Politics & Globalization
International trade agreements force the U.S. and other participting countries to "harmonize" food and envrironmental safety standards to the lowest common denominator. Often these agreements are negotiated behind closed doors, shutting out Congress and the public, while granting corporations and trade associations a seat at the table. It's no surprise that these agreements give transnational corporations "special rights", allowing companies to challenge individual countries' environmental, worker and food safety laws and regulations.
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Rose and Ronnie· Joe volunteer© 2008
After Democratic leaders signaled in the lead-up to last week's midterms that they have no plans to pursue the kind of bold climate agenda that the latest science says is required to avoid planetary catastrophe, environmental groups are ramping up pressure on the incoming House Democratic majority to show real leadership by investigating the corporations that caused the climate crisis and pursuing an ambitious green agenda to combat it.
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At the end of September, the House and Senate missed their deadline to agree on a Farm Bill, leaving in limbo the $100 billion worth of programs we spend annually on food assistance and agriculture. That delay opens the possibility for the country to change course and help avert a global meltdown with policies that could transform the "Corn Belt" into a climate cooling "Carbon Belt."
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“If a mammal doesn’t produce it, it isn’t ‘milk’,” says Lisa Engelbert, one of the farmers at the sixth-generation Engelbert Farms in Nichols, New York. Engelbert is referring, somewhat wearily, to the plant-based beverages and other products made from soy, rice, nuts, and oats—she calls them “plant juices”—that currently account for 13 percent of the U.S. milk market and $1.6 billion in sales.
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Patricia Nelson was eager for a fresh start when she moved her family from Louisiana back home to Weld County, Colorado, in 2016. Soon after, Nelson’s friend encouraged her to come out to a meeting where Lisa McKenzie, an environmental chemist and epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health, was presenting her research on the health impacts of oil and natural gas drilling.
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The Supreme Court on Friday refused to halt the trial in a lawsuit brought by 21 young people seeking to force the federal government to take action to address climate change.
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Donald J. Trump's inaugural crowd may not have been the biggest ever, but his parade drew lots of tractors that rumbled past the presidential reviewing stand in a farm lobby phalanx. Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, wearing the trademark red Trump campaign cap, drove one of them down Pennsylvania Avenue, just across the mall from his organization's headquarters.
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The selection of Aurelia Skipwith, who worked at Monsanto for six years, to head FWS carries on a Trump administration trend of filling top environmental regulatory positions with officials from companies regulated by the agency. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Skipwith’s duties will include enforcing federal wildlife laws, protecting endangered species, managing migratory birds, and conserving and restoring wildlife habitat.
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A Chinese-owned pork producer is eligible for federal payments under President Trump’s $12 billion farm bailout, a program established to help U.S. farmers hurt by Trump’s trade war with China. Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based pork producer acquired in 2013 by a Chinese conglomerate now named WH Group, can apply for federal money under the bailout program created this summer, said Agriculture Department spokesman Carl E. Purvis.
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This November, voters will get the chance to weigh in on some transformative new animal welfare laws at the state level. While these measures go well beyond any current requirements, they’re reasonably likely to pass. Voters tend to be more favorable toward animal welfare than legislators, and animal welfare laws have had some of their biggest successes at the ballot box.
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"Facebook has removed the pages of several police accountability/watchdog/critic groups, including Cop Block, the Free Thought Project, and Police the Police," Washington Post journalist Radley Balko noted in a tweet following Facebook's announcement. "They've also apparently severely restricted activity for the Photography Is Not a Crime page."
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