interests were discussing the promotion of natural gas as an industry-friendly alternative to reductions in fossil fuel use,” Franta said. “It was, in a sense, part of the industry's counterproposal to discussions of reducing fossil fuel production and use. That counterproposal basically said: instead of binding agreements to reduce emissions, let's switch to natural gas, focus on efficiency, and carry out more research. The industry was successful in promoting these terms, which in practice have yielded expanded fossil fuel production, increased emissions, and ever-worsening damages.”
Gas Is Not A Bridge FuelDespite the familiar framing of gas as a transition or bridge to a renewable energy future, both the fossil fuel industry and environmental activists say that framing is no longer relevant. Activists argue that renewables plus battery storage are already cost-competitive with gas, and say that increasing gas supply impedes rather than bridges the transition to carbon-free energy. “Increasing natural gas production simply continues a never-ending ‘bridge,’ displaces clean, renewable energy, and locks in dirty fossil fuel infrastructure for decades,” FWW argues in its report.
The industry, on the polar opposite end of the spectrum, now claims that gas is not a bridge but the “destination,” positioned to supply energy demand far into the future. A spokesman for the AGA said the industry does not view gas as a “bridge” and hasn’t for the past decade. Former AGA president Dave McCurdy and American Petroleum Institute’s Marty Durbin both referred to natural gas a “foundation fuel.”In its recent “Energy and Carbon Summary” report, ExxonMobil cited “expanding the supply of cleaner-burning natural gas” as a “near-term action” it plans to undertake. Exxon’s report mentioned that although renewable energy sources are expected to grow, “natural gas is expected to grow the most of any energy type.”
The industry is clearly championing gas as the answer: to emissions reductions (which the FWW report challenges), to economic prosperity, and to energy security. A new organization, The Empowerment Alliance (TEA), emerged last year to promote exactly this message. TEA does not reveal its funding, though its talking points are basically the same ones used by groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, both of which have been heavily promoting gas in social media and communications materials.
Momentum Builds for Fracking Bans, Leaving Gas Industry on DefensiveWith the petroleum industry banking on gas playing a substantial role in the world’s energy mix, it has already come out against calls to ban fracking from some Democratic lawmakers. Current U.S. Senators and Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have both said they would ban fracking if they are elected.
Sanders, along with Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Darren Soto (D-FL), recently introduced legislation that would ban fracking and the infrastructure enabling it everywhere in America. The “Fracking Ban Act” cites numerous concerns with the processes that have enabled a huge boom in U.S. oil and gas, including that “fracked natural gas is not a bridge fuel, as previously understood.”
The oil and gas industry appears to be mounting a defense. Last November, the American Petroleum Institute (API) released a new video expressly opposing a fracking ban, part of a broader strategic campaign to dampen public support for a national ban and to brand the industry as the “natural gas and oil” industry, now putting gas front and center. API is also promoting an “energy for progress” campaign to counter the scientifically backed understanding that fossil fuels are the cause — not the solution — to the climate crisis.
This “energy for progress” branding, as climate reporter and HEATED publisher Emily Atkin recently pointed out, is curiously similar in wording to the names of liberal think tanks like Data for Progress and Center for American Progress. But the branding to resemble progressive groups or ideals doesn’t stop there. At an industry conference in Houston on February 5, the CEO of Parsley Energy acknowledged that petroleum producers have a “massive perception problem,” particularly among younger generations, and pitched the idea of a “shale new deal.”“We need a shale new deal,” Parsley’s Matt Gallagher said. “We need to highlight the benefits of America producing oil and gas and we’re doing it with as little impact as possible.” This phrasing presumably plays off of the Green New Deal, a popular policy framework among the left and younger generations for comprehensively addressing the climate crisis along with other social and economic injustices.
And fracking has no place in the Green New Deal framework. Senator Sanders, one of the leading advocates of the Green New Deal, pointed to the dangers associated with fracking, which the industry always omits in its promotional communications. “Fracking is a danger to our water supply. It’s a danger to the air we breathe, it has resulted in more earthquakes, and it’s highly explosive. To top it all off, it’s contributing to climate change,” Sanders said in a statement responding to the Food and Water Watch report. “This should be a no-brainer. If we are serious about clean air and drinking water, if we are serious about combating climate change, the only safe and sane way to move forward is to ban fracking nationwide.”
Momentum is already building at local and state levels, with communities like Berkeley, California, and Brookline, Massachusetts, advancing with bans on gas in new buildings. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has just announced that the state’s fracking ban, first imposed in 2014, will become permanent. New York City announced on February 6 that it plans to ban all new fossil fuel projects and infrastructure and end the use of fossil fuels in large buildings by 2040. 
“The science is clear: fracking is a leading contributor to our climate emergency,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “We must do our job to protect our future from the harms caused by the fracking industry and its methane emissions.”frankenfish fda treat as animal drug so no EIR<a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-november-25-2015/">https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-november-25-2015/</a>10/15Here's something you should know about Food & Water Watch: when big corporations try to intimidate us, we don't back down. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://act.foodandwaterwatch.org/site/R?i=EWymbOK4kHkny38glafMjA" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444152066363_6082" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Will you stand with us as we take on the corporations that control our food?</a> Let me take a step back. Remember "pink slime" — that infamous ground beef additive?1 Well, later this week, our Food Program Director, Patty Lovera, is being deposed as part of a ridiculous lawsuit brought by the nation's largest producer of pink slime, just for talking to an ABC reporter about it! We're being dragged into this absurd lawsuit by a corporate bully because Patty routinely talks about protecting our food! We know that as we continue to stand up for what's right, corporations will try to push us around. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://act.foodandwaterwatch.org/site/R?i=Pi0dpyzGQhW8Hc5OHx2v0g" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; font-weight: bold; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That's why I'm asking you to join our Food & Water Partners program and start your monthly donations today, so we can keep up our constant efforts to stand up to corporations and protect your food.</a> When the story of pink slime broke a couple of years ago, reporters contacted Patty asking for our take on the situation. Our position has always been clear: we all need accurate information about our food, including where it’s from and how it was produced, so that we can make informed decisions about what we eat. At the very least, pink slime should be labeled so people know it's there. Now, for sharing our position, Food & Water Watch has to spend time and money on this ridiculous lawsuit, instead of focusing on urgent threats to our food like the DARK Act. No matter what you think about pink slime, what's most appalling is this corporate bullying. Dragging advocacy groups into a lawsuit for sharing facts and our positions is a scare tactic — an attempt to stop us from speaking up when it comes to the safety of our food. But we won't back down from corporate bullies, <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://act.foodandwaterwatch.org/site/R?i=Gryc81wi__W0XpCiNP1V-w" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; font-weight: bold; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and I hope you'll stand by our side as we continue to defend our right to safe food, by making a monthly donation.</a> This isn't the first time we've been targeted by corporations — and we know it won't be the last. You may remember when "Dr. Evil," the political strategist for the oil and gas industry, created a website and bought billboards to call Food & Water Watch out as a "Big Green Radical" group because we weren't afraid to stand up to Big Oil and Gas and speak truth to their lies. The only reason these bullies are targeting us is because of our effective work to challenge corporate control. Our promise to you is that we will keep working to stop corporate wrong-doings and to protect your food, no matter how hard these bullies push to stop us.busted cornell gmoFood & Water Watch, 28 Aug 2014http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/is-cornell-the-go-to-university-for-industry-science/ Cornell University announced last week that it is embarking on a multi-million dollar campaign to “depolarize the charged debate” around GMOs. Can you guess who’s behind this effort? The biotech industry and its supporters. The website for this project, the Cornell Alliance for Science, is pretty sparse, but it does note its pro-GMO partners, including the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), which is funded by Monsanto, CropLife, and Bayer. This use of surrogates is par for the course with the biotech industry. Sometimes called the soft lobby, corporations routinely engage neutral-appearing scientists and impartial-sounding front groups to help advance their political and economic agendas. Food & Water Watch detailed the enormous amount of industry research coming out of our public land-grant universities in our 2012 report, Public Research, Private Gain. Cornell is no stranger to this science-for-sale approach. Earlier this year, Cornell economist William Lesser took money from a biotech front group to produce a questionable analysis showing that GMO labeling will be very costly for consumers. While he noted that the study reflected his personal opinions, not those of Cornell, GMO supporters began publicizing the findings of “the Cornell study” in their campaign to defeat state-labeling initiatives around the country. Independent studies, meanwhile, show that GMO labeling will not increase costs significantly — and perhaps not at all. Cornell’s newest foray into the GMO debate, the “Alliance for Science,” will add to the confusion and distortion in the public discourse around GMOs. Rather than trying to promote a civil, honest, impartial dialogue about GMOs — as you would expect from a university like Cornell — the school has chosen to partner with some of the biotechnology industry’s most prominent supporters and defenders. Incredibly, the Cornell Alliance strenuously asserts its impartiality, calling it a “radical collaboration” of proponents and opponents of GMOs dedicated to “promot[ing] equitable access to safe, nutritious, and sustainably produced food.” Though that quote sounds an awful lot like Food & Water Watch’s mission statement, it isn’t, and we won’t be joining the alliance’s “radical collaboration.” The role of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in this effort should also be mentioned. Gates has awarded $5.6 million toward the Cornell Alliance, a mere drop in the ocean of the group’s pro-GMO “philanthropy”. The Foundation has tapped big names from the biotechnology industry to run its multi-billion-dollar agricultural development program, and, as Food & Water Watch showed in our report Biotech Ambassadors, Gates partners with biotech companies to develop GMOs for Africa — that African countries clearly do not want or need. The Gates Foundation has also invested tens of millions of dollars of its money into corporate agribusiness and biotech companies like Monsanto and Cargill. ---http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/biotech-ambassadors/But in the past decade, the United States has aggressively pursued foreign policies in food and agriculture that benefit the largest seed companies. The U.S. State Department has launched a concerted strategy to promote agricultural biotechnology, often over the opposition of the public and governments, to the near exclusion of other more sustainable, more appropriate agricultural policy alternatives. Agricultural development is essential for the developing world to foster sustainable economies, enhance food security to combat global hunger and increase resiliency to climate change. Addressing these challenges will require diverse strategies that emphasize sustainable, productive approaches that are directed by countries in the developing world. The U.S. State Department has also lobbied foreign governments to adopt pro-agricultural biotechnology policies and laws, operated a rigorous public relations campaign to improve the image of biotechnology and challenged commonsense biotechnology safeguards and rules — even including opposing laws requiring the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods.Food & Water Watch closely examined five years of State Department diplomatic cables from 2005 to 2009 to provide the first comprehensive analysis of the strategy, tactics and U.S. foreign policy objectives to foist pro-agricultural biotechnology policies worldwide. Read the full report

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food%26_Water_Watch">http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food%26_Water_Watch</a>

Food & Water Watch is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit advocacy group whcih states that it works "to ensure clean water and safe food. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_note-Mission-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[1]</a>

<h2 style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; display: inline; background: none;">Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#" class="internal" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">hide</a>] </div>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#Activities" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1 Activities</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#Staff" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">2 Staff</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#Board" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">3 Board</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food%26_Water_Watch#Board_of_Directors.282009.29" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">3.1 Board of Directors (2009)</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#Former_Directors" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">3.2 Former Directors</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food%26_Water_Watch#Funding.282009.29" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">4 Funding (2009)</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#Contact" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">5 Contact</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#References" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">6 References</a></li>

</ul>

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<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background: none;">Activities</h2>

Food & Water Watch works with grassroots organizations worldwide "to create an economically and environmentally viable future. Through research, public and policymaker education, media, and lobbying, we advocate policies that guarantee safe, wholesome food produced in a humane and sustainable manner and public, rather than private, control of water resources including oceans, rivers, and groundwater."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_note-Mission-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[1]</a>

Food & Water Watch opposes increased offshore fish farming and the National Offshore Aquaculture Act. Their staff has edited SourceWatch and Congresspedia, specifically the article on offshore fish farming legislation.

<dd style=" line-height: 1.5em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-right: 0px;">Main article: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Offshore_fish_farming_legislation" title="Offshore fish farming legislation" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Offshore fish farming legislation</a></dd>

</dl>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background: none;">Staff</h2>

The staff of the organization, as of July 2011, are<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[2]</a>:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Executive Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wenonah_Hauter" title="Wenonah Hauter" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Wenonah Hauter</a></li>

</ul>

Communications:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Communications Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Darcey_Rakestraw&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Darcey Rakestraw (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Darcey Rakestraw</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Communications Manager: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kate_Fried&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Kate Fried (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Kate Fried</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Communications Associate: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lauren_Wright&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Lauren Wright (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Lauren Wright</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Western Region Communications Manager: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anna_Ghosh&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Anna Ghosh (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Anna Ghosh</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Writer and Outreach Specialist: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rich_Bindell&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rich Bindell (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Rich Bindell</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Director of Digital Strategy: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Royelen_Lee_Boykie&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Royelen Lee Boykie (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Royelen Lee Boykie</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Web Associate: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Elissar_Khalek&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Elissar Khalek (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Elissar Khalek</a></li>

</ul>

Food:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Assistant Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Patty_Lovera" title="Patty Lovera" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Patty Lovera</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Lobbyist: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tony_Corbo&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Tony Corbo (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Tony Corbo</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Research Director and Senior Policy Advocate: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patrick_Woodall&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Patrick Woodall (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Patrick Woodall</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Researcher: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Borron&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Sarah Borron (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Sarah Borron</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Researcher: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Genna_Reed&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Genna Reed (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Genna Reed</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Researcher: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Schwab&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Tim Schwab (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Tim Schwab</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Researcher: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tyler_Shannon&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Tyler Shannon (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Tyler Shannon</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Researcher: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ron_Zucker&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ron Zucker (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Ron Zucker</a></li>

</ul>

Water:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Program Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Emily_Wurth&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Emily Wurth (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Emily Wurth</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Triclosan" title="Triclosan" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Triclosan</a> Campaign Coordinator: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kathy_Dolan&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Kathy Dolan (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Kathy Dolan</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Legislative and Policy Analyst: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mitch_Jones&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mitch Jones (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Mitch Jones</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Researcher: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Gingold&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Sarah Gingold (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Sarah Gingold</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Researcher: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mary_Grant&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mary Grant (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Mary Grant</a></li>

</ul>

Fish:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Staff Attorney and Interim Fish Program Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Zach_Corrigan&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Zach Corrigan (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Zach Corrigan</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Writer and Researcher: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Eileen_Flynn&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Eileen Flynn (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Eileen Flynn</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Policy Analyst: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christina_Lizzi&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Christina Lizzi (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Christina Lizzi</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Researcher: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Meredith_McCarthy&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Meredith McCarthy (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Meredith McCarthy</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Policy and Legislative Coordinator: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Mitchell&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="James Mitchell (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">James Mitchell</a></li>

</ul>

Organizing:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">National Organizing Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mark_Schlosberg&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mark Schlosberg (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Mark Schlosberg</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Education & Outreach Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Alexander&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Sarah Alexander (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Sarah Alexander</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Outreach and Education Organizer: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Meredith_Begin&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Meredith Begin (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Meredith Begin</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Outreach and Education Organizer: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Katy_Kiefer&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Katy Kiefer (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Katy Kiefer</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Organizer: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Noelle_Ferdon&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Noelle Ferdon (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Noelle Ferdon</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Eastern Region Director: Jim Walsh</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">New England Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Denise_Hart&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Denise Hart (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Denise Hart</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Organizer (Maine): <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nisha_Swinton&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Nisha Swinton (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Nisha Swinton</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Mid-Atlantic Organizer: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kim_Huynh&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Kim Huynh (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Kim Huynh</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Organizer (New York): <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Eric_Weltman&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Eric Weltman (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Eric Weltman</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Southern Region Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jorge_Aguilar&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jorge Aguilar (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Jorge Aguilar</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Central Region Organizer: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Emily_Carroll&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Emily Carroll (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Emily Carroll</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Central Region Organizer: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alex_Beauchamp&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Alex Beauchamp (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Alex Beauchamp</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Organizer (Michigan): <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynna_Kaucheck&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Lynna Kaucheck (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Lynna Kaucheck</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Organizer (Iowa): <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Matt_Ohloff&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Matt Ohloff (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Matt Ohloff</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Western Region Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Elanor_Starmer&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Elanor Starmer (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Elanor Starmer</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Organizer (Western US): <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sam_Schabacker&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Sam Schabacker (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Sam Schabacker</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">California Campaigns Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Adam_Scow&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Adam Scow (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Adam Scow</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Organizer (Los Angeles): <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ren%C3%A9e_Maas&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Renée Maas (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Renée Maas</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Organizer (Nevada and Utah): <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Marie_Logan&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Marie Logan (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Marie Logan</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Northwest Organizer: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Julia_DeGraw&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Julia DeGraw (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Julia DeGraw</a></li>

</ul>

Operations/IT/Development:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Chief Operating Officer: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lane_Brooks&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Lane Brooks (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Lane Brooks</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Systems Administrator: Jon Brown</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Finance Manager: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Clayretha_Gatewood&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Clayretha Gatewood (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Clayretha Gatewood</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Program and Administrative Assistant: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ginny_Gordon&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ginny Gordon (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Ginny Gordon</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Director of Development: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Doug_Lakey&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Doug Lakey (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Doug Lakey</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Database Manager and Office Manager: Kevin Larson</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Financial Assistant: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=RaQeeba_Milner&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="RaQeeba Milner (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">RaQeeba Milner</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Foundation Officer: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alex_Patton&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Alex Patton (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Alex Patton</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Office Manager: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ben_Schumin&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ben Schumin (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Ben Schumin</a></li>

</ul>

International:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">International Policy Director: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Darcey_O%E2%80%99Callaghan&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Darcey O’Callaghan (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Darcey O’Callaghan</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Senior Representative: Dave Andrews</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Water Campaigner for Food & Water Watch and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Blue_Planet_Project" title="Blue Planet Project" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Blue Planet Project</a> in Mexico: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Claudia_Campero&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Claudia Campero (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Claudia Campero</a></li>

</ul>

Latin America:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Latin American coordinator for the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Water_for_All&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Water for All (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Water for All</a> campaign: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Marcela_Olivera" title="Marcela Olivera" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Marcela Olivera</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Latin America coordinator: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alberto_Villareal&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Alberto Villareal (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Alberto Villareal</a></li>

</ul>

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Food_%26_Water_Europe&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Food & Water Europe (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Food & Water Europe</a>:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Food Policy Advisor: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Eve_Mitchell&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Eve Mitchell (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Eve Mitchell</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Eastern Europe Program Coordinator: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anna_Witowska-Ritter&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Anna Witowska-Ritter (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Anna Witowska-Ritter</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Director of European Affairs: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gabriella_Zanzanaini&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Gabriella Zanzanaini (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Gabriella Zanzanaini</a></li>

</ul>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background: none;">Board</h2>

Accessed May 2012: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[3]</a>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rudolf_Amenga_Etego" title="Rudolf Amenga Etego" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Rudolf Amenga Etego</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Maude_Barlow" title="Maude Barlow" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Maude Barlow</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wenonah_Hauter" title="Wenonah Hauter" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Wenonah Hauter</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dennis_Keeney&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Dennis Keeney (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Dennis Keeney</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Kelsie_Kerr" title="Kelsie Kerr" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Kelsie Kerr</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Elizabeth_Peredo_Beltr%C3%A1n&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Elizabeth Peredo Beltrán (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Elizabeth Peredo Beltrán</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mary_Ricci&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mary Ricci (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Mary Ricci</a></li>

</ul>

<h3 style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; background: none;">Board of Directors (2009)</h3>

As of February 2009, Food & Water Watch's board was comprised of<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[4]</a>:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Rudolf Amenga-Etego</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Maude Barlow</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Dennis Keeney</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Elizabeth Peredo Beltrán</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Mary Ricci</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alan_Snitow&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Alan Snitow (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Alan Snitow</a></li>

</ul>

<h3 style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; background: none;">Former Directors</h3>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lane_Brooks&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Lane Brooks (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Lane Brooks</a></li>

</ul>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background: none;">Funding (2009)</h2>

Accessed May 2012: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[5]</a>

In 2009 their total income was $8.5 million. They write that: "In order to maintain our independence, Food & Water Watch does not accept corporate or government contributions. We are grateful to our 12,000 members in 2009 who provided generous support without which our success would not be possible. They include the following foundations:

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Boston_Foundation" title="Boston Foundation" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Boston Foundation</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Compton_Foundation" title="Compton Foundation" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Compton Foundation</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Environment_Now" title="Environment Now" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Environment Now</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fledgling_Fund&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Fledgling Fund (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Fledgling Fund</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Goldman_Fund" title="Goldman Fund" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Goldman Fund</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Helianthus_Fund&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Helianthus Fund (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Helianthus Fund</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Panta_Rhea" title="Panta Rhea" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Panta Rhea</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Park_Foundation" title="Park Foundation" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Park Foundation</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tikvah_Fund&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Tikvah Fund (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Tikvah Fund</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Oxfam_Novib" title="Oxfam Novib" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Oxfam Novib</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rose_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rose Foundation (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Rose Foundation</a></li>

</ul>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background: none;">Contact</h2>

1616 P Street, NW

Suite 300

Washington, DC 20036

Phone: 202 683 2500

Fax: 202 683 2501

<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.fwwatch.org/" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaaveleqvr42n3pgqkaiaheuxdqj3dqj3e6iotpusqcgj4eq5iluile0jil3pecxhchgbhz8kg4hwxau3mzecgeyfnaxp4hqnqpnt7ql0nadpd6whcclvnakksq8iiaaaaaaelftksuqmcc="AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">http://www.fwwatch.org/</a>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background: none;">References</h2>

<li id="cite_note-Mission-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">↑ <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food%26_Water_Watch#cite_ref-Mission_1-0" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style=" top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up to:1.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food%26_Water_Watch#cite_ref-Mission_1-1" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1.1</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.fwwatch.org/about/mission" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaaveleqvr42n3pgqkaiaheuxdqj3dqj3e6iotpusqcgj4eq5iluile0jil3pecxhchgbhz8kg4hwxau3mzecgeyfnaxp4hqnqpnt7ql0nadpd6whcclvnakksq8iiaaaaaaelftksuqmcc="AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">"Mission Statement"</a>, Food & Water Watch website, accessed February 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_ref-2" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style=" top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.fwwatch.org/about/who-we-are" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaaveleqvr42n3pgqkaiaheuxdqj3dqj3e6iotpusqcgj4eq5iluile0jil3pecxhchgbhz8kg4hwxau3mzecgeyfnaxp4hqnqpnt7ql0nadpd6whcclvnakksq8iiaaaaaaelftksuqmcc="AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">"Who We Are"</a>, Food & Water Watch website, accessed July 10, 2011.</li>

<li id="cite_note-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_ref-3" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style=" top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up↑</a> Food & Water Watch <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/about/board-of-directors/" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaaveleqvr42n3pgqkaiaheuxdqj3dqj3e6iotpusqcgj4eq5iluile0jil3pecxhchgbhz8kg4hwxau3mzecgeyfnaxp4hqnqpnt7ql0nadpd6whcclvnakksq8iiaaaaaaelftksuqmcc="AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Board</a>, organizational web page, accessed May 16, 2012.</li>

<li id="cite_note-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_ref-4" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style=" top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.fwwatch.org/about/board-of-directors" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaaveleqvr42n3pgqkaiaheuxdqj3dqj3e6iotpusqcgj4eq5iluile0jil3pecxhchgbhz8kg4hwxau3mzecgeyfnaxp4hqnqpnt7ql0nadpd6whcclvnakksq8iiaaaaaaelftksuqmcc="AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">"Board of Directors"</a>, Food & Water Watch website, accessed February 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_%26_Water_Watch#cite_ref-5" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style=" top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up↑</a> Food & Water Watch <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/2009AnnualReport.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcaqaaaanowc2aaaatkleqvr4xmxkqqqamawf0x="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X" xssz9cskiyiifrfcjmmihmigbb5fqdcaqj4j46pzyluwe="XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe" cxz6ovbhts0sry2njp="cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp" xxxxzolu6euwaopx1vnwtbe6qqaaaaaelftksuqmcc="XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">2009 Annual Report</a>, organizational web page, accessed May 16, 2012.</li>

</ol>

</div>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Categories</a>:

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-style: none; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Water" title="Category:Water" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Water</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Energy" title="Category:Energy" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Energy</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Non-Government_Organizations" title="Category:Non-Government Organizations" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Non-Government Organizations</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Environment" title="Category:Environment" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Environment</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Agriculture" title="Category:Agriculture" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Agriculture</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Sustainable_Agriculture" title="Category:Sustainable Agriculture" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Sustainable Agriculture</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Sustainable_Agriculture_Organizations" title="Category:Sustainable Agriculture Organizations" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Sustainable Agriculture Organizations</a></li>

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0px 0.5em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Liberal_Advocacy_Organizations" title="Category:Liberal Advocacy Organizations" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Liberal Advocacy Organizations</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

===

<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/node/12505">http://www.prwatch.org/node/12505</a>

food & water watch

One of the most frequent questions I get about the food system is what to make of the fact that Walmart sells organic food.

Is it good news or bad?

Is it a sign of progress or the end of organic?

On April 10, a press release from Walmart added fuel to the debate. Not only is Walmart promising to sell more organic products than ever before, but the company says it will sell them cheaply.

There will be folks who spin this announcement as good news, claiming any increase in the volume of organic food sales, no matter where or at what price, is a good thing. But unfortunately, it's not that simple.

Walmart's business model is based on practices that increase the corporate consolidation of the food system, take money away from farmers, workers, and food processors, and drive agriculture to get more industrialized. The organic sector is already facing these pressures, and more exposure to the Walmart way of doing business could only make things worse.

===

</div></div></div>

Food & Water Watch

Attachments