Iowans Agree: Factory Farms Should Pay  

Members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) hail a recent report called “CAFOs Uncovered” by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. The report analyzes the obvious and not-so-obvious costs that taxpayers and consumers are forced to pay to keep the factory farm industry afloat.

Margaret Mellon, director of UCS’s Food and Environment Program, stated, “If CAFOs were forced to pay for the ripple effects of harm they have caused, they wouldn’t be dominating the U.S. meat industry like they are today.”

The report states that, “misguided federal farm policies have encouraged the growth of [factory farms] by shifting billions of dollars in environmental, health and economic costs to taxpayers and communities.”

The executive summary of the report states that factory farms “are not the inevitable result of market forces. Instead, these unhealthy operations are largely the result of misguided public policy that can and should be changed.”

“This is another study that confirms what CCI has been saying for years,” said CCI member Garry Klicker from Bloomfield. “The Environmental Quality Incentives Program should be used to help family farmers protect our air and water, not as another form of corporate welfare for factory farms. We also need environmental protection laws that force factory farm polluters to pay for their clean up and report their toxic emissions.”

That’s why members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement are asking Governor Culver to veto the odor study, HF 2688, a bill that requires taxpayers to foot the bill of nearly $23 million to study factory farm odor mitigation techniques over the next five years. This report is another reinforcement that factory farms get too much taxpayer funding, and the odor study delays enforcing much-needed standards. The report also highlights the need for clean air standards for hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, which are toxic to human health.

The full report can be viewed here

We Must TAKE Our Country Back!

Whether it’s health care, the cost of education, our environment or global trade, Corporate America is holding us all hostage to the almighty dollar. Greed continues to trump need as corporations make record profits while more and more Americans fall into poverty every year. Congress allows industry to write policy, and legislators don’t even read the bills they enact. The average person would lose their job for gross negligence. The pharmaceutical/insurance lobbies make billions on the grief of others, systematically denying people essential treatment or drugs in order to save a buck. Half of our taxpayer money goes to the Pentagon who “loses” over a trillion dollars and “it’s nothing but a thing” yet we have to beg to fund health care for our children. Agri-Business dominates at the expense of our environment and health as 85% of our food is now genetically modified, our meat is ridden with hormones and antibiotics, and pesticides have permeated the water table. Global trade agreements allow corporations to exploit for profit with no safeguards in place for workers or the environment.

It is our moral imperative to stand up and say no more! John Edwards seems to be the only candidate that understands that we have to make an aggressive push to take our country back – the key word being “take”. While it is important to be able to bring everyone to the table, we can’t continue to allow Corporate America to eat all the food.

Which comes down to, follow the money…

Edwards and Obama are my two top picks but there are some important distinctions to be made here. I think Obama is awesome and I will support him whole heartedly if he gets the Democratic nod, but as an activist, and more importantly as a mother and your sister, there is way too much at stake in this election, not only for our country but for the planet. Corporate America will never give up their stranglehold on America or the rest of the world so we must TAKE IT from them! There is no negotiating a moral standard… and frankly, that’s what this election is about.

There are two main issues that concern me about Obama; the fact that he voted for the Peru Trade agreement (more of the same of what ails us), and more egregiously, the fact that he is promoting nuclear energy. Coincidentally, Obama has accepted a lot of money from Exelon Nuclear and only stopped taking corporate monies this past year once he decided to run for President. I commend him for that recent decision but I am horrified that he is promoting  nuclear power.

The current energy bill before Congress may have 10 billion dollars allocated toward renewable energy, and that rocks, but if you look at the whole pie, it’s too little too late! 25 billion is allocated for guaranteed loans to build new nuclear sites and billions more for coal fired plants. I mean, this is what I am talking about people… Corporate America writing OUR policy! Do ya’ll remember all the hoopla about storing the nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain? Do you want that in your backyard? Is it OK as long as it’s stored in someone else’s backyard (out of sight, out of mind)? Do you really think our Earth Mother will be served by that? We need to save Her in order to save ourselves. Almost everything we do generates some form of waste by-product. Instead of adding to it, especially nuclear waste, we need to use our considerable ingenuity to invent our way out of this mess. It is our only true hope.  What we absolutely cannot afford is more of the same… business as usual.

Corporate America has had the resources and the necessary information to create new technologies for decades.  Rather than doing the right thing, and truly be leaders of innovation, much of their resources have been spent preventing said technologies from entering the marketplace because, God forbid, that could hurt their bottom line. If their shareholders weren't so blinded by their own greed, they would be able to recognize the incredible opportunity that is presenting itself NOW. Corporate America and our elected officials could simply CHOOSE to lead this necessary technological revolution, but it remains to be seen.... so it's up to us.

We must TAKE our country back!