The Lobby

[seafan]

The Lobby

By Ken Silverstein
June 8, 2009

At times it seems like Washington is one gigantic lobbying machine. To wit:


1. Insurers and drug companies are working to gut health care reform.


2. Big Tobacco wrote the tobacco bill.


3. The meat industry is trying to kill food safety legislation.


4. And Congress fails to reform the root cause of the current economic crisis.



Business. As. Usual.

Via the Marler Blog, more on that dastardly food safety legislation, that the meat industry is fighting:

The 'beef" seems to break down to industry costs:

“Right now, this is a bill we just don’t support,” said Colin Woodall, executive director of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “We are very much in support of food safety, but this bill would have a lot of unintended consequences and would add more costly regulations and won’t actually translate into safer food.”

The "beef" seems that the industry likes being overseen by the USDA:

Woodall said meat producers are also concerned about the precedent this bill could set in giving the Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over the industry, which is currently watched over by the Department of Agriculture. The cattlemen’s group also takes issue with mandatory recalls and says voluntary recalls work better. The industry worries that the bill would require government inspectors on farms, Woodall said.

The "beef" seems to be - we don't need no damn inspectors - and its the consumers responsibility anyway:

“There is no need to have FDA inspectors come on farms or cattle operations,” Woodall said. “There are too many other processes and steps between the time it leaves the farm and gets to the consumer, including the way the consumer handles the product when they get it home. It would give a false sense of security to the consumer.”

The "beef" seems to be that FDA does not have the funds that we do not support anyway:

Dave Warner, a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, said his group has a number of concerns about the legislation, with on-farm inspections being among the top. “FDA doesn’t not have the personnel, and it doesn’t have the expertise,” he said.

Public revolt is closer than these guys dare to contemplate.

[ThomCat]

1. After all the time and money they've spent ensuring that the USDA

views them as "clients," and has no real authority to do anything to them anyway, there is no way they want to let anything change.

The FDA might actually be adversarial occasionally. At least at first, until they've gone through all that trouble again to bribe and buy out the important staff people, intimidate the necessary bureaucrats into a standstill, gut the necessary regulations, and write new loopholes through their lobbyists and the politicians they own.

That's too much trouble. They invested a hell of a lot of money in doing it right the first time. Why would anyone in Washington have the Audacity to make them do it all again? :sarcasm:

I hope that this change goes through. I also hope that the FDA gets funding for more inspectors, and takes this new mandate very seriously. I hope there is a radical change, step by step, rebuilding the inspection system and removing the influence of the people who are supposed to be regulated by it.