Washington Insider - Friday

By DTN's Washington Insider

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

Great Lakes States Focus Greater Attention to Nutrient Pollution

The Great Lakes Commission wants to slash the amount of phosphorus flowing into Lake Erie, a nutrient that was the source of toxic algae outbreaks in August and the reason the city of Toledo, Ohio, lost its drinking water supply for two days this past summer.

The commission, which is appointed by the region's governors and legislatures to provide coordinated economic and environmental policies, this week said that it is seeking a 40% reduction of the lake's annual load of phosphorus. The 40% figure is the amount already targeted by the International Joint Commission, which oversees U.S. and Canadian boundary waters issues.

Phosphorus flowing into Lake Erie comes from many sources, including city sewage plants, industries and suburban lawns and streets. But the largest single source is by far runoff from farm fields.

Between the International Joint Commission, the Great Lakes Commission and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it is clear that the practices of farmers in the Great Lakes watershed will be coming under ever increasing governmental scrutiny.

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Feds Approve More LNG Export Projects

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent federal agency, continues to grant permits to energy companies to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) around the world. This week, it granted a permit to Dominion Resources Inc.'s Cove Point terminal in Maryland, the fourth export project to win permission and the first outside the Gulf of Mexico. Construction will cost between $3.4 billion and $3.8 billion, according to Dominion.

The good news for agricultural producers is that recent increases in U.S. natural gas production have sent prices tumbling 69% from their peak in 2008. In fact, natural gas output this year is projected to increase by 5.3% to an all-time high of 73.93 billion cubic feet per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The latest official three-month forecast for November, December and January that the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration released in September outlined the probability of a warmer-than-normal winter for both East and West Coast states as well as for all states bordering Canada.

On the other hand, unofficial weather forecasts for much of the eastern United States during the November 2014 through March 2015 period have indicated a colder-than-normal winter is on its way. Should the unofficial forecasts –– such as the ones from the Old Farmer's Almanac –– prove accurate, the cushion of a larger natural gas supply will be welcomed by consumers who just a few years saw their winter heating bills skyrocket.

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Washington Insider: What's In A Name?

Nobody really is satisfied with the food inspection system, it seems. Experts tend to give it reasonably high marks, especially for meats. However, they also warn that it is impossible to protect against all contaminants. Still, most people no longer think much about the basic conflict over who is responsible for various steps in the fight against food threats.

Traditionally, the federal and state systems were intended to do what could be done — and, not to overpromise — to sift out dangerous meat and poultry. They concentrated on eliminating meat from sick animals; contaminated carcasses and those with tumors or other traces of disease; and, insuring that slaughter facilities met sanitation standards.

Of course, everyone knew that some disease agents still found their way into meat products but Americans, in general, do not eat raw meat, so USDA and others attempted to educate homemakers to cook meat in order to kill contaminants that survived. For example, the trichinella spiralis is dangerous because it can burrow into the muscles of hogs and other livestock and can cause trichinosis — but is reliably killed by freezing or cooking at medium temperatures. Everybody did that.

In recent years, USDA has shifted to more sophisticated inspection methods including Hazard Analysis and Control policies that focus broadly on finding potential points of contamination and testing for and guarding against specific contaminants like salmonella bacteria. In addition, pressure is building to expand the search for a broader list of contaminants, but that that fight is becoming more complex as it attempts to target more threats.

For example, a consumer advocacy group is petitioning USDA to declare four strains of antibiotic-resistant salmonella "adulterants" in meat and poultry. The Center for Science in the Public Interest also wants USDA to outline sampling and testing protocols to monitor pathogens in raw products and recall those found to be adulterated from the food supply.

The group is reminding the public about "The Foster Farms outbreaks" and arguing that "USDA should be testing for antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella to keep contaminated foods out of grocery stores, just as it now can do for the most dangerous strains of E. coli." Antibiotic-resistant salmonella is no less dangerous, it argues.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest made this same request before but was rejected in May 2011. Since then, a multi-state outbreak of the Heidelberg ABR strain of salmonella was linked to chicken products from Foster Farms in California. The outbreak sickened 634 people and hospitalized about 240 between March 2013 and July 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

USDA told the press in July that most foodborne pathogens, including salmonella, are not considered adulterants because cooking meat and poultry products can destroy them. However, in 1994 USDA declared E. coli 0157:H7 an adulterant in ground beef. That meant that it is able to enforce mandatory recalls. In 2011, six additional groups of E. coli were declared adulterants.

USDA also requested additional evidence to support CSPI's claim that the four strains of ABR salmonella meet the legal definition of adulterant under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act. The agency says it will give the petition a full review and has made addressing salmonella a top priority, as outlined in its Salmonella Action Plan.

Part of that plan includes setting performance standards for chicken parts like breasts, thighs and wings increasingly linked to foodborne illness outbreaks like that at Foster Farms and which consumers buy more frequently than whole birds, which already have salmonella standards. The 2010 levels for whole birds require that no more than 7.5%, or 5 out of 51, test positive for salmonella. Standards for chicken parts are expected to be lower.

Advocates note that the designation of bacteria as adulterants has a legal purpose, too. In Supreme Beef Processors, Inc. v. USDA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the USDA does not have the authority to shut down a meat-processing plant that repeatedly failed tests for salmonella contamination.

So, USDA has several problems with its continuing fight against contaminated meat. First, the service is expensive. Meat inspection is the most intensive among food inspection services and Congress has never had the courage to require the inspection fees USDA has frequently requested.

Second, the staff inspectors are widely unionized and typically resist efforts to modernize with more sophisticated and often more capital intensive inspections, so program changes tend to be difficult to impose.

Third, the modern food movement is highly political and continually turns away from the old-fashioned efforts to teach consumers how to protect themselves. At the same time, the public increasingly believes that it is possible to prevent all the dangerous contaminants (it isn't) and that that government and other inspection services should do that.

So, the confusion over what is possible, affordable and effective in food inspection continues. Certainly, food inspection is the frontline of defense against foodborne illness and it should be supported and strengthened. It also needs better support from Congress, as well in the form of broader authority to close dirty plants.

Still, consumers need to know to play their part by taking effective steps to protect against contaminants that penetrate the formal food inspection systems, Washington Insider believes.

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