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The cuts to food assistance in the farm bill passed out of committee by House Republicans are an out-and-out attack on America's poor, but are far from the only damaging affects this bill would have. Because with the food assistance cuts comes damaging environmental protection rollbacks that gut some fundamental safeguards. In the worst of the literal poison pills in the bill, it would expose endangered species to toxic pesticides, exempting them from the Endangered Species Act and directing the Environmental Protection Agency to ignore their impacts.
"This Farm Bill is a sick joke. It gives polluters and special interests the keys to the castle, while environmental safeguards are thrown in the ditch," said Brett Hartl of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Farmers don't want to poison our waters, kill our wildlife, and reduce our national forests to clearcuts. This is another low for this Congress, which is already the most anti-conservation in history." […]
"This farm bill should be called the Poisoned Waters and DDT Restoration Act. If it becomes law, Americans can look forward to our water and wildlife being poisoned by pesticides for the rest of our lives," said Hartl.
Colin O'Neil, the legislative director of the Environmental Working Group, adds "I'm not sure there’s anything the pesticide industry had on their wish list that didn’t make it into this Republican farm bill. … The environmental and human health effects of pesticide exposure and pesticide use are extremely well-established [including] increased cancer risk, damage to children’s brains and the nervous system of children and growing fetuses, lower sperm counts and fertility issues, as well as acute effects like nausea, diarrhea and vomiting," for the farm workers using the pesticides.
Combined with the food assistance cuts, this is an direct assault on the health of millions of people, especially children. The bill doesn't just jeopardize the food security of families, threatening hunger and malnutrition, it changes the nutrition requirements for the school lunch program for low-income kids, so that canned, dried, or frozen fruit and vegetables can be substituted for the current requirement of fresh produce. That's often the only fresh produce poor children get. "Taking away those fresh fruits and vegetables at school and substituting them with canned or dried foods," says Dr. Jenny Abrams, a Washington-based doctor and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, "is taking away those rich vitamins and minerals we all need on a daily basis, and especially kids when they’re growing and developing."
Our food, our water, and our air are under attack here. As are our public lands. The bill guts protections of the Clean Water Act, allowing toxic pesticides to be directly used into rivers and streams; cuts out the scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in decisions the U.S. Forest Service makes about projects that could impact endangered species; doubles the amount of forest service acreage the agency can approve for clearcuts under "categorical exclusions" for things like insect infestation and disease outbreaks; creates 10 new categorical exclusions to allow clearcutting without any public input or environmental review for projects up to 6,000 acres; and removes "extraordinary circumstances" protections under the National Environmental Policy Act, "allowing the Forest Service to approve destructive projects without further review even if sensitive species are present or the project is within a wilderness area."
And it was done entirely without input from Democrats on the committee. Ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee’s Nutrition Subcommittee, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) blasted his Republican colleagues in the bill's markup on Wednesday. "Last Thursday—just six days ago—was the first time I saw even one word of the nutrition title," he said. "To the best of my knowledge, it was the first time any Democrat on the Nutrition Subcommittee saw any of the language. Is that how this process is supposed to work, Mr. Chairman? How could any of you with a straight face, defend this process?" His committee has held 23 hearings over the past two and a half years, he said, and "[n]ot a single one of our 90 witnesses suggested any of the controversial provisions have been included in this partisan Farm Bill. How could anybody in good conscience vote for this?"
They can vote for it because it advances their agenda of taking help away from poor people and letting corporate America rape the land. They're not going to let a little thing like representative democracy get in their way.