Stop the Sneak Attack in Congress on Organic Standards

[Guest guest]

" Mark Hull-Richter " <mhull

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 17:11:42 -0700 (PDT)

FW: Stop the Sneak Attack in Congress on Organic Standards

 

 

 

 

Here's another one - those sneaky bastards in Congress never seem to

run out of new ways to undermine our way of life and undercut anything

healthy or sensible that comes across their fancies. I'd exempt the

Democrats, but I don't know how many of them supported this - yet.

 

Organic should be organic - no synthetics, no artificial ANYTHING.

Period.

 

Let your Congresscritter know how you feel - I will as soon as I get

one again.

 

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

 

Stop the Sneak Attack in Congress on Organic Standards

 

Congress will vote on this issue soon!

 

Click here

(http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1242)

to send a message to your Congressperson today!

 

(If you are an organic business, please sign on to the petition to stop

the OTA rider here: http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/ofpa.htm)

 

The Organic Consumers Association needs your immediate help to stop

Congress and the Bush administration from seriously degrading organic

standards

 

SOS Update October 12, 2005

 

Over the few weeks, Organic Consumers Association network members have

deluged the U.S. congress with over 150,000 emails and over 20,000

telephone calls. Thank you for your support. (See a list of more than

200 organic businesses who have signed on to support this alert here).

This nearly unprecedented grassroots upsurge has temporarily rattled

Congress and the industry, delaying the initial Sneak Attack in the

Senate on organic standards, resulting in a compromise amendment (H.R.

2744) September 21 calling for " further study of the issue. "

 

Unfortunately we expect another, possibly even more serious, Sneak

Attack in the House/Senate Conference Committee over the next week as

Congress members put the final wording together for the 2006

Congressional Agriculture Appropriations Bill (for a list of committee

members and contact info, click here). Therefore OCA is now calling on

consumers and the organic community to apply pressure to their House of

Representatives members as well as their Senators to stop the

Conference Committee from degrading the standards. In addition we urge

everyone to start applying pressure to the Organic Trade Association,

who are unfortunately spearheading this Sneak Attack. We ask everyone

who has read our SOS Action Alert and signed our petition to Congress

to call your House of Representative member 202-224-3121, as well as

the OTA: 413-774-7511.

 

(If you are an organic business, please sign on to the petition to stop

the OTA rider here)

Background of the Sneak Attack

 

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) and members of

the Organic Trade Association, are moving to lower organic standards by

allowing Bush appointees in the USDA National Organic Program to

approve a broad list of synthetic ingredients and processing aids that

would be allowed in 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 have near total control over what can go into organic foods and

products. (Send a quick letter to your Congresspersons online here)

 

During the next week, acting in haste and near-total secrecy, the U.S.

Congress is being lobbied by industry to vote on a rider in the

House/Senate Conference Committee to the 2006 Agriculture

Appropriations Bill that could take away 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

Congress 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

Board resolve our differences over issues like synthetics and animal

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

Unfortunately most members of Congress seem to be listening to industry

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

quick letter to your Congresspersons online here)

 

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 Congressional Representatives and 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.

 

Call the Capital Switchboard here: 202-224-3121, and tell your

Congresspersons not to support any ammendments to the ag appropriations

bill that would lower organic standards. You can send a quick letter to

your Congresspersons online here: www.organicconsumers.org/rd-ofpa.htm

 

(There's a lot more at the site - click on through:

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

 

 

Mark Hull-Richter, U.S. Citizen & Patriot

U.S.A. - From democracy to kakistocracy in one fell coup.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0416-01.htm

http://verifiedvoting.org http://blackboxvoting.org