Agricultural producers in the United States receive billions of dollars in federal subsidies, crop insurance, conservation payments, and other grants. Defying fundamental principles of transparency and openness in a democracy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is authorized to keep secret much of the basic information that farmers provide to qualify for this public funding. Congress granted this unprecedented loophole in the nation’s sunshine laws by inserting section 1619 into the 2002 Farm Bill and later amending it in the 2008 Farm Bill. This section provides an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that covers the information farmers give USDA about their properties. Farmers submit their business names and locations, geographic coordinates, types of crop produced and animals raised, and farming practices (such as irrigation practices and fertilizer or pesticide use) and are assured secrecy: federal, state, and local governments cannot generally access the information, much less anyone in the private sector.
Because this basic information is kept secret, watchdog groups cannot determine whether federal funds are warranted or whether farmers are using it correctly. Agencies enforcing health, safety, and environmental laws are denied data that would make their routine oversight of the industry’s compliance efficient and effective. The result is that the taxpaying public pays repeatedly to support agricultural production: once when the original grant or subsidy is paid (and possibly misused), again to support the efforts of other federal agencies to re-create the data that USDA already has, and again when enforcement efforts fail and agricultural pollution contaminates the soil, water, and air.
Today CPR releases a new briefing paper, Going Dark Down on the Farm: How Legalized Secrecy Gives Agribusiness a Federally Funded Free Ride, identifying the problem of agricultural secrecy and its repercussions for transparency, public health, and the environment. CPR President Rena Steinzor and I contend in the paper that shielding USDA programs from independent evaluation is a policy that simply is not justifiable because it costs the taxpayer much more money than it should. In an era when budgets are tight, the economy is troubled, and the environment is in jeopardy, the public has a right to know how public funding is being spent and whether that investment is protecting public health and the environment as intended.
Unfortunately, the language from Section 1619 has been retained in the Senate-passed version of the 2012 Farm Bill, as well as the version passed by the House Agriculture Committee. The Senate version expands information-sharing to a state agency, political subdivision, or local government agency that “is charged with implementing an agriculture or conservation program under State law.” That’s a small bit of progress, but not what’s needed: Congress should repeal Section 1619 in entirety.
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Yee Huang | September 14, 2012
Agricultural producers in the United States receive billions of dollars in federal subsidies, crop insurance, conservation payments, and other grants. Defying fundamental principles of transparency and openness in a democracy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is authorized to keep secret much of the basic information that farmers provide to qualify for this public funding. […]
Rena Steinzor | September 14, 2012
If cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is really part of the furniture, you wouldn’t think recently departed OIRA Administrator Cass Sunstein would need to dedicate a column to convincing us it’s so. But there it is, and though Sunstein is now but a private citizen like the rest of us, the claims merit a response. We’re told […]
Emily Hammond | September 13, 2012
The proposed Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act, S. 3468, is a troubling idea. As Rena Steinzor explained here when the bill was introduced, it would authorize the President to bring independent agencies under the purview of OIRA. This proposal is worrisome given the persistent flaws inherent in OIRA’s cost-benefit approach; extending the reach of a […]
Ben Somberg | September 12, 2012
Former President Bill Clinton, campaigning for President Obama in Florida on Tuesday, the 9/11 anniversary, offered a passionate defense of government employees, the AP noted. I was curious about the whole quote, so I watched and wrote it out (via C-SPAN, at 34:55): On this day, of all days, we should know that there are […]
Mary Jane Angelo | September 7, 2012
a(broad) perspective Today’s post is the seventh in a series on a recent CPR white paper, Reclaiming Global Environmental Leadership: Why the United States Should Ratify Ten Pending Environmental Treaties. Each month, this series will discuss one of these treaties. Previous posts are here. Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are toxic substances that remain in the […]
| September 6, 2012
When Barack Obama took office, reform of U.S. chemical regulation appeared to be an area of some bipartisan agreement, especially when compared to climate change, where it was clear a contentious fight would loom on Capitol Hill. Prominent Members of Congress had called for reform of the outdated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976, […]
Ben Somberg | September 6, 2012
Mitt Romney added a new twist Tuesday to false right-wing claims about the EPA’s regulation limiting mercury and other pollutants from coal power plants. EPA estimated that the “utility MACT” will have annual monetized benefits of $37-90 billion and costs of $9.6 billion. A critique we’ve heard over and over again from the industry and its supporters […]
Daniel Farber | September 5, 2012
Ben Somberg posted here recently about the Republican platform and the environment. He noted that the platform uses a discredited estimate of regulatory costs, calls for making environmental regulations into guidance documents for industry, and proposes a moratorium on new regulations for the indefinite future. Unfortunately, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. If you can […]
David Driesen | August 30, 2012
Reposted from RegBlog. Traditionally, the field of law and economics has treated government regulation as if it were a mere transaction. This microeconomic approach to law assumes that government regulators should aim to make their decisions efficient by seeking to equate costs and benefits at the margin. As I argue in a new book, The Economic […]