Wasn't Ann Veneman Sec'y of Agriculture at the time these safety policies were discontinued? "The apparent but unintended consequences of the lobbying success: a paper record-keeping system that has slowed investigators, with estimated business losses of $250 million. So far, nearly 1,300 people in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada have been sickened by salmonella since April.
Investigators initially focused on tomatoes as a culprit. Now they are turning attention to jalapeno peppers.
A former member of Bush's Cabinet and three former senior officials in the Food and Drug Administration told the AP that government food safety experts did not get the strong record-keeping and trace-back system originally proposed under a bioterrorism law to cope with a major foodborne illness.
"In retrospect, yes, if they (the regulations) had been broader and a bit more far-reaching, it could have helped with this," said Robert Brackett, senior vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. "It wouldn't have hurt, for sure." Brackett formerly was a top safety official at the FDA.
Under pressure in 2003 and 2004, the White House agreed to dilute record-keeping proposals by FDA safety experts."
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Veneman has to be the search committee's idea of a joke!
But, I go with virtual fluffing of Repubs by floating her name.
They cannot be serious (to be said in John McEnroe intonation and scorn).
The angriest Obama has made me so far
Thanks, TruthPartisan, for posting this. I've been so angry since I first heard Obama was floating Veneman's name as VP that I haven't trusted myself to do a post on her.
Ann Veneman, who had the Forest Service in her secretariat, suspended Bill Clinton's roadless rule, the wilderness protection measure that at the time environmentalists were calling the most important conservation measure in a century. I'll never forget my anger at her and George Bush for this. The damage is now being done and the battle for this desperately needed protection continues.
Obama is sending a message all right by floating her name rather than HRC's. He prefers Bush environmental policy to Bill Clinton's. Our party is FKD (Formerly Known as Democratic) indeed. I want someone to start following the money, damn it. I want to know who these people are that have taken over our party. I want to know who precisely wants the kind of "unity" that would have us aligning with this poster child for the evil, yes evil "Wise Use" movement.
I'm just hoping
that all this talk he's letting out there about picking a Republican for VP is just smoke. He'll end up with a Dem but be able to say that he considered every fit candidate regardless of party. The Unity
Pony
will have been fed and watered.
If he does pick a Republican - any Republican at all - he'll have lost my vote.
it is smoke, but cabinet posts are the problem--
he'll definitely pick at least one if not more Repubs for his Cabinet--and they're all horrors.
closing the bold tag from the comment above mine
This should work :)
Heh, it shouldn't work...
But I think it did. Readers?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I Don't Vote for Republicans
Not even if they have a (D) after their name. So nominating Veneman would do a lot to end my agony over how to vote this fall.
Personally, I suspect these names are designed to make whoever he selects look better than they otherwise would.
Look better?
So we should assume BD--what about them?
They are better with tomatoes and mad cows and food safety? Joking, (they'd have to be) but if you would follow up that thought...really versus hugely pro-business? A lobbyist to the VP before becoming VP?
Who's been in his ear for the last eight days overseas?
Hagel, wonder about his influence? Think he's driving this? Daschle?
peter
I Don't Get It.
I really don't get why his team keeps dropping this piles. To me, it shows a complete underestimation of the electorate. This won't just piss off liberals and Democratic voters, but the those Republicans who know they are being pandered to.
They do think we're all that stupid, don't they?
BTW, we're going to get Tim Kaine. Yes, that "Who the hell is Tim Kaine" Tim Kaine.
I am serious, and I approve this message.