Meanwhile, only meager public resources have been invested smartly to build the kind of dynamic local food economies that support agricultural diversification and help link small- and mid-sized family farms to local and regional markets.

With the 2012 Farm Bill fast upon us, Congress has an opportunity to make smart, timely changes to help  fix our broken food and farm system by embracing a package of policy reforms outlined in the Local Farms, Food and Jobs bill. This legislation was recently introduced by Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and is co-sponsored by 63 representatives in the House and 9 in the Senate.

The Pingree-Brown bill includes a comprehensive package of cost-effective policy reforms that would boost farmers’ and ranchers’ incomes by helping them meet the growing demand for local and regional food.  The legislation also aims to make fresh, healthy and affordable food-especially fruits and vegetables- more accessible to consumers.  Given our nation’s costly epidemic of diet-related disease, small investments now that increase access and affordability of healthier food will save us billions of health-related dollars down the road.

Trends show people want fresh, healthy, local food

Demand for locally grown, sustainable food is growing in every corner of the country, with more than 100,000 growers now serving more than 160,000 outlets (pdf):

• In 2011, 7,175 farmers markets were open for business, more than double the number in 2002.
• An estimated 6000 Community Supported Agriculture programs are delivering food directly from the farm to consumers.
• More than 2,000 farm-to-school programs are up and running, a five-fold increase since 2004.
• More than 300 universities are involved with the Real Food Challenge and sourcing sustainable food locally.
• More than 360 hospitals have committed to sourcing more nutritious, locally grown food through the Healthy Food in Health Care pledge.
• The number of restaurants purchasing locally-grown food has skyrocketed; For the fourth year in a row, locally sourced food is the top restaurant food trend in 2012.
• More grocery stores are carrying food produced locally or from farms within the state–and labeling it for customers!

In 2008, the USDA valued this expanding market for local and regional foods at nearly $5 billion. The total will likely surpass $7 billion by the end of 2012, when the current farm bill expires.

This growth is particularly remarkable considering the tiny amounts of federal funding that have been invested in local and regional food system projects. Since 2008, funding has almost doubled but EWG estimates that still just a measly $100 million dollars of taxpayer money a year is being channeled to projects supporting increased local food production, distribution and consumption.

Compare that to roughly $12 billion in subsidies annually that go to industrial-scale growers of commodity crops who are enjoying record income year after year.

Farm Bill must help scale up local and regional food systems

While the recent expansion is impressive, local and regional food markets represented a mere two percent of gross farm sales in 2008. We desperately need the new investments and policy reforms outlined in the Pingree-Brown bill to help this burgeoning market grow and remove the many barriers farmers face in meeting existing demand from grocery stores, restaurants, schools, universities, hospitals and consumers. The Local Food bill has a  $100 million a year price tag, a small sum compared to its potential benefits.

The Local Farms, Food and Jobs bill will improve our broken food system by:

• Increasing support for local aggregation, processing and distribution so that farmers can more easily sell healthy food, including locally raised and processed meat, directly to schools, hospitals, stores and restaurants.

• Enabling schools to use more of their federal food funding to buy fresh, local foods. Public schools could opt to use up to 15 percent of their school lunch commodity dollars for buying foods from local farmers and ranchers, instead of through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nationalized commodity food program.

• Improving the diets of food stamp recipients and low-income seniors by making it easier for them to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets, community supported agriculture programs, and other direct food marketing services, putting more money in the pockets of local farmers and generating additional economic activity in nearby business districts.

• Diversifying and increasing the production of healthy and sustainable food by increasing funding for the Specialty Crop Block Grant program and increasing access to credit, crop insurance, and other support for organic producers, diversified operations, smaller-scale and beginning farmers.

Together, these modest but effective investments will yield important, much-needed economic benefits. Farms that sell locally through shorter supply chains often keep a higher portion of the retail dollar, increasing profitability and potential for expansion and job creation.

According to a recent USDA analysis, farmers producing for local markets generally provide 1.3 full time jobs compared to 0.9 for farmers who sell through traditional wholesale markets.  And local food farmers grow higher value crops that generate greater sales per acre—$590 per acre versus $304 for the average farm. Local food markets also provide a critical pathway for new businesses, with beginning farmers accounting for 48% of local West Coast food producers.

Tough road ahead

Despite proven economic and public health benefits, getting this bill through the House agriculture committee may be challenging, given the panel’s hostility to the “Know Your Farmer” Program, the USDA’s comprehensive local and regional food initiative.

Pingree’s bill presents both a major opportunity and challenge for the highly decentralized local food and farming movement to work together in a unified, focused way to transform its considerable success at the local level into the political power needed to win support in the House and Senate agriculture committees.

With the stakes as high as they are, we believe that local farmers and the more than 180 hundred organizations that have endorsed the bill are up to the challenge.

Originally published on EWG

Typically, passage of the Farm Bill occurs every five years and involves a lengthy process of hearings, constituent meetings, and (sad but true) many a high-priced meal on the tab of some lobbyist or other—followed by detailed negotiations between the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. It has also often been seen as an opportunity to—as one recent action alert put it—change the food system by supporting small farms, investing in rural economies, and “supporting more diversified farming and livestock systems, healthy food access, conservation, and research.”

The next reauthorization was not expected until late in 2012—if not 2013—but through an unexpected turn of events, it may be decided much faster, and with even less input from the good food movement than the last one.

And when I say faster, I mean at warp speed. Earlier this week, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the House and Senate Ag Committees suddenly announced that they would write the entire 2012 Farm Bill in the next two weeks.

This new Farm Bill will also be smaller, thanks to the deal cut to avoid a government default over the summer. In the wake of that agreement, Congress convened a “super committee” of House and Senate negotiators that’s required to come up with a plan by this Thanksgiving to cut $1.2 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. Of that total, $23 billion must come from the USDA budget—a number recently recommended by House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders. There is panic in the fields of Big Ag at such a drastic reduction in farm and food spending.

As well there should be: The prospect of a small group of negotiators who are not beholden to traditional farm interests working behind closed doors to slash farm spending might strike some as a sign that our long national industrial agriculture subsidy nightmare is over. But as Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and an advocate for farm subsidy reform, told me, it’s likely that we will get a “secret farm bill” with “no accountability” for those involved.

No one knows exactly how it will turn out. As one source close to the process said, “there are people betting on all” possible scenarios. But one thing is certain; negotiators are desperately trying to maintain the annual flow of $18 billion in subsidies to the largest farmers who produce commodity crops like corn, soy, and cotton. And while there will certainly be losers, you can count on the fact that there will also be winners.

This is reflected in the proposals currently circulating in Congress, specifically over a set of subsidies known as “direct payments.” Originally designed as a temporary means to get around World Trade Organization restrictions on government support of private industry, direct payments go to large farmers based on past farm yields and acreage. It’s the classic “cash the check whether you grow something or not” kind of subsidy that drives food reformers crazy. Direct payments have particularly benefited large-scale soy and cotton farmers from the South, and were thought to be facing the ax.

But as The New York Times reported, rather than pocketing the savings, farm state reps have proposed a new subsidy in its place—and it may not be much different from the old one. It’s known as a “shallow loss” subsidy, and it would protect commodity farmers from small drops in prices. You know, just to take the edge off.

And while direct payments cost $5 billion per year, if crop prices drop from current levels, the new “shallow loss” program could cost around $4 billion per year. No wonder ag economist (and admitted subsidies critic) Vincent Smith of Montana State University described the proposal as a “bait and switch” on NPR recently.

EWG’s Cook is concerned about another potential problem with the proposed new subsidy. With the current set of farm payments, groups can track exactly how much government support individual farmers receive (as EWG does with its Farm Subsidy Database). But with the “shallow loss” plan, says Cook, “the subsidy lobby” is creating a new “income-guarantee entitlement aimed at the biggest commercial operations” that will likely be “totally opaque to the public.” Which means no more tracking who gets how much.

In sum, the super committee process has caused what is often (by congressional standards) an orderly process to devolve into a legislative free-for-all. Whatever happens, the outcome is likely to be hidden by a fog of backroom deals and—this being Congress we’re talking about—bitter recrimination.

Adding to the uncertainty, there’s the very real possibility that the super committee will fail to come up with a deal. In that case, a set of cuts will be automatically triggered, which might leave agriculture subsides more or less intact (though the same may not be true of the USDA’s food safety system).

We already know that land and watershed conservation programs will face the worst cuts. And the House GOP wants to kill the small-farmer friendly “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative as well. It seems clear that Big Ag is embracing former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel’s advice not to let a good crisis go to waste by aiming a body blow at reform in general and sustainable agriculture in particular.

It’s hard not to be cynical about a process whereby powerful corporate interests divvy up taxpayer dollars like so much pirate’s booty. To switch (and mix) metaphors, Big Ag is circling the limos around its giant pile of cash and hoping for the best. If nothing else, the current farm subsidy “debate” is Exhibit A of the need for Americans to Occupy the Food System—though perhaps this big-time money grab can be read as a sign that Big Ag actually fears the growing Occupy Wall Street movement.

Meanwhile, the EWG, along with the NSAC, are asking people to call their representatives to try to head off the worst kind of deal. And while there’s no telling how this particularly nasty bit of sausage making will turn out, it’s a fair bet that only agribusiness will like the taste.

Call your senator or representative to ask for a Farm Bill that supports sustainable food and farming.

Originally published on Grist

The food safety bill, which stalled in the Senate after the House approved a similar bill in July 2009 and ultimately passed the upper chamber earlier this month, will most likely be considered attached to an omnibus spending bill that funds the federal government through September 2011.

The bill passed the House 212-206, with 35 Democrats joining Republicans to vote “no,” but must be re-approved by the Senate.  Though the upper chamber approved virtually the same measure, the bill was voided because it inadvertently contained a fee provision that is technically unconstitutional–Article 1 says revenue-raising provisions must originate in the House.

The constitutional snafu nearly derailed the legislation–which has struggled to gain attention amidst a busy legislative agenda–but now that the provision is attached to an all-or-nothing government spending bill, there’s a real chance that food safety reform will be approved before the end of the year.

The current continuing resolution to fund the government (the fiscal year ended in October with no new budget) is set to expire at midnight Friday.

“One thing we’ll need to do before we leave this year is fund the government because Democrats didn’t pass a single appropriations bill this year,” Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor in mid-November.  ”Now they’ll try to mop up in the 11th hour with an omnibus spending bill that covers all of it. This is one more sign they aren’t learning many lessons from the election.”

Though McConnell and other Republicans have been highly critical of any Democratic attempt to increase government spending, the omnibus bill is expected to garner enough support to pass the upper chamber.  Unlike the continuing resolution in the House, which largely freezes discretionary spending at $1.09 trillion, the Senate’s budget extension will likely be more ambitious.

Senate Democrats are hoping to substitute a “more detailed” $1.1 trillion discretionary budget that includes about $18 billion dollars in additional funding and earmarks.

Exactly how the Senate will handle this budget crisis, and how food safety will ride the wave, is not clear.

As Politico’s David Rogers put it last week, the normal appropriations process has failed more than usual this year:  ”Year-end budget crises have become almost routine in Washington, but the collapse of the process this year has reached a scale not seen before.”

Originally published on Food Safety News

“For a lot of us, this was a mortality check” said Justin Harding, 34, who’s often on call seven days a week as chief of staff for Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and frequently gets home from work after his kids have gone to sleep. “It’s causing us all to reflect and sort of check our own circumstances.”

Hill staffers say Nowakowski’s lifestyle mirrored much of their own. She smoked, she didn’t always eat well, and she often worked seven days a week.

A toxic combination, to be sure. Stressful jobs that require long hours are certainly unhealthy. But it’s only recently that you could add diabetes to the list of job-related illnesses:

After working on George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign in Michigan and enduring a lifestyle of horrible food and little sleep, Roe developed Type 1 diabetes [ed note: the reporter meant Type 2 since Type 1 doesn't "develop" in adults]. He knew he was getting ill, but he ignored the signs until he collapsed right after Bush’s Inauguration and nearly died. He was hospitalized for a week and barely avoided a diabetic coma.

Other Hill staffers have also developed diabetes and high blood pressure.

And there’s more:

One longtime Democratic committee staffer and former staff director, who asked not to be identified, got his wake-up moment when he crashed his car driving back to the Capitol after working until 5 a.m. the night before.

“I must’ve fallen asleep at the wheel,” the staffer said. “I banged the car into a curb and blew both tires.”

Soon afterward, he discovered he had developed high blood pressure and was battling diabetes. He later bowed out of his position, taking a lower-key spot on the committee.

Meanwhile, Rep. Joe Barton blamed his heart problems on “eating too many chicken-fried steaks.”

“In the long run, I’d say this lifestyle could certainly be detrimental to your health,” said Rep. Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-Pa.), a freshman who previously worked as a dietitian and spoke with POLITICO by phone from the Blue Dog retreat on Tuesday. “I’m sitting here watching them bring out trays of snacks: cheeses and sweets. We just ate lunch, which was huge. And before that, we had a very big breakfast. I can’t get over how much food they put in front of us.”

…Those who worked around the clock on last year’s stimulus package and, now, on the health care bill admit to getting the majority of their meals from the Capitol vending machines.

While Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved to upgrade the food choices in the House cafeterias, the value meal in Longworth still includes a fountain drink and choices like chicken wings, burritos and popcorn chicken salad.

The focus in the obesity epidemic is often on low-income communities and their food deserts and swamps. But for many farther up the income chain, the work environment is just as toxic. It’s not just Congressional workers who indulge in vending machine lunches, pastry and candy-strewn conference room spreads and bottomless cups of soda.

I can only hope that Capitol Hill denizens realize why addressing obesity and the associated problems in the food system requires going far beyond demands of personal responsibility and virtue. They would, I imagine, agree that they eat what’s available. And if it’s junk that’s available, that’s what they eat — they don’t have a choice. And as a result that junk makes them sick.

It’s an interesting experiment going on up there — how much more do they themselves have to suffer before they take steps to clean up their own food environment? And if they do act to protect themselves (or even if they don’t), one hopes they now see the value of fixing public school cafeterias if not the rest of American workplaces.

Originally published on Beyond Green

The Child Nutrition Act is up for reauthorization this fall, which means Congress will be debating whether it can afford to provide kids with food that benefits their health. This is a worthwhile time to examine the lunch that Congress eats everyday.

In March 2007, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi began a “Green the Capitol” initiative, aiming not only to transform the nation’s legislative buildings into more environmentally friendly landmarks but also to overhaul the House of Representatives’ cafeterias. Her efforts have led to the House cafeterias making the switch to more organic, local, and healthy offerings at lunch time. Typical fare on offer includes salad bars, stir fry, taqueria, paninis, sushi, and in the restaurants, more gourmet items, such as roast beef with mushrooms and glazed rockfish. These dishes have not replaced old favorites like pizza, fries, or chicken fingers, but even the classics have been revamped so as not to include trans fats, and the entire menu is geared towards being fresh, local, and sustainable.

Similar efforts were made in the Senate in 2008 by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was in charge of the committee that oversaw the funds that paid for the Senate cafeterias. Unlike the Senate eateries, which were, until recently, government-run, the House cafeterias have been privatized since the 1980s. Restaurant Associates of New York is the current House contractor and has been so efficient in catering to hungry House staffers that it has been able to turn an annual profit since 2003, with the most recent figure cited being $1.2 million. These profits are directed as commission to the House. For those who worry that taxpayers are footing the bill for these “elite foods,” Perry Plumart, deputy director of the House’s environmental effort, has been quoted as saying, “The cafeterias are not subsidized…In fact, we make money and Restaurant Associates makes money.”

This stands in stark contrast to the Senate cafeterias, which until recently ran with an annual deficit and were indeed subsidized by taxpayers. From 1993 to 2008, the Senate cafeterias received more than $18 million dollars in subsidies. Many blamed the poor revenue figures on bad food and on competition with special events that served food from outside caterers. Senator Feinstein herself noted that the food and service were “noticeably subpar.” Even though Senate staffers had to walk for twenty minutes to reach the House cafeterias, many were happy to make the trek for substantially better food. One article stated, “House staffers almost never cross the Capitol to eat in the Senate cafeterias,” showcasing the divide between the lunchrooms.

Last year, however, the Senate decided to pass somewhat contentious legislation that would privatize the Senate lunchrooms. It was slightly controversial because a few Senators opposed the changes based on the argument that privatization would squeeze the cafeteria’s labor force, stripping them of their government benefits and subjecting them to lower pay. Fortunately, the legislation that passed in June 2008 stipulates guarantees that Senate cafeteria workers be paid the same salary and retain their benefits. Restaurant Associates of New York – the contractor that caters to the House cafeteria – now caters to the Senate as well.

Still, the House cafeteria is ahead in the game. Admirable though it was to provide healthier alternatives to what was traditionally served in the cafeterias, many House eaters complained about the rising prices that followed the initial switch. As a result, the House cafeteria announced in June that it would offer a permanent House Value Meal for just $5. A typical meal is Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup with a 16oz fountain drink or 8oz milk.

In addition, the House cafeteria features another innovation: farmers markets’ on Wednesdays. Restaurant Associates began the program in May, which brings a few local farmers and their produce to the Longworth Cafeteria for staffers to buy. Since the program is pretty new, only a few farmers make the trek to Washington DC to sell their produce. But Restaurant Associates is working on attracting more farmers: the cafeteria offers to buy whatever the farmers don’t sell so that the trip is worth it for them and so that food doesn’t go to waste. It’s a really great initiative that customers of the cafeteria enjoy directly or indirectly and is in keeping with the spirit of the cafeterias to provide healthy and fresh food.

A few other recent changes of note are that the House and Senate cafeterias have banned the use of Styrofoam and plastic in all food service disposable items, and that all new disposables are compostable. Restaurant Associates has also begun initiatives to purchase more food from local farmers, to buy sustainable seafood, to eliminate trans-fats, to provide fair trade coffee and rBGH-free milk and generally to promote healthy food choices.

All of this means that thanks to the work of Speaker Pelosi and Senator Boxer, the food on Capitol Hill is precisely the kind of food that our kids should be eating at school everyday. Sadly, it’s not: right now, school cafeterias are so underfunded that they can’t afford to serve anything but the fast food and junk food that puts our kids at risk for obesity and diabetes. There’s no excuse for federal policy that hurts our kids. This fall, let’s tell our representatives to put their money where their mouths are.

Originally posted on Slow Food blog

In no-till systems, farmers plant directly into fields without plowing. One of the main reasons farmers plow is to control weeds. In a practice that has become known among critics as “chemical no-till,” farmers idle the the plow and rely on chemical herbicides for weed control.

…As a source of carbon sequestration, chemical no-till is a highly questionable practice. In a 2006 peer-reviewed paper [PDF] called “Tillage and soil carbon sequestration” what do we really know?,” a group of soil scientists led by John M. Baker of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service took a hard look at conventional no-till. They report: “Long-term, continuous gas exchange measurements have also been unable to detect C gain due to reduced tillage.” Translation: No-till doesn’t seem to sequester carbon. Their conclusion: “Though there are other good reasons to use conservation tillage, evidence that it promotes C sequestration is not compelling.” The report compelled climate expert and frequent Grist contributor Joe Romm to declare that no-till farming “does not save carbon and is not a carbon offset.”

So the USDA itself thinks the practice’s emissions impact is bogus. In fact, there’s even evidence that chemical no-till leads to increased carbon emissions through nitrous oxide outgassing from the synthetically fertilized fields. And who’s taking the lead in all this? Why our good friends at Monsanto, of course!

Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” seeds–genetically modified to withstand lashings of Monsanto’s herbicide glyphosate–have greatly facilitated chemical no-till in the Midwest: farmers can spray their fields with Roundup as needed, without affecting the crops. According to the Center for Food Safety [PDF], glyphosate use jumped 15-fold between between 1994 (when GMOs were first released) and 2005, generating a windfall in Roundup sales for Monsanto. Monsanto now clears more than $1 billion per year in profits from Roundup alone.

Monsanto has even created a new carbon-trading entity to take advantage of this glyphosate-fueled scheme. These guys don’t fool around.

The unfortunate thing is that there is a no-till technique out there whose carbon sequestration benefits have solid science behind it — the Rodale Institute’s “organic no-till” regime, which I wrote about some time ago with regards to saving bees. So, there’s hope right?

Nope. Because this is Congress we’re talking about. To paraphrase Frank Herbert (and apologies to all you Dune fans out there), “He who controls the committee, controls the universe.” And, the man you love to hate — House Ag Committee Chair Rep. Collin Peterson, is in charge of ag offsets hearings. Guess how many sustainable ag experts or farmers are testifying? Would you believe “zero”?

This is shades of the recent and under-reported harassment of single-payer advocates during recent health care reform hearings. Not only were they not invited, but when a group of nurses attended hearings wearing t-shirts advocating their single-payer positions, they were arrested and thrown in jail. No, I’m not making this up.

If Congress doesn’t hear the facts that apparently means they don’t exist. So much for the return of science to Washington, DC. When the truth hurts, it’s best to ignore it. And barring that, arrest it.

The legislation is set to increase the authority and funding of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and at yesterday’s markup, Democrats agreed to halve the registration fee all food producers (domestic and foreign) would have to pay from the proposed amount of $1,000 to $500. The $1,000 charge, which had been supported by new FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, would have generated an estimated $378 million—money Democratic lawmakers said would go toward increasing plant inspections and other food safety activities.

Also during markup, industry, which raised objections to fees in the past, will have a say through public hearings on how the FDA should spend the money. Democrats also agreed to ask the FDA to first study how the industry should maintain records, and the costs and benefits associated with it, reported the Wall Street Journal. “Serious, substantive progress has been made,” Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the Energy and Commerce Committee’s ranking Republican, told the Journal. Still, he said, Republicans will work to change some provisions of the legislation.

After years of an underfunded and overstretched agency and countless food safety lapses—including record recalls of contaminated spinach, peppers and peanut butter—the Act goes a long way by requiring high risk facilities to be inspected at least every 6-18 months (currently facilities are inspected once a decade on average); providing FDA with mandatory recall authority, which the agency currently lacks; and requiring electronic traceability systems that are able to track identified contaminated food back to its source.

Ami Gadhia, policy counsel for Consumers Union, said the bill gives FDA the authority it needs to help keep unsafe foods off store shelves and out of consumers’ homes. “We’re pleased that the bill is moving forward,” Gadhia said. “We would have preferred that the current bill contain a higher registration fee to provide more funding for FDA oversight, but we’re hopeful that the full committee will approve the bill soon without watering down the strong protections it provides consumers.”

Consumers Union is also asking lawmakers to consider making the bill stronger by adding a provision to require testing and reporting for contaminants to the FDA, the critical need for which was highlighted by the recent case of Peanut Corporation of America, which, in 12 different instances, found salmonella in its peanut butter and continued to ship deadly peanut products without being required to report known contamination.

With the fee issue now negotiated, hold on for a bumpy week of wrangling. As Tom Laskawy noted over at Grist, Big Meat has expressed their displeasure with the bill, especially with the potential for FDA regulation over meat and poultry, both of which are currently regulated by USDA. The American Meat Institute has also expressed concerned with the inspection schedule and the empowerment of FDA to mandate a recall and impose civil penalties

Most interestingly, the markup and vote on the Act take place just as Food, Inc., reviewed on this site here and here, opens this Friday in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco (it opens in other cities 6/19). In addition to exposing the underbelly of corporate agribusiness, the film takes aim at Big Ag for food safety failures, and brings these issues to the silver screen and, hopefully, to the American kitchen table.

This is your Act, so between now and next week, you can do a lot by calling on lawmakers on the Committee to maintain the strong provisions in the bill.

Here are the changes to the bill we would like to ask for:

1. Add a provision to the Food Safety Enhancement Act that requires mandatory testing for pathogens and reporting of results.
2. Please take care to ensure that the bill does not harm or over-burden small farms and businesses.
3. Please add Rep. Markey’s Ban Poisonous Additives Act as an amendment to the bill (which would ban BPA in containers).
4. Please vote for the bill!

More info on the representatives involved in the mark-up:

Probable Votes FOR The Bill – target these guys to get the improvements we want added to the bill TODAY

1. John Dingell, D-MI (sponsor) (202) 225-4071
2. Frank Pallone, D-NJ (co-sponsor) (202) 225-4671
3. Diana DeGette, D-CO (co-sponsor) (202) 225-4431
4. Betty Sutton, D-OH (co-sponsor) (202) 225-3401
5. Henry A. Waxman, D-CA (co-sponsor) (202) 225-3976
6. Lois Capps, D-CA
7. Jan Schakowsky, D-IL
8. Tammy Baldwin, D-WI
9. Anna Eshoo, D-CA
10. Jane Harman, D-CA
11. Christopher S. Murphy, D-CT
12. Kathy Castor, D-FL
13. Bruce L. Braley, D-IA

Probable Votes AGAINST the bill – Don’t bother with these guys

1. Nathan Deal, R-GA
2. Ed Whitfield, R-KY
3. John Shimkus, R-IL
4. Steve Buyer, R-IN
5. Tim Murphy, R-PA
6. Michael C. Burgess, R-TX
7. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN
8. Mike Rogers, R-MI
9. Gene Green, D-TX (worried it will hurt his district’s port)

Unknowns (we need 7 of these people to vote for the bill to pass it out of sub-committee)

1. Bart Gordon, D-TN
2. Eliot L. Engel, D-NY
3. Mike Ross, D-AR
4. Anthony D. Weiner, D-NY
5. Jim Matheson, D-UT
6. Charles A. Gonzalez, D-TX
7. John Barrow, D-GA
8. John P. Sarbanes, D-MD
9. Zachary T. Space, D-OH
10. Ralph M. Hall, R-TX
11. John B. Shadegg, R-AZ
12. Roy Blunt, R-MO – wife is Kraft lobbyist
13. Joseph R. Pitts, R-PA
14. Sue Wilkins Myrick, R-NC
15. Phil Gingrey, R-GA
16. Joe Barton, R-TX

The representatives listed above are on the subcommittee. The following representatives are on the House Energy & Commerce Committee but not on the Subcommittee on Health.

Democrats
Edward J. Markey, MA
Rick Boucher, VA
Bobby L. Rush, IL
Bart Stupak, MI
Mike Doyle, PA
Jay Inslee, WA
Mike Ross, AR
G.K. Butterfield, NC
Charlie Melancon, LA
Baron P. Hill, IN
Doris O. Matsui, CA
Jerry McNerney, CA
Peter Welch, VT

Republicans
Fred Upton, MI
Cliff Stearns, FL
George Radanovich, CA
Mary Bono Mack, CA
Greg Walden, OR
Lee Terry, NE
John Sullivan, OK
Steve Scalise, LA

We need a total of 28 votes on the committee to get this thing passed out of committee.

*Hat tip to Jill Richardson, who has a new book coming out soon that you should buy!