Homeland Security Tidbits
• Now that President Bush’s homeland security department officially has a head honcho, Tom Ridge, and a site in Washington, albeit perhaps temporary, it also has a Web site: www.dhs.gov. Check in for what the feds are saying.
• Federal government types and members of Congress wondered what would happen if terrorists deliberately infected U.S. livestock with foot and mouth disease so they simulated a drill at the national Defense University at Fort McNair.
The conclusion: Any outbreak would not remain in one spot, but would rapidly spread. As North Carolina Assistant State Veterinarian Thomas McGinn put it, “any kind of foreign animal disease would be all over the country.”
• Remember canaries in the coal mines? They were used as an early warning system if the underground air was getting too dangerous for the miners to breathe.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with researchers at Purdue’s veterinary school, are thinking that Fido and Fluffy, so to speak, could be sentinels for a terrorist attack. That is, through a national pet health database, any disease outbreak in cats or dogs, such as anthrax or plague, could be picked up early on.
The electronic system is called the VMD-SOS (Veterinary Medical Data-Surveillance of Syndromes). Every night the system will process health information recorded by Banfield Pet Hospitals with about 300 hospitals throughout 43 states. Vets at these hospitals see about 60,000 cats and dogs each week.
• New York’s senators, both Democrats, were lobbing cannonballs at President Bush’s homeland security efforts. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton called Bush’s efforts “a myth – a myth written in rhetoric, inadequate resources, and a new bureaucracy…the truth is we are not prepared.”
Senator Charles E. Schumer said this administration “has been schizophrenic in its approach to the war on terror, doing everything it takes to fight the war overseas but pinching pennies” here at home.
Home Battlefields Under Fire
Speaking of defending the homeland, Defense Department officials say that environmental regs are hamstringing their combat readiness training here on U.S. soil.
Currently, they argue, military maneuvers in some areas must be curtailed during endangered animal’s mating seasons, Marines can only storm certain California beaches, and other restrictions interfere with training on military ranges that have “critical habitat” designations.
Folks at the Pentagon plan to argue their case before Congress for what they call a “common sense” approach to environmental issues on military lands. As Raymond F. DuBois, Jr., deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, said, “While we are arguably one of the best environmental stewards in the government today…there is a first and foremost obligation that the secretary of defense has, and that is to properly prepare our troops for combat.”
Environmental groups see any military exemption as the beginning of the end for such laws as the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and so forth. Argues Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environ-mental Responsibility, “If the Defense Department gets an exemption, why not Homeland Security?”
Low Ratings
The Defense Department, renderers, and other agribusiness will likely find a sympathetic ear with this Congress’ head of the House Resources Committee, Richard W. Pombo (R-CA). With strong backing from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), Pombo routed other GOP contenders with more seniority.
Environmental groups detest him. The League of Conservation Voters gave him a rating of nine out of l00 for his voting record in the last Congress.
The Budget Shuffle
If the administration gets its way, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) fiscal year 2004 budget for meat and poultry food safety programs will increase by $42 million to $797 million. That money would fund 7,680 food safety inspectors, provide specialized training for them, increase microbiological testing, and strengthen surveillance of foreign food products entering this country.
In addition, the USDA budget would get a $70 million boost in new monies to, as Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman put it, “strengthen agriculture protection and homeland security systems, particularly in our research agencies, our laboratories, and our pest and disease prevention programs.”
Note that the administration’s budget plans to help pay for meat and poultry inspection costs by charging so-called “user fees” for mandatory federal inspection beyond a single work shift. The feds figure that the fees would recoup about $122 million.
User fees, however, have been proposed by past administrations and soundly defeated by Congress. Commented Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), chairman of the Senate ag committee, “These user-fee proposals are not going to be acceptable.”
Note that the fiscal year 2004 proposal drops the Value-Added Development Grants Program, which provides money to farmers to develop new markets for agricultural products or develop renewable energy systems, such as anaerobic digesters or wind energy.
Organic Loophole
As part of funding legislation passed early this year to keep federal programs going through the current fiscal year, a provision was inserted concerning organic animal feed. That is, “organic” livestock can be fed non-organic feed when organic feed is twice the price of conventional feed. The language, by Representative Nathan Deal (R-GA), was added at the last minute to a voluminous federal spending bill.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) had introduced legislation to strike down the law. Even Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman had expressed concern that leaving the law on the books “could weaken” the National Organic Program.
Briefly
• The Germans are thinking about taxing pet food every bit as much as human food. Currently, most food for humans carries a whopping 16 percent tax! Pet food has a mere seven percent tax.
Apparently, there are a lot of German pets, because folks there figure the hike would bring in $180 million Euros per year.
• According to research headed up by an Italian professor, there may be a way to diagnose Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (similar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy in livestock) while a human is still alive, rather than examining brain tissue after death. Tests on nasal tissue of nine people who died of the disease turned up defective protein particles. Nasal tissues of 11 people with other conditions of the nervous system showed no such particles.
• It’s more than pocket change – the amount that the Senate has this year to run its various committees. It’s $50 million to cover the operations of 20 committees, divvied up between the Republican majority and the Democratic minority. Quipped Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), the process of how to split the dough looked to him like “sandbox silliness.”
• Maryland and Virginia were poised at press time to introduce one million Asian oysters into the Chesapeake Bay without waiting for a report the two states asked the National Academy of Sciences to do. That report, which is costing some $300,000, isn’t due until this August, but apparently, the states are feeling desperate with the depletion of native oysters.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration haven’t been too keen on the idea.
April 2003 Render