Bush’s Balancing Act
Our boy Bush has been a busy beaver, hasn’t he? So little time, so many favors to do for corporate campaign contributors.
Consider George W.’s regulatory rollback rampage. George the Destroyer has shredded dozens of rules designed to protect the public from corporate excesses. Many Americans think arsenic in our drinking water is not a good thing, since it’s a poison and a known cancer-causer. Thanks to pesticide runoff and other industrial practices, however, arsenic abounds in America’s water supply, so the National Academy of Sciences backed a new regulatory standard allowing no more than 10 parts-per-billion of arsenic in water. But Bush says that while that might work for people, he’s told it might squeeze the profits of the chemical boys, so he’s withdrawing the rule.
He’s also withdrawing a proposed rule to prohibit mining that would cause “substantial, irreparable harm” to communities or the environment; he’s stopping a rule that would have protected millions of Americans from getting repetitive stress injuries on the job; and he’s trying to reopen 60 million acres of our national forests to oil drilling, logging, and the building of timber roads.
Bush also has rushed in to delay a rule that would have stopped HMOs from releasing our personal health information, a rule that would have stopped industry from draining wetlands, and a rule that would have protected children and workers from lead-paint poisoning.
Bush’s corporate contributors are cheering lustily as their boy takes an axe to rules they don’t like — a bit of butchery that both the White House and Big Business lobbyists refer to as a “balanced policy” of regulation. Under their balancing act, corporate greed gets far greater weight than human health. Bush is giving us the best government money can buy.
Food Fight
Something called the Codex Alimentarius Commission want us to swallow a new “safety standard” on food irradiation. This international commission sets global food safety standards for 160 nations — including the US of A. I don’t remember voting for this, do you?
The commission mostly exists to do what global food corporations want done, rather than to serve the public interest, and that’s exactly what the commission’s new irradiation standard does. Irradiating food is itself a ploy by agribusiness giants to cover up their filthy processing methods, which have led to nasty outbreaks of food diseases. Rather than clean up the process, they simply want to zap our food with heavy doses of radiation.
This is not good for food or humans, and surveys show consumers to be overwhelmingly against it. Agribusiness corporations don’t care, however, and they’re stealthily trying to rig the global rules so food irradiation essentially is left unregulated. A subcommittee of the commission has quietly proposed new standards stating that food irradiation facilities need not comply with “good hygiene practices,” or be limited in the amount of radiation they use, or be staffed by “adequate, trained, and competent personnel,” or be licensed and inspected by government officials. And if even this is too much for the irradiators, the proposal states that corporations “should” rather than “shall” comply with these standards.
Food corporations could use these new global standards to force us to comply with the Codex Alimentarius. To fight this, call Public Citizen at 202/588-1000.
Keep Pushing for Campaign Reform
Kudos to the 60 U.S. Senators who voted at long last to end the corrupt fundraising loophole know as “soft money.” Way to go. Now, get back to work.
The McCain-Feingold bill is an important first step, but senators should not fool themselves into thinking their job is done. This bill closes the soft-money loophole, but does nothing to stop the hard-money corruption. Even while they were debating the bill, senators were quietly skipping out of the Capitol to schmooze with lobbyists at fundraisers.
The New York Times found that during the McCain-Feingold debate, lobbyists paid $1,000 each to attend Sen. Maria Cantwell’s reception, $5,000 each to have drinks and munchies with Sen. Jeff Sessions, $2,500 each to join Sen. Judd Gregg for breakfast, $1,000 each for Sen. John Warner’s reception, $2,500 each to dine with Sen. James Inhofe, $1,000 each to lunch with Sen. Pete Domenici, and $1,000 each to have cocktails with Sen. Mitch McConnell.
As one lobbyist put it, even if McCain-Feingold becomes law, “We’d do fine.” None of the kind of lobbyist fundraising that went on during the debate would be stopped by this reform bill. In fact, the bill makes such hard-money corruption worse, for it doubles the $1,000 limit that individuals (and lobbyists) can give to a congressional or presidential candidate. In last year’s election, only one-eighth of 1% of Americans gave $1,000 to a candidate. Now, the influence of this elite donor class would be doubled, thus removing officeholders even further from the 997é8% of us who are not part of the big-money game.
Real reform requires public funding to level the playing field and make it possible for regular people to run for office. To support this “Clean Election” alternative, call Public Campaign: 202/293-0222.
Jim Hightower’s latest book, If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates, has just been released in a fully revised and updated paperback edition.
This article appears in April 13 • 2001.