Stop Bush from sludging our dinner salads

[Guest guest]

" Lori R. Price " <lrprice

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 18:27:29 -0400

FW: Stop Bush from sludging our dinner salads

FYI.

 

 

 

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) needs your immediate help to

stop Congress and the Bush administration from seriously degrading

organic standards. After 35 years of hard work, the U.S. organic

community has built up a multi-billion dollar alternative to

industrial agriculture, based upon strict organic standards and

organic community control over modification to these standards.

 

Now, large corporations such as Kraft, Wal-Mart, & Dean Foods--aided

and abetted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are moving to

lower organic standards by allowing a Bush appointee to create a list

of synthetic ingredients that would be allowed organic production.

Even worse these proposed regulatory changes will reduce future public

discussion and input and take away the National Organic Standards

Board's (NOSB) traditional lead jurisdiction in setting standards.

What this means, in blunt terms. is that USDA bureaucrats and industry

lobbyists, not consumers, will now have more control over what can go

into organic foods and products. (Send a quick letter to your

Congressperson online here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm)

 

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 20, acting in haste and near-total secrecy,

the U.S. Senate will vote on a " rider " to the 2006 Agriculture

Appropriations Bill that will reduce control over organic standards

from the National Standards Board and put this control in the hands of

federal bureaucrats in the USDA (remember the USDA proposal in 1997-98

that said that genetic engineering, toxic sludge, and food irradiation

would be OK on organic farms, or USDA suggestions in 2004 that

heretofore banned pesticides, hormones, tainted feeds, and animal

drugs would be OK?).

 

For the past week in Washington, OCA has been urging members of the

Senate not to reopen and subvert the federal statute that governs U.S.

Organic standards (the Organic Food Production Act—OFPA), but rather

to let the organic community and the National Organic Standards

resolve our differences over issues like synthetics and animal feed

internally, and then proceed to a open public comment period.

Unfortunately most Senators seem to be listening to industry lobbyists

more closely than to us. We need to raise our voices. (Send a quick

letter to your Congressperson online here:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm)

 

In the past, grassroots mobilization and mass pressure by organic

consumers have been able to stop the USDA and Congress from degrading

organic standards. This time Washington insiders tell us that the " fix

is already in. " So we must take decisive action now. We need you to

call your U.S. Senators today. We need you to sign the following

petition and send it to everyone you know. We also desperately need

funds to head off this attack in the weeks and months to come. Thank

you for your support. Together we will take back citizen control over

organic standards and preserve organic integrity.

 

*

For more information go to the SOS section on our website

http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm

 

* Click here to donate money to OCA's SOS—Save Organic

Standards—Campaign

http://www.organicconsumers.org/donations.htm

 

* Call the Capital Switchboard here: 877-762-8762

 

* Send a quick letter to your Congressperson online here:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm