Free Republic

No one told Jack LaPant that he could be in violation of the Clean Water Act for farming his own land. That’s mostly because the federal law includes a clear exemption for “normal” farming activities. But it’s also because the government officials LaPant consulted didn’t view overturned dirt that has been tilled and plowed as pollution. In 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the Clean Water Act with the Environmental Protection Agency, began legal action against LaPant for plowing he did in 2011 to plant wheat on a ranch property he owned in Northern California. But in March...

WASHINGTON - Democrats running for president on promises to slow climate change are asking young people to do more than just vote for them. Many White House hopefuls are laying out plans to put teenagers and 20-somethings to work guarding the country against the worst effects of global warming. Core to a number of Democrats' climate plans is the creation of a "climate corps." Akin to the Peace Corps launched in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy as a soft-power check against Russia, a climate-focused national service program would tackle what many presidential candidates see as this generation's greatest challenge...

President Barack Obama wants to create a new government agency dedicated to keeping the nation’s food safe. The proposal in the president’s budget released Monday comes after outbreaks of illnesses linked to chicken, eggs, peanuts and cantaloupe in recent years. More than a dozen federal agencies oversee food safety, and consumer advocates have long called for bringing all those functions together in a single home. […] The budget proposes consolidating the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and all of FDA’s food safety oversight into one new agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The new agency...

First, kill all the farm subsidies! That should have been President Obama's mantra if he truly wanted to curb the nation's child-obesity "epidemic." Instead, on Monday he signed into law the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. That law has plenty of problems. But it's certainly striking how it ignores such a flagrant contributor to flabby youth -- Uncle Sam's economically illiterate farm program. The US Department of Agriculture spends billions a year on farm subsidies that indirectly promote obesity. How? The subsidies maintain an oversupply of certain foods at commensurately cheap prices. Subsidies have proved a catalyst for agribusiness to produce...

(CNSNews.com) – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has “taken a number of actions to make his department more sensitive to civil rights issues,” The Hill newspaper reported on Monday.Among other things, the department has hired a consulting firm to advise it on “diversity” matters, the newspaper reported.And this week, Vilsack is pressing the House of Representatives to approve a Senate bill settling discrimination claims by black farmers.As CNSNews.com reported earlier, President Obama is requesting $1.15 billion from Congress – on top of the $100 million he requested as a senator -- to settle discrimination claims by 66,000 African Americans who...

The Agriculture Department said yesterday that it would scale back testing for mad cow disease by about 90 percent, saying the number of infected animals was far too low to justify the current level of surveillance. “It’s time that our surveillance efforts reflect what we now know is a very, very low level of B.S.E. in the United States,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said as he announced the new testing program for the disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy. After the disease was found in a Canadian-born dairy cow in Washington in December 2003, the department tested more than 759,000 animals over...

Although the Agriculture Department confirmed Friday that a cow that died last year was infected with mad cow disease, a test the agency conducted seven months ago indicated that the animal had the disease. The result was never publicly disclosed. The delay in confirming the United States' second case of mad cow disease seems to underscore what critics of the agency have said for a long time: that there are serious and systemic problems in the way the Agriculture Department tests animals for mad cow. Indeed, the lengthy delay occurred despite the intense national interest in the disease and the...

Substantial changes in the nation's mad cow testing system were ordered yesterday after British tests on a cow slaughtered in November confirmed that it had the disease even though the American "gold standard" test said it did not. "The protocol we developed just a few years ago to conduct the tests might not be the best option today," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in making the announcement. "Science is ever evolving." At an afternoon news conference in Washington, Mr. Johanns described serious errors in the testing in the United States on the animal, the second one found with mad cow...

A worker was stabbed Tuesday inside a Department of Agriculture building during an altercation with another employee, authorities said. The victim was hospitalized with injuries that weren't life-threatening, and the search continued for the attacker. Marc Raimondi with the Department of Homeland Security said the Federal Protective Service was investigating. The wounded man was taken to George Washington University Hospital with several injuries.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Agriculture Department is planning a tenfold increase in the number of cattle tested for mad cow disease in response to discovery of the nation's first case of the disease last December. The department announced plans Monday to test more than 221,000 animals over a 12- to 18-month period beginning in June. Included would be 201,000 animals considered to be at high risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, because they show symptoms of nervous system disorders such as twitching. Random tests also will be conducted on about 20,000 older animals sent to slaughter even though they...

Just heard this and helicopters orbiting area. I am 2 blocks away.

Filed at 8:44 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Agriculture Department has failed to adequately answer questions about how the agency handled a recall of 19 million pounds of contaminated hamburger meat, four members of Congress said in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman. The four lawmakers -- Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.; Mary Kaptur, D- Ohio; Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.; and Sen. Richard Durbin R-Ill. -- demanded in a letter Thursday that the agency explain why it failed to quickly recall the meat after initial tests showed it was contaminated with E. coli bacteria. They said Elsa Murano, the department's...

The Department of Defense is preparing to implement the most sweeping restrictions yet on foreign information technology (IT) workers. This planned policy—which will cover one-third of civilian federal employees—will ban non-U.S. citizens from a wide range of computer projects. The Departments of Justice and Treasury have instituted similar restrictions on non-citizens working in certain areas. Those steps were taken prior to last September’s attacks. The DOD policy—slated for adoption within 60 to 90 days—extends restrictions on foreign nationals handling secret information to “sensitive but unclassified positions,” which include the growing number of contract workers who process paychecks, write software,...

The Department of Defense is preparing to implement the most sweeping restrictions yet on foreign information technology (IT) workers. This planned policy—which will cover one-third of civilian federal employees—will ban non-U.S. citizens from a wide range of computer projects. The Departments of Justice and Treasury have instituted similar restrictions on non-citizens working in certain areas. Those steps were taken prior to last September’s attacks. The DOD policy—slated for adoption within 60 to 90 days—extends restrictions on foreign nationals handling secret information to “sensitive but unclassified positions,” which include the growing number of contract workers who process paychecks, write software,...