Where's the juice?
"The big question is how we're going to do our new initiatives while still maintaining existing programs," Cardoza said, adding that budget-balancing rules will further complicate the challenge.
A key Cardoza staffer and Turlock resident, attorney Dee Dee Moosekian, began working more than a year ago on crafting the House's specialty crop alternatives with groups including Environmental Defense, Western Growers Association and American Farmland Trust.
Their plan includes goals like quadrupling to $100 million the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. This pays farmers for conservation measures that can accomplish goals like cutting air pollution. In another bid to aid specialty crop growers, the coalition wants to double to 5 million acres the amount of land conserved through the Wetlands Reserve Program. -- Merced Sun-Star, Jan. 30, 2007
Let us return to those halcyon days when the Pomboza ruled the earth of the north San Joaquin Valley. In March 2006 Republican House leadership appointed Rep. RichPAC Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy, to the vice chairmanship of the House Committee on Agriculture. Cardoza has also served on the agriculture committee since 2003.
When Pombo was appointed to the vice chair, even the Farm Bureau press commented it was odd to give the chairman of one House committee (Resources) the vice-chairmanship of another major committee. At time time, there was speculation Pombo would assume chairmanship of the agriculture committee and leave the resources committee. Meanwhile, his new position in agriculture was good campaign fund-raising strategy, in light of the upcoming 2007 Farm Bill.
However, the Pomboza's third attempt, from its vantage point in the House resources committee, to gut the Endangered Species Act, caused enough alarm in the national environmental community that -- in a bipartisan campaign -- it went after Pombo and defeated him in November.
The Pomboza was never about agriculture. It was about development, of use to agriculture solely if farmers want to sell their land. In fact, the boom in real estate prices in the north San Joaquin Valley has made buying farm land to farm on prohibitively expensive.
Although Cardoza is now chairman of a subcommittee on fruits and vegetables, what has the nominal Democrat Cardoza's reckless gamble -- hopping in Pombo's back pocket on behalf of a handful of developers -- done for the bargaining position of specialty crops in his district?
Wasn't the real, super-clever rightwing political game in 2006 to load up Pombo's campaign chest with agriculture contributions that weren't linked to Abramoff, and to arrange that Cardoza had a free ride?
But, something happened. Democrats control Congress now and Pombo was defeated. Can Cardoza stand on his own in a Congress controlled by his own alleged party? His immediate problems has nothing to do with specialty crops; it is a speculative housing bust, the bottom of which in his district is not yet visible. This is the same politician who, as chairman of the California state Assembly agriculure committee, argued that Merced County should finally adopt the Williamson Act because it would be mitigation for UC Merced. To say that Cardoza has split loyalties doesn't cover the half of it. Public development? Private development? His family's real estate interests? Health care? Agriculture comes last, we think, except where some clever developer can show him how agriculture can be used for real estate development.
How many acres of fruits and nuts in Cardoza's district are owned by people farming at a loss whose business plans terminate in real estate development?
We doubt he'll have much influence on funding for fruits and vegetables making remarks like:
"I can't imagine he's going to come to Modesto to speak ill of specialty crops; that would be suicide," said Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced. "I can only imagine he's going to make a positive announcement."
Suicide? Really?
Does anybody put any faith in what the Bush administration announces about anything at this point? This is a regime now reduced to appointing rightwing commissars to control its own agencies on behalf of special interests:
President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.
In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities. -- New York Times, Jan. 30, 2007.
Given this kind of political setup, the Badlands editorial board is going to take a wild guess that fruits and vegetables may actually lose federal support to the War Suck, and that Cardoza, pressed between the Bush regime and the Democratic congressional leadership, doesn't have the juice. In fact, he is juice, of either a fruit or vegetable kind.
More fuel, more cars, more development.
If Cardoza is doing anything for agriculture in his district, it is getting on the enthanol bandwagon. Corn for ethanol is replacing cotton on the west side. There is even some question that part of the drive to ethanol is fueled less by oil prices than by cotton-grower anxiety that China is planning to dump an unknown quantity of its cotton on the world market, driving the world price so low that the federal government would balk at the subsidy required to bring US cotton up to a break-even price. Another "supply-side" factor is that US and Canadian genetically modified corn has lost a significant quantity of its export market.
Cracked corn prices to local dairymen are reported to have reached $200 per ton, shipped from the Midwest. That's up $50 per ton from prices reported in early November. Meanwhile, milk prices languish below break-even and dairymen dig deeper into their equity to stay in business.
It has to be the stupidest question in the world because nothing about the agricultural economy makes much sense anymore, but why aren't we growing this badly needed kind of corn here, instead of corn for ethanol? Instead, corn growers, who will use more btu's to grow the corn than it will produce, will then ship it to the nearest ethanol plant, wherever that is, rather than ship it across the road to the neighoring dairy. It seems to make sense, therefore it doesn't make sense, because it looks like agriculture is getting sucked into the lastest speculative boom: ethanol. The last time that happened to corn, c. 1974, the Midwest never recovered.
It makes about as much sense as invading oil producing nations capable of sustained guerrilla resistance. Did somebody up there just forget about 241 Marines in Lebanon? The best historians in the nation have three muses these days: Hubris, Ate, and Nemesis.
Perhaps, the USDA secretary will announce a program for disaster relief for citrus and vegetable crops losing market share due from e. coli and other contamination. In this case, the first relief ought to go to the unemployed farm workers who usually harvest these crops. We doubt a USDA secretary from Nebraska knows what a farm worker is. Perhaps, he's a compassionate man who decides on assisting the desperate farm workers. The Bush USDA commissar might overrule him. If the secretary objects, perhaps he will be sentenced to 10 years at Gitmo. That seems to be the general direction the republic is going.
If the gentle reader think that Badlands is being harsh on our congressman, we are only following the advice of one of our keenest observers of the American political scene: Henry Adams (1838-1918), whose grandfather and great-grandfather were presidents:
"You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!" -- Henry B. Adams -- Slapstick on Jenkins Hill, By WERTHER, Jan. 30, 2007, Counterpunch.com
Regarding the negative opinion of the president, it is shared by two-thirds of the nation.
As a form of government, imperialism does not seek or require the consent of the governed. It is a pure form of tyranny. The American attempt to combine domestic democracy with such tyrannical control over foreigners is hopelessly contradictory and hypocritical. A country can be democratic or it can be imperialistic, but it cannot be both. -- Chalmers Johnson, Tomdispatch.com, Jan. 31, 2007 (Johnson is the author of an historical trilogy on the American Empire: Blowback and Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic)
Bill Hatch
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Notes:
1-30-07
Merced Sun-Star
Farming: Federal agricultural campaign plans local kick-off...Michael Doyle, Sun-Star Washington Bureau
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13245102p-13880593c.html
The big farm bill debate escalates in the San Joaquin Valley this week...Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns. "I can't imagine he's going to come to Modesto to speak ill of specialty crops; that would be suicide," said Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced. "I can only imagine he's going to make a positive announcement." Until now, specialty crops have harvested federal money primarily from ventures like the Market Access Program. This year, $100 million will help groups like the California Kiwifruit Commission, the California Table Grape Commission and the California Walnut Commission. By contrast, California growers of cotton, rice, wheat and corn received $321 million in federal payments in 2004... Cardoza, who chairs the House subcommittee handling fruits and vegetables, expects to reintroduce after President's Day an ambitious farm bill proposal that includes far greater specialty crop spending."The big question is how we're going to do our new initiatives while still maintaining existing programs," Cardoza said, adding that budget-balancing rules will further complicate the challenge. Their plan includes goals like quadrupling to $100 million the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. This pays farmers for conservation measures that can accomplish goals like cutting air pollution. In another bid to aid specialty crop growers, the coalition wants to double to 5 million acres the amount of land conserved through the Wetlands Reserve Program. Currently, 6,264 acres in California are conserved through the program.
New York Times
Bush Directive Increases Sway on Regulation
by Robert Pear
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/washington/30rules.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.
In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.
This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.
The White House said the executive order was not meant to rein in any one agency. But business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
In an interview on Monday, Jeffrey A. Rosen, general counsel at the White House Office of Management and Budget, said, “This is a classic good-government measure that will make federal agencies more open and accountable.”
Business groups welcomed the executive order, saying it had the potential to reduce what they saw as the burden of federal regulations. This burden is of great concern to many groups, including small businesses, that have given strong political and financial backing to Mr. Bush.
Consumer, labor and environmental groups denounced the executive order, saying it gave too much control to the White House and would hinder agencies’ efforts to protect the public.
Typically, agencies issue regulations under authority granted to them in laws enacted by Congress. In many cases, the statute does not say precisely what agencies should do, giving them considerable latitude in interpreting the law and developing regulations.
The directive issued by Mr. Bush says that, in deciding whether to issue regulations, federal agencies must identify “the specific market failure” or problem that justifies government intervention.
Besides placing political appointees in charge of rule making, Mr. Bush said agencies must give the White House an opportunity to review “any significant guidance documents” before they are issued.
The Office of Management and Budget already has an elaborate process for the review of proposed rules. But in recent years, many agencies have circumvented this process by issuing guidance documents, which explain how they will enforce federal laws and contractual requirements.
Peter L. Strauss, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the executive order “achieves a major increase in White House control over domestic government.”
“Having lost control of Congress,” Mr. Strauss said, “the president is doing what he can to increase his control of the executive branch.”
Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said: “The executive order allows the political staff at the White House to dictate decisions on health and safety issues, even if the government’s own impartial experts disagree. This is a terrible way to govern, but great news for special interests.”
Business groups hailed the initiative.
“This is the most serious attempt by any chief executive to get control over the regulatory process, which spews out thousands of regulations a year,” said William L. Kovacs, a vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce. “Because of the executive order, regulations will be less onerous and more reasonable. Federal officials will have to pay more attention to the costs imposed on business, state and local governments, and society.”
Under the executive order, each federal agency must estimate “the combined aggregate costs and benefits of all its regulations” each year. Until now, agencies often tallied the costs and the benefits of major rules one by one, without measuring the cumulative effects.
Gary D. Bass, executive director of O.M.B. Watch, a liberal-leaning consumer group that monitors the Office of Management and Budget, criticized Mr. Bush’s order, saying, “It will result in more delay and more White House control over the day-to-day work of federal agencies.”
“By requiring agencies to show a ‘market failure,’ ” Dr. Bass said, “President Bush has created another hurdle for agencies to clear before they can issue rules protecting public health and safety.”
Wesley P. Warren, program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who worked at the White House for seven years under President Bill Clinton, said, “The executive order is a backdoor attempt to prevent E.P.A. from being able to enforce environmental safeguards that keep cancer-causing chemicals and other pollutants out of the air and water.”
Business groups have complained about the proliferation of guidance documents. David W. Beier, a senior vice president of Amgen, the biotechnology company, said Medicare officials had issued such documents “with little or no public input.”
Hugh M. O’Neill, a vice president of the pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis, said guidance documents sometimes undermined or negated the effects of formal regulations.
In theory, guidance documents do not have the force of law. But the White House said the documents needed closer scrutiny because they “can have coercive effects” and “can impose significant costs” on the public. Many guidance documents are made available to regulated industries but not to the public.
Paul R. Noe, who worked on regulatory policy at the White House from 2001 to 2006, said such aberrations would soon end. “In the past, guidance documents were often issued in the dark,” Mr. Noe said. “The executive order will ensure they are issued in the sunshine, with more opportunity for public comment.”
Under the new White House policy, any guidance document expected to have an economic effect of $100 million a year or more must be posted on the Internet, and agencies must invite public comment, except in emergencies in which the White House grants an exemption.
The White House told agencies that in writing guidance documents, they could not impose new legal obligations on anyone and could not use “mandatory language such as ‘shall,’ ‘must,’ ‘required’ or ‘requirement.’ ”
The executive order was issued as White House aides were preparing for a battle over the nomination of Susan E. Dudley to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget.
President Bush first nominated Ms. Dudley last August. The nomination died in the Senate, under a barrage of criticism from environmental and consumer groups, which said she had been hostile to government regulation. Mr. Bush nominated her again on Jan. 9.
With Democrats in control, the Senate appears unlikely to confirm Ms. Dudley. But under the Constitution, the president could appoint her while the Senate is in recess, allowing her to serve through next year.
Some of Ms. Dudley’s views are reflected in the executive order. In a primer on regulation written in 2005, while she was at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University in Northern Virginia, Ms. Dudley said that government regulation was generally not warranted “in the absence of a significant market failure.”
She did not return calls seeking comment on Monday.