July 24 , 2004 Omaha World Herald (Nebraska) by Chris Clayton

Among the examples included in the report, which was released at a conference in Omaha sponsored by the Lincoln-based Organization for Competitive Markets:

The USDA overturned election results when pork producers voted in 2001 to eliminate a mandatory checkoff on hog sales to fund promotion efforts. Cases determining the validity of the pork and beef checkoffs now are before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The USDA has opposed mandatory country-of-origin labeling on most meat, fruit and vegetables, as have industry groups. The House Agriculture Committee voted Thursday to kill the mandatory program in favor of a voluntary one.

The USDA rejected a small Kansas meatpacker's request to test all its cattle for mad cow disease last spring. Two groups representing producer and meatpacking interests -- the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the American Meat Institute -- also opposed the proposal by Creekstone Farms.

"The USDA, and the entity it's joined to at the hip, the NCBA, both oppose testing all the cattle at Creekstone," said Fred Stokes, president of the Organization for Competitive Markets.

The report also cites lax controls within the USDA's inspection system that allowed a downer cow to escape testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE last spring in Texas, as well as the continued shipment for several months of Canadian processed meat products that should have been banned because of Canada's mad cow case last year.

The report suggests a review of federal ethics policies and better oversight by Congress to ensure that small farmers, consumers and other groups are better represented within the top levels of the department.

Connections of several high-profile USDA officials to groups such as the National Cattlemen's Beef Association or private businesses such as ConAgra Foods undermine the regulatory mission of the agency, according to the report.

Responding to the report, USDA spokeswoman Alisa Harrison said the mission of Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman upon taking office was to open markets and improve agricultural profits, which is what she has done. But Veneman didn't hesitate to order stricter meat inspections and regulations following the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in the United States last December, said Harrison, a former staff member for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Chandler Keys, vice president of the National Cattlemen, said it doesn't matter who runs the USDA "because I think our arguments are going to hold up under the glare of public analysis."

Keys said the USDA reflects Bush's philosophy of less government involvement in the marketplace.

Janet Riley, a spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute, said the focus on political appointees ignores the work thousands of career employees do every day at the USDA.

"Certainly there are people who come from industry organizations, and those people have a great degree of expertise," Riley said.

Steve Taylor, department head for Food Science & Technology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said he doesn't necessarily agree that an industry background significantly influences USDA policy or creates conflicts of interest.

"Obviously, some of these people who work in these trade associations are qualified based on their experience to work at USDA," Taylor said.

In a separate report released Thursday, the Center for Progressive Regulation also criticized the USDA, claiming one of its most important safeguards against BSE -- removing risky materials such as brains and spinal cords -- has loopholes. Meatpackers are allowed to devise their own plans for removing such materials without government oversight, the report said.

Thomas McGarity, a University of Texas law professor who wrote the report, said the USDA also has little control over meatpackers who don't even comply with the plans they drafted.

"There's no question USDA has been a captive industry. They are very much beholden to the agribusiness industries," McGarity said.

An audit last week by the USDA's own inspector general questioned the validity of the USDA's mad cow testing program because it is voluntary and therefore cannot be random. Top USDA officials dismissed such criticism, saying mandatory testing would not improve the system because government officials still could not be sure producers were complying.