These remarks from Colin Peterson (D) MN regarding NAIS should scare the hell out of all of us. These comments come after Peterson himself acknowledged in 2007 that the greatst threat to the food supply was from imported foods…….only 1% of which are ever checked. I have to wonder where the logic or rational is in failing to address this admitted flaw in imports, and the attempts to establish NAIS which no one wants, no one needs, and which is another of those useless government programs meant not to help, but rather to implement needless regulations.
The USDA must be particularly happy with Peterson’s position…..it elevates them to the status of a national police force dedicated to ending family farms and ranches. Marti
Following remarks to the National Farmers Union (NFU) annual convention Monday, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) told reporters he plans to send a letter to over 400 ag groups this week requesting examples of farming practices that might qualify for payments under cap and trade legislation the panel plans to draft this spring.
Farmers” do a lot of carbon sequestration already and there are probably other things they can be doing.”
Peterson said he believes legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions will move through Congress this year, so “we need to get out ahead of this and define how agriculture can be a beneficiary of this and not just something that (lawmakers) are doing to do something to.”
He indicated the Agriculture Committee would probably begin a series of hearings on climate change by mid-April.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) plans to release a draft global warming bill this month and wants a bill through his committee by Memorial Day.
Much of Peterson’s address to NFU members focused on his committee’s passage last month of H.R. 977, the Derivatives Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2009.
“We have put a pretty tough bill together,” he said, explaining that the urgency to push the bill intensified with the credit crisis where the collapse of some of the nation’s largest financial institutions were linked to their involvement in the trading of unregulated credit derivatives like swap contracts.
“This is bad…and it’s worse than a lot of people, I think, recognize,” according to Peterson, referring to the failure of some of the biggest banks on Wall Street. “My expectation is the (Obama administration) is probably going to ask for another $1-2 trillion to bail out these banks.”
As a condition for using more of taxpayers’ money to keep the troubled banks in business, Peterson said he told Vice President Biden, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Office and Management Budget director Peter Orzag last week that the Treasury Department should start breaking up the big banks. “We should not have any institution in the United States that is too big to fail.”
Peterson went over the agriculture committee’s agenda for the rest of the year with USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack immediately prior to taking the stage at the NFU event. In addition to overseeing USDA’s implementation of the remaining provisions of the 2008 Farm Bill, the Chairman said he wants to: modernize the Department of Agriculture’s computer system; reform federal crop insurance to address “in my opinion, the inordinate amount of power that the agents have and the actual imbalance of premiums that agents are getting in different parts of the country;” and make farmer participation in the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) mandatory.
“This is not about us trying to put cost on you, this is about trying to protect” the livestock industry, said Peterson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s voluntary approach to NAIS.
“We have spent more money on national animal ID than we would have to spend to do (a mandatory) program and to pay for the ear tags for every farmer. We basically wasted the money,” he said.
The PPJ Gazette 