Aug 21, 2008: Your Fight the Right-Wackos Links

** Food and Water Watch **

This has been the year of meat recalls. It seems like every time you turn around more ground beef is contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. USDA officials have started to talk about a plan to combat E.Coli by irradiating beef carcasses before they are processed.

More reasonable solutions to the E. Coli problem are increasing meat inspections to make sure contamination doesn't happen in the first place, and testing to make sure contaminated meat doesn't leave the plant. However, the beef industry quickly protested when USDA officials recently announced a plan to expand their inspection of E. coli O157:H7.

Irradiation is a band-aid solution for dirty meat, and could be harmful to your health. Food producers need to address the source of the problem - processing lines that are too fast and dirty conditions at plants - not promote an expensive, impractical and ineffective technology like irradiation. Irradiating meat forms chemicals known or suspected to cause cancer and birth defects.

Worst of all, the irradiated carcasses would be further processed, and wouldn't have to be labeled as irradiated, leaving consumers in the dark.

Take action now to tell Secretary Schafer that irradiating beef carcasses is not a solution to E. Coli:
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** Center for Biological Diversity **

Plan Announced to Erase 35 Years of Endangered Species Protection

This week, political hack Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the Interior, announced devastating changes to the Endangered Species Act, signaling the end of protection for thousands of imperiled species.

The new regulations would:

- Exempt thousands of federal activities from review under the Endangered Species Act;
- Eliminate checks and balances of independent oversight;
- Limit which effects can be considered harmful;
- Prevent consideration of a project's contribution to global warming;
- Set an inadequate 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project in the instances when they are invited to participate -- or else the project gets an automatic green light;
- Enable large-scale projects to go unreviewed by dividing them into hundreds of small projects.

In addition, last week Kempthorne and Bush tried to slip another proposed rule change under the radar that would limit protection of a species only to where it is currently found.

The Center for Biological Diversity is rallying an immense surge of opposition to prevent these changes from taking effect.

Tell Secretary Kempthorne what you think of his plans to pillage the Endangered Species Act.