Blogging About Critters Since 2007

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Farm Sanctuary Wary about Tom Vilsack for USDA

While the Humane Society was pretty happy with Vilsack as Obama's pick for the Department of Agriculture, the Farm Sanctuary is wary.

This is a December 18 post from Gene Bauer's blog pointing out some concerns about Vilsack. Bauer is the president and co-founder of the Farm Sanctuary.

Barack Obama has picked Tom Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa, to be the next Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). He’s certainly not the best choice; however, I think Vilsack may be a choice holding forth a reasonable hope of significant change. I’m glad that Obama didn’t select Charles Stenholm, a former Texas congressman with a long history of defending animal abuse, who had sought the position with support from the factory farming industry.

As Iowa’s Governor, Tom Vilsack took steps to protect animals, including vetoing a bill that allowed dove hunting. He has a mixed record on policies affecting industrialized agriculture. He vetoed a bill, which would have prevented Iowa from establishing stronger environmental standards for factory farms than the federal government, but he has also compromised with big agriculture, supporting weak environmental protections and genetically modified foods.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not really sure where Gene Baur gets off on criticizing anyone...he approved the killing of rats at Farm Sanctuary in 2004 when said rats were invading the chicken barns at night and attacking the chickens. He didn't take the humane road out of that situation...instead, he hired an extermination company to come to Farm Sanctuary and kill the rats. Hypocrite? YUP!

Anonymous said...

The Vilsack policies should be of concern. Also his history of lack of transparency and ethics are of greater concern.

Dixie Burkhart
Facts Don't Matter
www.eloquentbooks.com/FactsDontMatter.htm

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