WTF Obama! Get Big Ag Players Out of Government

The fact that there's a revolving door between government and industry will come as news to no one. What is surprising (though hardly, says the cynical devil on my shoulder) is that President Obama continues to spin it around.

What ever happened to "No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years" (as stated in Obama's ethics rules)?

Whatever happened to "We'll tell ConAgra that it's not the Department of Agribusiness. It's the Department of Agriculture. We're going to put the people's interests ahead of the special interests" (speech to the Iowa Farmers Union, November 2007)?

Well, he's whistling a different tune now. The administration has recently nominated two big-ag insiders to do things "directly and substantially related to their former employers":

• Islam Siddiqui — Now: VP of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife, an industry group for crop science and pesticides. Nominated for: U.S. Chief Agricultural Negotiator, a critical position that puts him in place to push chemical pesticides and biotechnology on other nations.
• Roger Beachy — Then: founding President of the Danforth Plant Science Center, a nonprofit research center heavily funded by Monsanto and with the CEO of Monsanto on its Board of Trustees. Now: director of the USDA’s newly created National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), an office with a $500 million budget to shape U.S. agricultural research.

Oh, Obama, some of us had such faith in you, but it looks like it's politics as usual. (Except, of course, for the fact that the US Congress might well actually confirm someone named "Islam" for something, which is the delicious, delicious irony of this whole sordid affair.)

Around and around the revolving door goes, where it stops, no one knows.

On the bright side, he has brought the other side along some too with the appointment of organic ag advocate Kathleen Merrigan as deputy secretary of the USDA. Unfortunately she has to work under another big-ag acolyte, former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, who was named "governor of the year" by the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Grist food editor Tom Philpott writes that pairing the likes of Siddiqui and Beachy with Merrigan in the administration has left him with "a kind of policy whiplash." The reason, he conjectures, is that

"Obama likes cutting-edge ideas. You look at the ag landscape, and you see two distinct areas with great innovation, energy, and movement: biotech and organic/sustainable. So he’s coming out strong behind both camps, and plans to sit back and see which one develops the best ideas."

But how, exactly, is pitting one organic booster against three (and likely more) big-ag champions "coming out strong behind both camps"? Philpott does go on to say that the big-ag side of things has massive advantages — more money, dominant roles in university research, government-industry cronyism, intellectual property rights, the list goes on — so that "if Obama is setting up a kind of contest between the two camps, the game is rigged in advance."

Indeed, in this wildly uneven atmosphere, Obama's support of Merrigan seems less like "coming out strong" and more like throwing a bone to the organic crowd. Too bad Michelle isn't making policy.

ACT NOW: Siddiqui has yet to be confirmed, though his nomination hearings occurred earlier this month (here's a PDF of his statement). Sign the petition sponsored by the Pesticide Action Network North America and call your Senators to let our leaders know this is not the man for the job.

Photo courtesy of Dan4th via flickr