Monsanto files suit against Germany over GM ban

Monsanto has filed a lawsuit against the German government after the EU member state banned planting of its genetically modified MON810 maize last week.
MON810 maize is genetically engineered to produce Bacillus thuringiensis, which is toxic to the corn borer pest. Permitted in Europe since 1998 for animal feed, it is marketed as a way to save farmers money on insecticides and other pest controls.
However German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner claimed last week that she had “legitimate reasons” to believe the maize to be a danger to the environment – and believes the Environment Ministry to agree with the view. Although MON810 has been permitted in Germany since 2005, she scrapped plans for 3,600 hectares (8,892 acres) to be planted in the eastern states for this summer's harvest.
Now the biotech giant has hit back, according to a Reuters article, filing a lawsuit against the Germany government in the administrative court in Braunschweig, northern Germany.
The wire quotes a spokesperson for Monsanto as saying the ban is “arbitrary”. A clause in EU law does allow member states to impose such a ban, but Monsanto claims they can only do so once a plant has already been approved if new scientific evidence has come to light.
If the outcome of the lawsuit is in Monsanto’s favour, the cost to the German government has been estimated at between €6m and €7m.
Aigner, a member of the Christian Social Union, has denied that the decision to ban the MON810 plantings is politically motivated. She said the ban is an individual case, and should not be taken as an indication of future policy on genetically modified crops.
Germany is not the only country to have banned MON810. France also invoked the clause on new scientific evidence that cast doubt over its safety last year.
However a review conducted by the European Food Safety Authority, requested by the European Commission, concluded that “in terms of risk to human and animal health and the environment, the provided information package does not present new scientific evidence that would invalidate the previous risk assessments of maize MON810”.
Other countries to implement bans are Hungary and Austria. Last month European ministers voted – for the fourth time – against forcing these countries to lift their bans, despite EFSA’s view.

CONTROL THE FOOD, YOU CONTROL THE PEOPLE

Say Goodbye to Farmers Markets, Wholesome Organic Produce, And Home Farms. The Congress Has Sold Us Out, The Fix Is In, And The Corporate Agra Giants Are Taking Control of The Food

 
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS NOW. STOP HR 875 AND S. 425. WE DON'T NEED EXTRAORDINARY GOVERNMENT CONTROL OVER OUR FOOD. THERE IS NO TIME TO WASTE!

We can all thank Representative Rosa DeLauro whose husband Stanley Greenburg has business ties to Monsanto for introducing the bill HR 875. A very similar bill is moving through the Senate named S.425. Both these monster bills which none of our elected representatives seem to care to take the time to read seek to create a Huge Government Bureaucracy to oversee and regulate all food production in the United States, right down to the home farmer.  S. 425 entitled Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act, is sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. Brown's bill is backed by lobbyists for Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson.

Here are some excerpts from the legislation to give an idea of how all--encompassing the language is, and the potentialities for dangerous interpretation and abuse.

Section 3 of the definitions.
(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY-

The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.
Right, that means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard.

SEC. 102. CONSOLIDATION OF FOOD SAFETY FUNCTIONS.

    (a) Transfer of Functions and Resources- For each component of the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Commerce specified in subsection (b), there are transferred to the Administration all functions, personnel, and assets (including facilities and financial resources) of those components as of the day before the date of the enactment of this Act (including all related functions of any officer or employee of the component) that relate to administration or enforcement of the food safety law, as determined by the President.
In other words, the creation of a massive bureaucracy, to Control...

TITLE II–ADMINISTRATION OF FOOD SAFETY PROGRAM

SEC. 201. ADMINISTRATION OF NATIONAL PROGRAM.

    (2) ensure that persons who produce, process, or distribute food meet their responsibility to prevent or minimize food safety hazards related to their products.
(3) the potential for persistence, multiplication, or concentration of naturally occurring or added contaminants in food;
(4) the potential for hazardous contamination to have cumulative toxic effects, multigenerational effects, or effects on specific categories of consumers;
And Control, and Control, and control the food. Things weren't that bad without these controls, so who needs them? Big business, and Big Government, of course!

In SEC.203:

    (c) Specific Hazard Controls- The Administrator may require any person with responsibility for or control over food or food ingredients to adopt specific hazard controls, if such controls are needed to ensure the protection of the public health.
Amazing, maybe you'll have to use a special pesticide made by Monsanto. Can't just grow your food in the healthy soil anymore.

SEC. 204. PERFORMANCE STANDARDS FOR CONTAMINANTS IN FOOD.

    (a) In General- To protect the public health, the Administrator shall establish by guidance document, action level, or regulation and enforce performance standards that define, with respect to specific foods and contaminants in food, the level of food safety performance that a person responsible for producing, processing, or selling food shall meet.
(A) IN GENERAL-
The term ‘food establishment’ means a slaughterhouse (except those regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act), factory, warehouse, or facility owned or operated by a person located in any State that processes food or a facility that holds, stores, or transports food or food ingredients.
That means anybody who holds, stores, or transports food. That's real control of the food.

SEC. 202. REGISTRATION OF FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS AND FOREIGN FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS.

    (a) In General- Any food establishment or foreign food establishment engaged in manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding food for consumption in the United States shall register annually with the Administrator.
That means more paperwork, and more revenue for the Government.

(2) INSPECTIONS- If the Administrator determines that a food establishment fails to meet a standard promulgated under this section, the Administrator shall, as appropriate–

    (A) detain, seize, or condemn food from the food establishment under section 402;
        (d) Alternative Inspection Frequencies- With respect to a subcategory of food establishment under category 2, 3, 4, or 5, the Administrator may establish alternative increasing or decreasing inspection frequencies for subcategories of food establishments or individual establishments, to foster risk-based allocation of resources. Before establishing an alternative inspection frequency for a subcategory of food establishments or individual establishments, the Administrator shall take into consideration the evidence described in paragraph (2)(D) and the overall record of compliance described in paragraph (2)(E) for such subcategory. In establishing alternative inspection frequencies under this subsection, the Administrator shall comply with the following criteria and procedures:
(2) In defining subcategories of food establishments and their alternative inspection frequencies under paragraphs (1) and (2), the Administrator shall consider–
    (A) the nature of the food products being processed, stored, or transported;
    (B) the manner in which food products are processed, stored, or transported;
    (C) the inherent likelihood that the products will contribute to the risk of food-borne illness;
    (D) the best available evidence concerning reported illnesses associated with the foods processed, stored, held, or transported in the proposed subcategory of establishments; and
    (E) the overall record of compliance with food safety law among establishments in the proposed subcategory, including compliance with applicable performance standards and the frequency of recalls.
 

SEC. 206. FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITIES.
    (4) conduct monitoring and surveillance of animals, plants, products, or the environment, as appropriate; and
    (5) collect and maintain information relevant to public health and farm practices.
        (c) Regulations- Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture and representatives of State departments of agriculture, shall promulgate regulations to establish science-based minimum standards for the safe production of food by food production facilities. Such regulations shall–
        (1) consider all relevant hazards, including those occurring naturally, and those that may be unintentionally or intentionally introduced;
        (2) require each food production facility to have a written food safety plan that describes the likely hazards and preventive controls implemented to address those hazards;
        (3) include, with respect to growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water;
        (4) include, with respect to animals raised for food, minimum standards related to the animal’s health, feed, and environment which bear on the safety of food for human consumption;
        (5) provide a reasonable period of time for compliance, taking into account the needs of small businesses for additional time to comply;
        (6) provide for coordination of education and enforcement activities by State and local officials, as designated by the Governors of the respective States; and
            (f) Enforcement- The Administrator may coordinate with the agency or department designated by the Governor of each State to perform activities to ensure compliance with this section.
 

SEC. 207. FEDERAL AND STATE COOPERATION.
    (8) increasing participation in national networks of public health and food regulatory agencies and laboratories to–

        (A) allow public health officials at the Federal, State, and local levels to share and accept laboratory analytic findings; and

    (9) establishing a flexible mechanism for rapidly supporting scientific research by academic centers of excellence, which may include staff representing academic clinical researchers, food microbiologists, animal and plant disease specialists, ecologists, and other allied disciplines.


(c) Improving State Surveillance Capacity- The Administrator, in collaboration with the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shall improve capacity for surveillance in the States by–



SEC. 210. TRACEBACK REQUIREMENTS.

    (a) In General- The Administrator, in order to protect the public health, shall establish a national traceability system that enables the Administrator to retrieve the history, use, and location of an article of food through all stages of its production, processing, and distribution.
    (b) Applicability- Traceability requirements under this section shall apply to food from food production facilities, food establishments, and foreign food establishments.


TITLE III–RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

SEC. 301. PUBLIC HEALTH ASSESSMENT SYSTEM.

    (3) provide appropriate support and input on the design and implementation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the States of an active surveillance system that provides information on the incidence and causes of food-borne illness which is timely, detailed, and representative of the population of the United States;


    (4) based on data and information obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the States, and other sources, assess the incidence, distribution, public health impact, and causes of human illness in the United States associated with the consumption of food, and conduct research and analysis to devise effective and feasible interventions to reduce food-borne illness;

SEC. 303. RESEARCH.

    (10) develop methods to reduce or destroy harmful pathogens before, during, and after processing;

    (11) analyze the incidence of antibiotic resistence as it pertains to the food supply and develop new methods to reduce the transfer of antibiotic resistance to humans; and

    (12) conduct other research that supports the purposes of this Act.

Section 304 of the Food Safety Modernization Act establishes a group of "experts and stakeholders from Federal, State, and local food safety and health agencies, the food industry, consumer organizations, and academia" to make recommendations for improving food-borne illness surveillance.
According to the act, "Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law … may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act."

SEC. 305. CAREER-SPANNING TRAINING FOR FOOD INSPECTORS.

        (a) In General- The Administrator shall make a grant to an entity described in subsection (c) to provide training to Federal, State, and local food inspectors.

        (b) Use of Funds- The Administrator may make a grant under this section to an applicant only if the applicant agrees to use the grant to provide regular, standardized, graduated, career-spanning training, based on a curriculum developed by the Association of Food and Drug Officials, to Federal, State, and local food inspectors.

        (c) Eligible Entity- An entity described in this subsection is an entity that–


SEC. 405. CIVIL AND CRIMINAL PENALTIES.
(2) LIMITATION ON REVIEW- In a civil action under paragraph (1), the validity and appropriateness of the order of the Administrator assessing the civil penalty shall not be subject to judicial review.
That's a biggie, Not Subject to Judicial Review!
 

SEC. 406. PRESUMPTION.
In any action to enforce the requirements of the food safety law, the connection with interstate commerce required for jurisdiction shall be presumed to exist.


Committee on Energy and Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-2927

House Committee on Agriculture
1301 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202-225-2171
Fax: 202-225-8510

Email: agriculture@mail.house.gov

OR Contact these individuals personally:

* Tim Holden, PA, Vice Chairman
* Mike McIntyre, NC
* Leonard L. Boswell, IA
* Joe Baca, CA
* Dennis A. Cardoza, CA
* David Scott, GA
* Jim Marshall, GA
* Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, SD
* Henry Cuellar, TX
* Jim Costa, CA
* Brad Ellsworth, IN
* Timothy J. Walz, MN
* Steve Kagen, WI
* Kurt Schrader, OR
* Deborah L. Halvorson, IL
* Kathleen A. Dahlkemper, PA
* Eric J.J. Massa, NY
* Bobby Bright, AL
* Betsy Markey, CO
* Frank Kratovil, MD
* Mark H. Schauer, MI
* Larry Kissell, NC
* John Boccieri, OH
* Earl Pomeroy, ND
* Travis W. Childers, MS
* Walt Minnick, ID
* Bob Goodlatte, VA
* Jerry Moran, KS
* Timothy V. Johnson, IL
* Sam Graves, MO
* Mike Rogers, AL
* Steve King, IA
* Randy Neugebauer, TX
* K. Michael Conaway, TX
* Jeff Fortenberry, NE
* Jean Schmidt, OH
* Adrian Smith, NE
* Robert E. Latta, OH
* David P. Roe, TN
* Blaine Luetkemeyer, MO
* Glenn W. Thompson, PA
* Bill Cassidy, LA
* Cynthia Lummis, WY*

From Wired: The largest series of solar installations in history, more than 1,300 megawatts, is planned for the desert outside Los Angeles, according to a new deal between the utility Southern California Edison and solar power plant maker, BrightSource.
The momentous deal will deliver more electricity than even the largest nuclear plant, spread out among seven facilities, the first of which will start up in 2013. When fully operational, the companies say the facility will provide enough electricity to power 845,000 homes — more than exist in San Francisco — though estimates like that are notoriously squirrely.
The technology isn’t the familiar photovoltaics — the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity — but solar thermal power, which concentrates the sun’s rays to create steam in a boiler and spin a turbine.
“We do see solar as the large untapped resource, particularly in Southern California,” said Stuart Hemphill, vice president of renewable energy and power at Southern California Edison. “It’s barely tapped and we’re eager to see it expand in our portfolio.”
BrightSource is the reincarnation of Luz International, which built the only currently operating solar thermal facility during the 1980s in the Mojave Desert. After natural gas and energy prices plunged in 1985, that operation became unprofitable. The group’s engineers and founders moved the business to Israel, where they continued to work on their technology.
The new deal breaks the company’s own record for the largest ever solar deal. The new installations, when completed, will produce 3.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year. Previously, they’d cut a deal to deliver 900 megawatts of power to the Northern California utility, PG&E.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.
The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.
More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.
During that time corporate sales in the United States totaled $2.5 trillion, according to Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who requested the GAO study.
The report did not name any companies. The GAO said corporations escaped paying federal income taxes for a variety of reasons including operating losses, tax credits and an ability to use transactions within the company to shift income to low tax countries.
Dorgan in a statement called the report "a shocking indictment of the current tax system." Levin said it made clear that "too many corporations are using tax trickery to send their profits overseas and avoid paying their fair share in the United States."
The study showed about 28 percent of large foreign corporations, those with more than $250 million in assets, doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes in 2005 despite $372 billion in gross receipts, the senators said. About 25 percent of the largest U.S. companies paid no federal income taxes in 2005 despite $1.1 trillion in gross sales that year, they said.
(Reporting by Donna Smith, Editing by David Wiessler)

The Independant- Wildlife and people have been exposed to more than 100,000 new chemicals in recent years, and the European Commission has admitted that 99 per cent of them are not adequately regulated. There is not even proper safety information on 85 per cent of them. Many have been identified as “endocrine disrupters” – or gender-benders – because they interfere with hormones. These include phthalates, used in food wrapping, cosmetics and baby powders among other applications; flame retardants in furniture and electrical goods; PCBs, a now banned group of substances still widespread in food and the environment; and many pesticides. The report – published by the charity CHEMTrust and drawing on more than 250 scientific studies from around the world – concentrates mainly on wildlife, identifying effects in species ranging from the polar bears of the Arctic to the eland of the South African plains, and from whales in the depths of the oceans to high-flying falcons and eagles. It concludes: “Males of species from each of the main classes of vertebrate animals (including bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) have been affected by chemicals in the environment. “Feminisation of the males of numerous vertebrate species is now a widespread occurrence. All vertebrates have similar sex hormone receptors, which have been conserved in evolution. Therefore, observations in one species may serve to highlight pollution issues of concern for other vertebrates, including humans.”

The automotive industry was given fair warning in 1975 when congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act which required that auto manufacturers meet DOT Corporate Average Fuel Standards (CAFE) which set annual miles per gallon targets of 18 mpg by 1978 and 27.5 mpg by 1985. The automotive industry claimed that the American consumer, raised on $3 a barrel oil in the 60s, would not be willing to transition to smaller cars -- as if they'd have a choice with America being the only source thereof -- and, with the exception of Chrysler, failed to meet these standards and alternatively forced a relaxation of them claiming the costs of restructuring the industry to produce more fuel efficient vehicles were too high and would cost jobs.

Interestingly enough, the Japanese managed to capture almost 25% of the American automobile market by 1980, demonstrating good support for fuel efficient, smaller vehicles. By 1981, the market share for compact cars reached 50% while full sized and luxury cars only captured 20% of the market. This happened while Japanese trade restraints were still in place! Sales growth rates of American made cars continued to lag due to poor reliability ratings, according to Consumer Reports.

The British automotive industry suffered a similar fate in 1975 when competition from Japanese and German manufacturers, combined with a reputation for poor workmanship and a breakdown in labor relations brought them near to bankruptcy.

Overall fuel economy for both cars and light trucks in the U.S. market reached its highest level in 1987 at 26.2 mpg (8.98 L/100 km). By contrast, the average in 2007 had fallen to 20.6 mpg.

It seems a striking/alarming coincidence that several major GMO seed manufacturers have joined hands with the Gates foundation to create a doomsday seed vault while other GMO giants are promoting monstrosities like "Roundup Ready" crop seeds. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault located in a mountain near Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen in the remote Svalbard island group of Norway is constructed with meter thick steel reinforced concrete walls and double blast-proof doors, and will contain up to three million varieties of seeds from around the world, "so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future," according to the Norwegian government. While gene giants like Du Pont/Pioneer Hi-Bred and Syngenta join the Norwegian government and major sponsors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and CGIAR in funding the vault, Monsanto is busy promoting what is being called "Roundup Ready" seedstock touted to farmers as using Roundup as “the only weed control you’ll ever need.” According to University of California Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology J. B. Neilands, “the quantities of Roundup Monsanto is planning to apply to their proprietary Roundup Ready cultivars humbles the imagination.” The levels of Roundup used on Roundup Ready crops was noted to create Roundup residues in crops so greatly exceeding the allowable limits that the FDA tripled the allowable limits. Glossy brochures urging farmers to use Roundup Ready seedstock boast of "clean fields" - clean of anything but the chosen crop, and practically devoid of any other lifeforms - read dead soil.

In search of an answer to the enormous potential threat of losing the American domestic honeybee population in the near future, scientists have discovered that many of the bees studied were suffering an assortment of disorders, pointing towards a general weakening of the bees ability to fight-off disease. No definitive source has been named as the main cause for the bees weakened condition.

28 years after Popular Science Magazine featured this idea for creating "green power", Sea-Wave Generated Electricity is currently emerging as mega-serious investment. Two large-scale power plants are now proposed off the Mendocino Coast by two big players involved in the issue globally — Chevron and PG&E.
The milestone effort to responsibly determine jurisdiction over this vast resource has summoned such notables as activist George Reinhardt of Fort Bragg, and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which asserts that it is far better equipped to protect the interests of the ocean than a regulatory agency like FERC. PG&E's filing off Fort Bragg, and an application by Chevron for a wave energy plant off Mendocino represent legal claims to develop those waters.

1. Agency filing: PG&E
   Date filed: Feb. 27, 2007
   Buildout: 4 megawatts in first stage, up to 40 megawatts in second
   Study area: Off Fort Bragg and reaching north; an area 17 miles north to south by 4 miles wide, starting about one half mile offshore
2. Agency filing preliminary FERC permit application: Chevron California Renewables
   Date filed: July 2, 2007
   Buildout: 2 to 60 megawatts
   Study area: Off the town of Mendocino, north to Point Cabrillo, south to a point halfway between Little River and Albion, about one half mile from shore to 3 miles offshore.

According to the current popular scientific theory, winds create currents which cause an upwelling of nutrient-rich oxygen-poor water from a huge reservoir deep in the ocean. The increase in nutrients creates a rapid increase in plankton organisms whose dead then fall to the near ocean floor to be consumed by bacteria which further deplete the oxygen level during their metabolic processes. The dead zone process can be fueled by industrial agriculture pollutants such as animal wastes and fertilizers. The dead zone in Oregon is located between the towns of Newport and Florence, and is now 4 times the size it was when first detected in 2002 and involves an area of approximately 1,235 square miles. Another dead zone appears to exist between Kalaloch and Westport, Washington, with tribal fisheries noting massive fish die-offs on the beaches. Dead crabs are being reported on the beaches stretching between both zones. Oxygen levels in the Oregon dead zone have been measured by Oregon State University researchers. Their results showed oxygen levels as low as 0.55 milliliters per liter at 180 feet and 1 milliliter per liter at 45 feet deep. Levels below 1.4 milliliters per liter are considered hypoxic and deadly to many fish, crabs, and other marine organisms. According to a recent 4 year study of the world's oceans published in the journal Science, by 2050 there may be no fish, prawns, crabs, or other wild sea creatures left to eat. Other major dead zones include Chesapeake Bay which has a dead zone affecting approximately 40 percent of its mainstream, and the Gulf of Mexico which has a dead zone the size of the state of New Jersey.

At the 2007, 23rd Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exposition (EVS-23) in Anaheim, Calif., Exxon Mobil will unveiled a super-thin plastic sheeting the company says can improve the power, safety and reliability of lithium-ion batteries for use in automobiles.