Blue Dog Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota) slips GMO rapid approval into Farm Bill, in tandem with GOP

[seafan]

We remember Blue Dog Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota).

On June 28 he voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress regarding a failed program that began during the George W. Bush Administration.


This week, sitting on the House Agricultural Committee, Peterson just slipped a measure to speed GMO approval (genetically modified crops) into the Farm Bill, along with his Republican colleague Frank Lucas, R-Oklahoma.



Carolyn Lochhead reports in the San Francisco Chronicle Politics Blog:

July 12, 2012

Buried in the House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill, approved yesterday after a 15-hour markup, is a provision that will speed approval of genetically modified crops. As it stands, USDA has never not approved a GMO crop. Genetically engineered foods enjoy a very weak regulatory regime dating back to Dan Quayle that splits authority among USDA, EPA and FDA, none of which has much power to block them.

California will be a focus of the GMO fight this fall, when voters consider Proposition 37, already provoking a huge fight between the biotech industry and anti-GMO groups. The initiative would require labeling of GMO foods.

But regulatory approvals haven’t come fast enough for the biotech industry, or farmers beset by “superweeds” that have attacked the current generation of GMO crops.

So the House Aggies slipped the GMO provision into their bill, and it probably stands a good chance of surviving if the farm bill itself survives. It’s not in the Senate-passed version, but it could easily survive a House-Senate conference. It has already been all but lost amid bigger fights over food stamps.

Anti-GMO groups such as the Center for Food Safety, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund have begun mobilizing against the provision.

.....

Scott Faber, who follows the Hill for Environmental Working Group, which lobbies for more ag conservation and fewer crop subsidies, said both sides of the GMO debate were surprised that House Ag chair Frank Lucas, R-Ok., and top Dem Collin Peterson, D-Minn., put the GMO language in there. “Most of agribusiness was just as surprised as the Center for Food Safety that Lucas and Peterson would choose to use the farm bill to gut USDA review of GMO crops and open this particular Pandora’s Box,” Faber said.

This is yet another infuriating reason to vote these people out. Supporting a traitor masquerading as having "democratic" principles is wholly unacceptable.


Exposure is the key to putting a stop to the duplicitous political careers of those who are actively selling out true democratic principles that have buoyed people for generations.

[Me.]

1. So Tell Me Again

What the difference between a blue dog and Con is

[No Elephants]

3. They do make a difference on various procedural matters.

Now tell me the difference between a liberal from Minnestora who votes against food stamps and a Blue Dog from Minnesota who helps the GMO industries poison our food supply.

[Me.]

4. The Difference Is

That when it matters most blue dogs in both the house and senate can usually, in a large part,can be depended on to vote against party whereas, as a group, progressives do not. Bob Franken made an interesting comment this morning when he said that because of Obama's rising poll numbers the rats are trying to get back on the ship.

[No Elephants]

5. A so called liberal who votes against food stamps votes against his Party.

I don't think voting with your Party as a general is necessarily a virtue when your Party votes for the interests of the plutonomy most of the time anyway.

i wonder if McConnell and Reid thank God every day for social wedge issues.

[No Elephants]

2. Yes. The Obama administration sided with Monsanto in a lawsuit by organic farmers. And?

The organic farmers argued, among other things, that Monsanto should not sell it seed until EPA regulations had been complied with, as reguired by law. Because harm to the planet that would be done by the seed would be irreversible.

The FDA disagreed. And the Solicitor General jumped into the suit on the side of Monsanto, er, I mean, the FDA.

And now that Solicitor General who fought in the SCOTUS against the organic farmers (and the EPA regulations) sits on the bench of the SCOTUS.

Blaming it on Republicans and/or even the Blue Dogs misses the point. The rich own the U.S. government.

Is it more politic and easy to have Blue Dogs do certain things while having Democrats elected by supposedly liberal districts or liberal states do other things? Sure.

Just like it's convenient to avoid certain votes entirely and to keep the 60 vote rule of the Senate in place, even though it has now brought government almost to a total standstill.

It is no longer a two-party democracy with "our" home team being one of the two. Now, it's the plutonomy, baby.

The paradigm shifted decades ago, but most people did not realize it. It's really past time to let go of the blue team red team paradigm.

It's hard because we are used to one mindset and everything around us encourages us to keep it. it's always harder to fight the 1% and those who do their bidding for thirty pieces of silver. Er, I mean campaign donations and maybe aso a cushy job for the spouse or kids now and then. But, we should have started the hard work long ago.