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Taxpayer Dollars Are Helping Monsanto Sell Seeds Abroad

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| Sat May. 18, 2013 3:00 AM PDT
Then-US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Kenya, 2009 USAID Photo Gallery

Nearly two decades after their mid-'90s debut in US farm fields, GMO seeds are looking less and less promising. Do the industry's products ramp up crop yields? The Union of Concerned Scientists looked at that question in detail for a 2009 study. Short answer: marginally, if at all. Do they lead to reduced pesticide use? No; in fact, the opposite.

And why would they, when the handful of companies that dominate GMO seeds—Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow—are also among the globe's largest pesticide makers? Monsanto's Roundup Ready seeds have given rise to an upsurge of herbicide-resistant superweeds and a torrent of herbicides, while insects are showing resistance to its pesticide-containing Bt crops and causing farmers to boost insecticide use. What about wonder crops that would be genetically engineered to withstand drought or require less nitrogen fertilizer? So far, they haven't panned out—and there's little evidence they ever will.

Yet despite all of these problems, the US State Department has been essentially acting as a de facto global-marketing arm of the ag-biotech industry, complete with figures as high-ranking as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mouthing industry talking points as if they were gospel, a new Food & Water Watch analysis of internal documents finds.

The FWW report is based on an analysis of diplomatic cables, written between 2005 and 2009 and released in the big Wikileaks document dump of 2010. FWW sums it up: "a concerted strategy to promote agricultural biotechnology overseas, compel countries to import biotech crops and foods that they do not want, and lobby foreign governments—especially in the developing world—to adopt policies to pave the way to cultivate biotech crops."

The report brims with examples of the US government promoting the biotech industry abroad. Here are a few:

The State Department encouraged embassies to bring visitors—especially reporters—to the United States, which has "proven to be effective ways of dispelling concerns about biotech [crops]." The State Department organized or sponsored 28 junkets from 17 countries between 2005 and 2009. In 2008, when the US embassy was trying to prevent Poland from adopting a ban on biotech livestock feed, the State Department brought a delegation of high-level Polish government agriculture officials to meet with the USDA in Washington, tour Michigan State University and visit the Chicago Board of Trade. The USDA sponsored a trip for El Salvador's Minister of Agriculture and Livestock to visit Pioneer Hi-Bred's Iowa facilities and to meet with USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack that was expected to "pay rich dividends by helping [the Minister] clearly advocate policy positions in our mutual bilateral interests."

The State Department hotly pushed GMOs in low-income African nations—in the face of popular opposition.

Another example: This 2009 cable, referenced in the FWW report, shows a State Department functionary casually requesting US taxpayer funds to combat a popular effort to require labeling of GMO foods in Hong Kong—and boasting about successfully having done so in the past. Why focus on the GMO policy of a quasi-independent city? Hong Kong's rejection of a mandatory labeling policy "could have influential spillover effects in the region, including Taiwan, mainland China and Southeast Asia," the functionary writes, adding that her consulate had "intentionally designed [anti-labeling] programs other embassies and consulates" could use.

The report also shows how the State Department hotly pushed GMOs in low-income African nations—in the face of popular opposition. In a 2009 cable, FWW shows, the US embassy in Nigeria bragged that "U.S. government support in drafting [pro-biotech] legislation as well as sensitizing key stakeholders through a public outreach program" helped pass an industry-friendly law. Working with USAID—an independent US government agency that operates under the State Department's authority—the State Department pushed similar efforts in Kenya and Ghana, FWW shows.

Yet, as FWW points out, in so aggressively pushing biotech solutions abroad, the State Department is bucking against the global consensus of ag development experts as expressed by the 2009 International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a three-year project convened by the World Bank and the United Nations and completed in 2008 to assess what forms of agriculture would best meet the world's needs in a time of rapid climate change. The IAASTD took such a skeptical view of deregulated biotech as a panacea for the globe's food challenges that Croplife America, the industry's main industry lobbying group, saw fit to denounce it. The US government backed up the biotech lobby on this one—just 3 of the 61 governments that participated refused to sign the IAASTD: the Bush II-led United States, Canada, and Australia.

So why are our corps of diplomats behaving as if they answered to Monsanto's shareholders with regard to ag policy? My guess is GMO seed technology, dominated by Monsanto, as well as our towering corn and soy crops (which are at this point almost completely from GM seeds) are two of the few areas of global trade wherein the US still generates a trade surplus. The website of the State Department's Biotechnology and Textile Trade Policy Division puts it like this:  

In 2013, the United States is forecasted to export $145 billion in agricultural products, which is $9.2 billion above fiscal 2012 exports, and have a trade surplus of $30 billion in our agricultural sector.

I guess US presidents, Democratic and Republican alike, are bent on preserving and expanding that surplus. President Obama altered much about US foreign policy when he took over for President Bush in 2009, but he doesn't seem to have changed a thing when it comes to pushing biotech on the global stage. And the impulse is not confined to the State Department. Back in 2009, when Obama needed to appoint someone to lead agriculture negotiations at the US Trade Office, he went straight to the ag-biotech industry, tapping the vice president for science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America, Islam A. Siddiqui, who still holds that post today.

Meanwhile, the State Department operates an Office of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Textile Trade Affairs, which exists in part to "maintain open markets for US products derived from modern biotechnology" and "promote acceptance of this promising technology." The office's biotechnology page is larded with language that reads like boilerplate from Monsanto promo material: "Agricultural biotechnology helps farmers increase yields, enabling them to produce more food per acre while reducing the need for chemicals, pesticides, water, and tilling. This provides benefits to the environment as well as to the health and livelihood of farmers."

 

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Elizabeth Warren Slams Wall Street Again

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| Fri May. 17, 2013 2:29 PM PDT
Wikimedia Commons

On Thursday, bank-basher Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) slammed several bills headed for the House floor that would severely weaken Wall Street reform.

The Dodd-Frank Act, the 2010 law aimed at preventing another financial crisis, "put in place a variety of measures that work together as a system to protect consumers, hold big banks accountable, and reduce the risk of future crises," Warren said in a statement. "It is dangerous for Congress to amend the derivatives provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act." (Derivatives are financial products that have values based on underlying numbers, like crop prices or interest rates; some economists believe these products helped cause the 2007 financial collapse.)

Warren's condemnation of the bills, which just passed out of the House Financial Services Committee (HFSC), echoes a May 6th letter from Treasury secretary Jack Lew to House Financial Services Chair Jeb Hensarling attacking the bills. "The derivatives provisions in the Wall Street Reform Act constitute an important part of the reforms being put into place to strengthen our financial system by improving transparency and reducing risk for market participants," Lew wrote in the letter. "These reforms should not be weakened or repealed." Last year, former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner  denounced a series of nearly identical bills.

One of the bills now headed to the House floor would expand the types of trading risks that banks can take on. Another would allow certain derivatives that are traded within a corporation to be exempt from almost all new Dodd-Frank regulations. Financial reform advocates say these kinds of trades can still pose a risk to the wider financial system. A third bill would allow big, multinational US-based banks to escape US regulations by operating through international arms.

"Wall Street's aggressive determination paid off last week" when the bills passed out of committee, Warren said. The bills also have bipartisan support, and have a good chance of being taken up in the Senate. If they do, Warren says she'll go to battle: "Now is no time to go backwards," she said. "I will do what I can in the United States Senate to stand up to those who would chip away at reform."

Ad Slams Arizona Sen. Flake for Flaking on Background Checks

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| Fri May. 17, 2013 12:40 PM PDT

Last month, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake broke with his Arizona colleague John McCain to vote against the background check compromise brokered by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Soon after, Caren Teves, the mother of Aurora mass shooting victim Alex Teves, went public with a note she had received from Flake the week before he, well, flaked. In the note, the junior senator wrote that "strengthening background checks is something we agree on."

On Friday, Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) released an ad featuring Caren Teves that will air in Phoenix and Tucson through the end of the month. In the ad, Teves shows the handwritten letter Flake sent her. "The issue isn't just background checks," she says. "It's keeping your promise. And Senator Flake didn't."

Flake has disputed the ad's claim in a Facebook post. "If you are anywhere close to a television set in Arizona in the coming days, you’ll likely see an ad about gun control financed by NYC Mayor Bloomberg," he wrote. "Contrary to the ad, I did vote to strengthen background checks," referring to his vote for the alternate gun amendment introduced by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that included weaker measures to strengthen background checks (and was also voted down).

MAIG and other gun reform groups have vowed to hit Manchin-Toomey opponents hard. Opponents of the compromise have seen their poll numbers drop, and polling by MAIG and other organizations has consistently shown overwhelming support for expanded background checks.

There have been quiet discussions on the Hill about reintroducing an amendment with further concessions to Republicans. But in a meeting with reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that although he'd been in daily talks with senators about bringing background checks back for a vote, the Democrats still didn't have the 60 votes needed to get it passed. Asked if there were any new supporters, Reid replied, "Maybe."

Friday Cat Blogging - 17 May 2013

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| Fri May. 17, 2013 11:37 AM PDT

On Tuesday evening, one of my bicep muscles started misfiring. Every minute or so it would vibrate or spasm for a few seconds. But it only happened if I was sitting in a few specific places. Wednesday evening it happened again. Thursday it happened again, except it didn't go away. It just kept vibrating all evening. I got into bed and it started vibrating even more. I think it finally wore itself out around 4 am. So no sleep for me last night. Plus my bicep is still vibrating a bit, and I woke up with a massive headache. If today's blogging seemed a little subpar, that's why.

I'm getting seriously annoyed at growing old. Are more of my muscles going to start misfiring like this periodically? Or will some other random body failure attack me next?

I dunno. Maybe it was just a sympathetic reaction toward Domino, who was a little under the weather this week. She seems to be fine now, though. You can see her below. We tossed the comforter off our bed a couple of weeks ago when the weather warmed up, and ever since then Domino has claimed it as her little princess-and-the-pea napping spot. She's really quite taken with it, even if it does require her to jump a little higher than she'd like in order to get to it.

IRS Speaks Out: We Messed Up, But We Would've Scrutinized Tea Partiers Anyway

—By

| Fri May. 17, 2013 11:35 AM PDT

Finally, the IRS is giving a full accounting of how and why its staffers singled out tea partiers and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. The quick version: We had the right idea but went about it all wrong.

On Friday morning, Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner set to resign due to the scandal, appeared before the House ways and means committee and testified that several IRS employees made "foolish mistakes" by using catchwords like "tea party" and "patriots" as they picked through hundreds of nonprofit applications from groups that might be involved in politics. Miller described his agency's behavior as "obnoxious." Yet he denied that the IRS vetters who handled all those applications for groups wanting 501(c)(4) nonprofit status—who were working out of a field office in Cincinnati—acted out of political bias. Instead, he said the agency's errors "were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection."

Prior to Miller's testimony, the IRS itself took the unusual step of posting on its website 14 questions related to the tea party debacle and the agency's official response to each one. It's an interesting and useful document.

The IRS insists that its staffers, as Miller emphasized, were wrong to target groups with "tea party" or "patriots" in their name. However, the agency says that it would've zeroed in on tea partiers and other conservative groups anyway, as it looked for applicants that might be getting too involved in politics. They sought out politically-inclined groups because 501(c)(4) nonprofits are allowed to dabble in politics but cannot make it their "primary activity." But as they looked for groups that might be too political, they used inappropriate shortcuts.

"IRS employees had seen cases of organizations with the name Tea Party in which political activity was an issue that needed to be reviewed for compliance with legal requirements," the agency says. "Because of the increased inventory of applications, this inappropriate criterion was used as a shortcut to centralize similar cases." In other words, as a booming number of tea party outfits across the country were filing for tax-exempt status, the folks in charge of reviewing such applications—and making sure applicants were not engaged in so much political action that they would not qualify for this tax status—found it convenient to flag groups with "tea party," "patriot," and "9/12 Project" in their name.

The agency also says on its website that it found "no indication of political bias"—echoing the Treasury Department inspector general who investigated the tea party mess. The IRS staffers in Cincinnati didn't have a grudge for the tea party; they felt, it seems, that tea partiers were simply more prone to get involved in politics.

The agency also offered a few basics on how it handles nonprofit applications. All applications go through Cincinnati, where there are less than 200 people who directly handle those files. Because the agency saw an increase in 501(c)(4) applications from potentially politically active groups, staffers there pooled all those applications together and gave a few selected employees the job of scrutinizing those applications.

Some more interesting nuggets in the Q-and-A:

  • Not only has the IRS seen an uptick in the number of 501(c)(4) applications, it says the number of groups applying that could become involved in politics has risen as well.
     
  • The IRS admits it mistakenly caused "inappropriate delays" for groups applying for tax-exempt status, and made "over-expansive information requests" of the groups it singled out for extra scrutiny. The IRS blamed this on "ineffective processes."
     
  • In 2010 and 2011, as we've reported, IRS staffers specifically looked for groups with "tea party" or "patriots" in their name. However, of the nearly 300 groups with applications flagged by IRS staffers, the vast majority did not have either of those words in their name.

The IRS Q-and-A links to a list of almost 170 nonprofit groups given special scrutiny by IRS staffers but later approved for 501(c)(4) status. The entities on that list run the political gamut and include local tea party groups, statewide progressive organizations such as Progress Texas and Progress Missouri Inc., former Sen. Russ Feingold's Progressives United outfit, and issue-based organizations such as Californians Against Higher Health Costs and Homeless But Not Powerless.

Here is the full list from the IRS' website:

 

Getting By in America

—By

| Fri May. 17, 2013 11:18 AM PDT

The latest from Gallup:

The federal poverty threshold for a family of four is just under $24,000; however, Americans believe such a family unit living in their community needs more than double that — $58,000, on average — just to "get by.

Hmmm. By coincidence, that's almost exactly the median income of an American family. It makes you suspect that most people think their own income, by definition, is just barely enough to get by. Turns out that's almost the case:

Adults in households earning less than $30,000 think it takes an average of $43,600 to get by. However, the estimate rises to $55,100 among those earning between $30,000 and $74,999, and to $69,400 among those making $75,000 or more.

Poor people think they need a bit more than their own income; middle class folks think their own income is just barely sufficient; and upper middle folks are willing to concede that they could get by on slightly less than they make. Still, to a pretty close approximation, whatever income we make turns out to be the income we consider barely sufficient.

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Filibuster Reform in July?

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| Fri May. 17, 2013 10:23 AM PDT

Greg Sargent reports that once immigration reform is safely finished (or killed, as the case may be), Harry Reid plans to revisit the topic of filibuster reform:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is increasingly focused on the month of July as the time to exercise the so-called “nuclear option” and revisit filibuster reform....Reid has privately consulted with President Obama on the need to revisit filibuster reform, and the President has told the Majority Leader that he will support the exercising of the nuclear option if Reid opts for it, the aide says.

....Reid is eyeing a change to the rules that would do away with the 60-vote threshold on all judicial and executive branch nominations, the aide says, on the theory that this is a good way to immediately break an important logjam in Washington — without changing the rules when it comes to legislation.

....Reid views three upcoming nominees as a key test for whether he will exercise the nuclear option: Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Thomas Perez as secretary of labor; and Gina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection Agency. If Republicans block those three nominees, the aide tells me, “then our position will be very easy.”

So is Reid really planning to do this? Or is this merely a shot across the bow, warning Republican not to block Cordray, Perez, and McCarthy? Hard to say. But I think it's unlikely that Republicans will allow Cordray's nomination to go forward, since they're blocking him mainly as a way of blocking the operation of the CFPB itself. More than likely, then, they'll call Reid's bluff. Then we'll find out just how serious he is.

Here's Why the Government Went Ballistic Over the AP Leak

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| Fri May. 17, 2013 10:01 AM PDT

The subpoena of AP phone records over what seems like a fairly routine leak has puzzled me from the start. Why did the administration go so ballistic over this? Today, the LA Times helps me understand what was going on. Apparently the leak compromised the efforts of an al-Qaeda mole who had been recruited by British intelligence and was one of our prized assets:

His access led to the U.S. drone strike that killed a senior Al Qaeda leader, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso, on May 6, 2012. U.S. officials say Quso helped direct the terrorist attack that killed 17 sailors aboard the U.S. guided-missile destroyer Cole in a Yemeni harbor in October 2000.

The informant also convinced members of the Yemeni group that he wanted to blow up a U.S. passenger jet on the first anniversary of the U.S. attack that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. They outfitted him with the latest version of an underwear bomb designed to pass metal detectors and other airport safeguards, officials say.

The informant left Yemen and delivered the device to his handlers, and it ultimately went to the FBI's laboratory in Quantico, Va. Intelligence officials hoped to send him back to Yemen to help track more bomb makers and planners, but the leak made that impossible, and sent Al Qaeda scrambling to cover its tracks, officials said.

Jack Shafer speculates a bit further:

The AP states in the article that it published only after being told by “officials” that the original “concerns were allayed.”....That may be the case, but the government was still incensed by the leak. In fact, it appears that officials were livid. As my Reuters colleagues Mark Hosenball and Tabassum Zakaria reported last night, the government found the leak so threatening that it opened a leak investigation before the AP ran its story.

Now, what would make the Obama administration so furious? My guess is it wasn’t the substance of the AP story that has exasperated the government but that the AP found a source or sources that spilled information about an ongoing intelligence operation and that even grander leaks might surge into the press corps’ rain barrels.

And that's the key. The AP story itself didn't mention anything about a double agent. But apparently, the fact that AP had found itself a leaker got officials scared that the existence of the mole might become public. And as Shafer documents at length, that's exactly what happened:

What not for the U.S. government to like here?

To begin with, the perpetrators of a successful double-agent operation against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula would not want to brag about their coup for years. Presumably, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula will now use the press reports to walk the dog back to determine whose misplaced trust allowed the agent to penetrate it. That will make the next operation more difficult. Other intelligence operations — and we can assume they are up and running — may also become compromised as the press reports give al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula new clues.

Likewise, the next time the CIA or foreign intelligence agency tries to recruit a double agent, the candidate will judge his handlers wretched secret keepers, regard the assignment a death mission and seek employment elsewhere.

Last, the leaks of information — including those from the lips of Brennan, Clarke and King — signal to potential allies that America can’t be trusted with secrets. “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk,” as Obama put it today in a news conference.

The ultimate audience for the leaks investigation may not be domestic but foreign. Obviously, the government wants to root out the secretspillers. But a country can’t expect foreign intelligence agencies to cooperate if it blows cover of such an operation. I’d wager that the investigations have only begun.

You can decide for yourself whether the government's reaction to all this was reasonable and proper. But for the first time I feel like I understand what might have motivated them, and I thought I'd pass that along.

We're Still at War: Photo of the Day for May 17, 2013

Fri May. 17, 2013 9:38 AM PDT

Lance Cpl. Brandon King, a driver with Delta Company, 1st Tank Battalion, performs maintenance on an M1 Abrams Tank at Forward Operating Base Shir Ghazay, Afghanistan, April 5, 2013. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Tammy K. Hineline.

Competitive Pricing in Oregon is a Test Case for Obamacare

—By

| Fri May. 17, 2013 7:32 AM PDT

Bad news about the implementation of Obamacare seems to pop up relentlessly. So here's some good news to balance it out. Once the exchanges get up and running, insurance companies for the first time will be offering similar products with very public prices, and in Oregon those prices vary from $169 a month to $422 a month for the same standard plan. Here's what happened last week when those prices went online:

On Thursday, a comparison of proposed 2014 health premiums became public online, causing two insurers to request do-overs to lower their rates even before the state determines whether they're justified.

The unusual development was sparked by a comparison that used to be impossible because plan benefits varied so widely. But under the federal reforms that take effect Jan. 1, health insurance is mandated and every insurer must offer certain standard plans.

....Providence Health Plan on Wednesday asked to lower its requested rates by 15 percent. Gary Walker, a Providence spokesman, says the "primary driver" was a realization that the plan's cost projections were incorrect. But he conceded a desire to be competitive was part of it.

A Family Care Health Plans official on Thursday said the insurer will ask the state for even greater decrease in requested rates. CEO Jeff Heatherington says the company realized its analysts were too pessimistic after seeing online that its proposed premiums were the highest.

The news isn't all good. Overall, rates in the individual market are likely to go up because insurance companies have to cover those with preexisting conditions and are required to offer a minimum set of benefits. But transparency is also likely to drive prices of some policies down. That's competition, baby.