| Now that Joe Biden is the president-elect, at least in the eyes of everyone but the current president and his diehards, I've been thinking a bit about what his Cabinet is going to look like. There's a lot of speculation about the most prestigious positions like State and Treasury, but I'm especially interested in a post that gets a lot less press: Secretary of Agriculture. The US Department of Agriculture is one of the more Future Perfect-relevant sections of the federal government. It administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as "food stamps," and as such is one of the most important anti-poverty agencies in the US. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH), one of the most active advocates for food stamps in Congress, is reportedly one of the candidates Biden is considering for secretary; Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), another vocal advocate for anti-poverty programs, would also be a strong choice, and she would make history as the first person (at least to my knowledge) to administer the program who has actually used food stamps. But just as important as its anti-poverty function is the USDA's role in regulating industrial animal agriculture and animal welfare more broadly. Along with the Environmental Protection Agency — and the Department of Justice/Federal Trade Commission in their roles as antitrust regulators — the USDA is one of the key agencies that will determine whether, under a Biden administration, factory farming continues unabated, or whether it shrinks and reforms. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit the Biden administration can deal with by simply reversing Trump-era changes that went in the wrong direction. Humane Society Legislative Fund President Sara Amundson had a useful rundown of these the other day. Biden's administration could, for instance, reverse Trump administration moves to increase line speeds at slaughterhouses (including eliminating speed limits at pig plants altogether). That would be a huge win for workers in those plants, but it would also reduce the number of animals being slaughtered every year. The Trump administration has also finalized a number of rules expanding fishing (including loosening restrictions meant to prevent bycatch of the endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna) and expanding hunting (such as of predators like Alaskan wolves and of grizzly bears) that animal advocates would like to see reversed. But Biden could go further than simply reversing Trump. Jonathan Lovvorn, a lecturer and faculty co-director of the Law, Ethics, & Animal Program at Yale Law School, tells me he'd like to see Biden "issue an [executive order] directing USDA, EPA, and other agencies to catalog all the regulatory and enforcement exemptions currently bestowed on factory farms, and to develop a regulatory action plan to restore environmental, labor, animal welfare, and climate accountability to this industry." Specifically, Lovvorn highlights the need to incorporate animal agriculture, which accounts for a huge chunk of greenhouse gas emissions, into Biden's climate policies, including by listing emissions from CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations, the technical acronym for factory farms) as pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. He'd also like to see a Biden executive order halting the construction or expansion of any new CAFOs. Viveca Morris, Lovvorn's colleague and executive director of the Yale Law, Ethics, & Animals program, argues for breaking up the monopolistic meat industry using antitrust levers as a priority, and points to a proposal from antitrust groups to do just that. "Their list focuses on worker safety and farmer prosperity, but many of the actions would also benefit farm animals directly (i.e. reducing slaughter line speeds) or indirectly (i.e. lessening the agricultural lobby's political stranglehold)," Morris told me. Leah Garcés, president of the animal protection group Mercy For Animals, echoed the need for the EPA to use the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act to regulate CAFOs. She also highlighted, among other measures, the need for the Biden administration to ban cruel "depopulation" measures that farms shutting down use to kill their animals, including farms shutting down due to shocks to the meatpacking industry during Covid-19. There's a lot more where that came from, but the first step is getting USDA and EPA leaders who can be trusted to fight, if not for animals, then at least for the humans harmed by the poor labor standards and environmental degradation endemic to factory farming. Most animal advocates I spoke to were wary of former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), reportedly one of Biden's top contenders for Ag Secretary, who is seen as close to factory farm interests. "We do not need another pro-agribusiness USDA secretary," Morris says. "[Rep. Chellie] Pingree or Fudge, two of the other candidates being mentioned in the press, would be better choices for people and animals." Pingree (D-ME), a veteran of the House Appropriations subcommittee for agriculture and the Ag Committee, is actually an organic farmer herself, with a 200-acre vegetable, pig, and chicken farm on North Haven Island off the coast of Maine. Either she or Fudge would be better choices if the Biden administration actually wants to confront factory farming and animal agriculture head-on. —Dylan Matthews, @dylanmatt | 
No comments:
Post a Comment