On Earth Day, Green Party Calls for Increased State Action on Climate Change, Energy and Chemical Reform

(Aprill 22, 2009 - Earth Day, Albany, NY) The Green Party of New York State said today the Democratic leaders at the State Capitol and in DC still fail to support the radical measures needed to deal with climate change, energy and other key environmental issues.

“While the state budget passed this year provided some improvements such as an expanded Bottle Bill, they fall far short of resolving the fundamental problem of the unsustainable lifestyle of most New Yorkers. State lawmakers need to restructure how we travel; what we eat and where our food comes from; how and where we live; how much energy we use and what we get it from,” said co-chair Peter LaVenia

New Yorkers use twice as much energy per person as Europeans do and about 15 times more per person than in a developing country. We need to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency, but the most critical step is to reduce the amount of energy New Yorkers consume.

“Climate change is worsening at a much more rapid rate than scientists predicted even a few years ago. The Democrats in Albany and Washington have strengthened their rhetoric but not their action about climate change. We need to cut carbon emissions immediately, not slow their rate of increase. The proposals being pushed by Obama and Paterson might have helped if they have been implemented 15 years ago under Clinton but they fall far short of what is needed today. Carbon emissions are increasing, not decreasing, and climate change is accelerating. Climate change is by far the biggest threat to our national and international security and well-being,” said co-chair Eric Jones.

“If the governor and legislature are really serious about green jobs, then they should commit to move immediately towards de-carbonizing our economy, with a commitment to the extensive development of renewable solar and wind power throughout this state and off its shores. To halt suburban sprawl, urban-growth boundary limitations should be determined, and more energy efficient cities made both attractive and affordable for people to live where they work. Gasoline taxes should be increased to European levels,” added Secretary Gloria Mattera.

One short term step the Green Party supports is adoption of the proposal to energy retrofit one million homes (including apartments) in NYS within the next five years.

The Greens said that the cap-and-trade programs for carbon emissions that NY presently has (i.e., the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative) and President Obama is been proposing has failed to cut carbon emissions while providing billions of dollars of corporate welfare to polluters. The Greens want a firm cap on carbon emissions, including comprehensive carbon taxes on all inputs from carbon fuel. This would include a major hike in gasoline taxes. The tax proceeds would be used to provide financial relief to low and moderate income New Yorkers while providing billions in funding for green energy programs.

The Green Party also called upon state lawmakers to:

* protect the state’s water supplies;

* enact a permanent ban on the ecologically destructive hydro fracture extraction of gas from stone;

* shut down the state’s nuclear plants, starting with Indian Point.. Nuclear poweris not a solution to climate change and continues to have major environmental and financial problems. It should be excluded from the upcoming state energy master plan.

* prohibit the use of pesticides, especially in the food system. New York should implement the sustainable agriculture polices that the European Union adopted under the Green Party leadership.

* enact comprehensive chemical policy reform to reduce exposure to toxic and other chemicals that contributing to the alarming increase in the rate of cancer. Cancer will affect 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women in the United States, and the number of new cases of cancer is set to nearly double by the year 2050 according to the National Cancer Institute(NCI). When the Long Island Breast Cancer Coalition began in 1990, the cancer rate for women was one in nine. New York should provide national leadership on chemical policy reform, adopted a stronger version of the REACH program that the European Union that was developed through the leadership of the European Green Parties.

* make Zero Waste the focus of the state’s updated solid waste master plan. Zero waste encourages the redesign of resource-use systems to eliminate all waste. Zero waste extends current approaches to recycling by introducing the concept of circular systems in which as much waste as possible is reused, similar to the way that resources are reused in nature. (zerowaste.org)

The Green Party said that democratic reforms such as public campaign financing of elections and proportional representation are essential to a healthier planet.

39 years after the first Earth Day, so much remains to be done to create a sustainable society. It has been decades since Congress passed a major new piece of environmental legislation, and progress at the State Capitol hasn’t been much better. We have to stop the unique American practice of selling politicians to the highest bidder. Our entire political system is so rotten that it too should be replaced with something much more democratic and sustainable.

'Green Generation': Green Party events, news for Earth Day '09, with a focus on water‏

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org


'Green Generation': Green Party events and news for Earth Day 2009, with a focus on water

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Green leaders available to speak on environmental issues http://www.gp.org/speakers

• "The First 100 Days: What Would a Green Administration Look Like?" (video and text) http://www.gp.org/first100


WASHINGTON, DC -- On Earth Day 2009, the Green Party is promoting the theme of 'Green Generation,' with an emphasis on the party's current activities and its role in the past generation and the next generation. Earth Day falls on Wednesday, April 22.

A major focus of Green Generation is water, especially the growing threat to water supplies because of global warming, pollution, and privatization. In March, the National Committee of the Green Party of the United States passed a proposal (http://gp.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=380) that makes water a priority for the party at national, state, and local levels.

The proposal lists "guidelines to Green Party candidates and organizers to increase the visibility of water issues in Green campaigns and increase our ecological focus in electoral and political activities" and charges the Green Party's EcoAction Committee (http://www.gp.org/committees/ecoaction/index.php) with leadership on water issues. The many recommendations include:

• "development of local, renewable energy sources that minimize consumptive water use, destruction of watersheds and water pollution"

• measures to "prevent the usurpation of public rights through privatization of the water resource by multi-national corporations"

• "enforcement of indigenous treaties, paramount water rights for indigenous nations and the Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo regarding land and water rights"

• "legislation that promotes urban conservation, efficient agricultural use and the integration of land use with water supply"

• "legislation in Congress to fund public water planning and investments in upgrading and improving water infrastructure, levees and hazardous waste dumps"

The proposal's background section declares, "Water is the source of life. El agua es vida. The Green Party seeks to safeguard the well-being of future generations and restore ecological systems. Clean and available water is a critical priority which government can and must secure for all people. The threats to our waters are many, from depleted aquifers, to the pollution of surface waters, to the degradation of oceanic waters that have been treated as international waste dumps. There is no time, and no water, to waste."

The EcoAction Committee has published a brochure on water (http://www.gp.org/committees/ecoaction/documents/ecoAction%20Brochure_2.pdf). Contact for the proposal is Martin Zehr (415-337-5773, m_zehr@hotmail.com).


Green Party news and events related to Earth Day, Green Generation, and water:

• For Earth Day 2009, Los Angeles Greens will host a panel of speakers discussing water issues in California. "Water Justice and Preparing for Peak Water" will take place Wednesday, April 15, 7pm at the Peace Center, 8124 West Third Street in Los Angeles. The two guest speakers are Rev. Hannah Petrie, associate minister at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, who serves on a state-wide Unitarian Universalist water issues team; and Conner Everts of the Southern California Watershed Alliance and Desal Response Group (http://www.desalresponsegroup.org). More information: http://losangelesgreens.org

• San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi (Green) has been appointed to the California Coastal Commission. Mr. Mirkarimi was first elected in 2004.

• Gordon Clark, the 2008 candidate for Congress in Maryland (8th District) has started a group called Montgomery Victory Gardens, which will promote backyard and community gardens in Montgomery County. He is lining up support for the effort from groups like the Organic Consumers Association and the Grow It, Eat It program.

• On April 18, Jack Lindblad, Green candidate for the California Assembly (39th District) in the 2010 election (http://LindbladForAssembly.blogspot.com) will participate on a climate change panel at the University of Southern California (USC), on which he will discuss water issues.

• The Illinois Green Party (http://www.ilgp.org) has issued a public statement condemning legislative attempts to repeal the state's moratorium against new nuclear production (http://www.gp.org/press/pr-state.php?ID=197). State House Bill 875 and State Senate Bill 2162 would delete the provision in state law prohibiting the construction of new nuclear facilities until the nuclear waste storage issue is resolved.

• The Green Party of Pennsylvania (http://www.gpofpa.org) has called for the resignation of acting Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger (http://www.gpofpa.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=216&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0). Mr. Hanger recently claimed that the economic benefits of drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale were worth the "inevitable" environmental damage, including poisoning of some residents' water sources.

• The Green Party of the United States has endorsed International Seeds Day (http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=201 / http://www.INEAS.org/20090426_PR.pdf) on April 26, which will mark the fifth anniversary of the passage and signing of Order 81 by Paul Bremer, administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Order 81 makes Iraqi farmers dependent on powerful US agribusiness for their seeds.

• Green Party leader Nancy Allen, farmer and member of the Maine Green Independent Party, voiced concerns in a national Green Party press release about the "Food Safety Modernization Act" (HR 875 and S 425) and, while supporting the goal of food safety and farm inspections, urged amendments in the bill to protect small and family farms, farmers' markets, and organic farming (http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=199).

Other Earth Day events and news can be read at the Green Party's national web site (http://www.gp.org) and on state Green Party sites (index: http://www.gp.org/states.shtml).

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
• Tally of Green election victories http://www.gp.org/2008-elections/election-results.html
• Green candidate news http://www.gp.org/2008-elections/candidate-news.php
• Green candidate database for 2008 and other campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Green Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/2008-elections

"Think about what you can do on Earth Day"
By Wes Rolley, co-chair of the Green Party's EcoAction Committee, Morgan Hill Times (California), April 10, 2009
http://www.morganhilltimes.com/opinion/255193-think-about-what-you-can-do-on-earth-day

Water Planning: Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly http://www.waterassembly.org

Green Pages, Vol. 13, No. 1
The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog

Green Party of New York State Calls for Full Abolition of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, Legalization and End of War on Drugs

Green Party of New York State Calls for Full Abolition of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, Legalization and End of War on Drugs

Green Party of New York
http://www.gpny.org/

Contact:
Peter LaVenia chair2@gpny. org, 518-463-8653
Eric Jones, chair@gpny.org, 716-908-5226

The reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws proposed during the NY State budget negotiations is a welcome sign in the abolition of these exceedingly unjust laws, but does not go far enough, according to the New York State Green Party, whose 1998 gubernatorial candidate "Grandpa" Al Lewis was instrumental in helping publicize the Drop the Rock coalition in its early days. The party notes that although the proposed bill restores much judicial discretion in sentencing of drug-related offenses and displays a preference for treatment, it still ignores a good portion of the 12000 nonviolent drug offenders in New York prisons. It also does nothing to recognize that the so-called "War on Drugs" is a failed prohibitionist policy, and that the sensible option is to legalize, tax, and regulate drugs just like alcohol.

"The New York State legislature has a chance to chart a radically new course in U.S. drug policy, which would mean ending the war on drugs and legalizing them, and releasing all non-violent drug offenders in custody. This is recognized by the Green Party and groups as diverse as NORML and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). Instead it has decided to propose changes in sentencing procedures, which will do nothing to end the phony 'war.' This is an example of the Legislature and Governor Paterson patting themselves on the back for policies that are still badly misguided," said Gloria Mattera, secretary of the New York State Green Party.

"The proposals for which our legislators are lauding themselves would still oblige judges to impose jail terms on broad categories of non-violent offenders without any option of diverting them to treatment instead. Although estimates by the Correctional Association of NY show that up to 55% of current non-violent drug offenders might have been spared jail time with the reforms, that leaves at least 45% who would still be sent to prison. The Legislature and the Governor can do better than this," said Alice Green, executive director of the Center for Law and Justice in Albany, NY. "The 'war on drugs' disproportionately affects people of color. It's a fair assessment to say that the Rockefeller Drug Laws - all drug laws - are laws that contribute to the racism still endemic in our society. Black men are incarcerated at rates 6 times higher than whites, and Latino men 2 times higher than whites. Drug laws and enforcement targeting minority neighborhoods have led to this situation, and it's far past time to end it."

"Additionally, in this time of fiscal crisis, New York could use the tax revenue that legalized and state-regulated drugs would bring. Why aren't the Democrats in the Legislature bringing up a bill like California Legislator Tony Ammiano's, which would legalize and tax marijuana sales? Not only would legalization help alleviate New York's fiscal crisis, but ending arrests of nonviolent offenders and releasing those already imprisoned would be a blow at the phony moralism of the 'War on Drugs.' In a year where the governor proposed a tax on non-diet sodas and the Bottle Bill is set to pass, why not help New Yorkers shoulder the fiscal crisis by measures which simultaneously unburden them of unjust laws?" said David Doonan, the mayor of Greenwich, NY.

Wall Street Joural: Reverend Billy's Bailout One Street Preacher Makes the Case for Propping Up Community Banks

Wall Street Joural
By DAVID WEIDNER
WRITING ON THE WALL
APRIL 16, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123982723145222287.html

Video: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123982723145222287.html#articleTabs_video%26articleTabs%3Dvideo

Would Jesus take a bailout?

Confronted with the once-in-a-century opportunity to remake the financial system, the reformers in Washington have a choice: Succumb to the temptation of serving financial supermarkets or lift up community banks and street-level economies.

Enter Reverend Billy Talen, the New York-based street preacher, performer and activist who -- along with his flock, the Church of Life After Shopping -- believes government has a moral obligation to support communities before big banks.

"I've been trying to drive people out of their institutions," Reverend Billy says. "Their institutions aren't working."

It's hard to imagine Timothy Geithner taking advice from an iconoclast dressed in a white suit, clerical collar and Elvis-inspired hair, but the Reverend Billy may be on to something.

In place of a system where big banks and corporations enter neighborhoods only to profit from them, Reverend Billy wants to empower small banks and credit unions that hold a stake in the communities they serve by offering incentives and making it harder for big finance to undercut local business.

It's hard to argue against the system he envisions.

Think for a moment about what community finance could mean for the nation: Neighborhood banks would lend to local businesses. Profits could stay in the community.

Simply knowing who your customers are and living near them could bring common sense -- the most basic and sound form of risk management -- back to banking.

More

• MarketBeat: Reverend Billy's Divinely Inspired Market Call

Sure, it sounds kind of dreamy, but such systems are already in place in the neighborhoods large and small. Small businesses thrive, but they are often at the mercy of big banks who giveth and taketh credit according to shifts in economic cycles.

"The Wall Street experience is parallel and equal to the destruction of neighborhoods through chain stores," Reverend Billy says.

Basic economics are on the Reverend's side. For every dollar spent at a chain store, studies show only 50 cents stays in that community. By contrast, 90 cents of every dollar spent at a local business remains in the local economy.

"It's a little reductive, but people recognize there's a truth in it," Reverend Billy says. "Neighborhoods are economic powerhouses."

Despite his anticorporate stance, Reverend Billy, whose father is a small-town bank chairman, isn't bashing Wall Street right now. (However, he's previously led some disruptive and amusing protests against corporate retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Walt Disney Co.)

The painful fallout of the financial meltdown has led him and his followers to preach centered calm over rage.

"There's not a Puritan attitude about it, there's a practical attitude about it," Reverend Billy says. "People want to know what they can do for their friends and for themselves. We're trying to help each other; share money, share energy, share homes."

It's unlikely that sharing is on the business plan at Citigroup Inc. or Goldman Sachs Group Inc., companies that Reverend Billy excoriates in his sermons. He says the steel and mirrored-glass buildings that house major banks are designed hide what happens inside.

Though colorful, Reverend Billy is no longer a fringe figure. Since he began preaching on the street corners in Times Square a decade ago, Reverend Billy and his anticonsumerism message have gained mainstream attention, thanks in part to his book and a world tour with the church's 40-member choir.

"Preaching is the landscape between talking and singing," Reverend Billy says. "It's like finding a saxophone in your chest."

His breakthrough came in 2007 with the release of "What Would Jesus Buy?", a documentary about church efforts to promote a shopping-free Christmas.

This year, he's running for New York City mayor on the Green Party ticket, campaigning on a community-first platform. Candidate Billy wants to end the city's reliance on what industries susceptible to bubbles and busts: Tourism, Wall Street and real estate.

"Neighborhoods vulnerable to the bubble economies are the ones hurting right now," he says.

Let's be blunt. Scaling down the financial system and our economic lives is a tall order. And Reverend Billy, as much entertainer as clergyman, is an imperfect messenger. He's not a serious leader in the vein of Al Franken or Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Reverend Billy knows he faces long odds both in his mayoral run and his effort to change a system built around spending and credit speculation, but there are signs of hope. His audience was growing before the financial crisis, and things have only gained momentum since. Later this month, he'll speak at the Yale Divinity School.

"People qualify their report of pain by saying 'we're spending more time with our family and that's changing our lives,'" Reverend Billy says. "'Whatever we do next I'm not going back completely to the way I was doing things before,' they say."

The leaders we've chosen to undertake financial reform are threatening to take us back to where we were by propping up banks and companies that nearly brought down the economy and cost taxpayers trillions.

It's clear the bailout policies of the current and former administrations that the financial system of the future will closely resemble the one that gambled away our prosperity. Still, the current situation is not without hints of progress -- legislators want to limit banks' ability to raise interest rates, and this week, outcry from consumers and government officials forced Bank of America to ice plans to raise overdraft fees.

Maybe someone in Washington is getting religion after all.

Write to David Weidner at david.weidner@wsj.com

Greens to Obama: US must participate in Durban 2 international antiracism summit

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Thursday, April 16, 2009

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org


Green Party to Obama: US must participate in Durban 2 international antiracism summit

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Green leaders available to speak on international and human rights issues http://www.gp.org/speakers

• "The First 100 Days: What Would a Green Administration Look Like?" (video and text) http://www.gp.org/first100


WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders called US participation in the Durban Review Conference an imperative and called on President Obama to drop earlier plans to avoid the antiracism conference.

The Durban Review Conference ('Durban 2'), an international summit to review progress in the fight against racism since the first meeting in 2001 in Durban, South Africa, will take place from April 20 to 24, 2009, at the UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland (http://www.un.org/durbanreview2009/index.shtml).

2008 Green presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, who attended the first Durban meeting as a US Representative from Georgia, sent a message to President Obama expressing "great disappointment" over the Durban 2 pullout:

"Even the Bush Administration, under pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus, provided some funding for the United Nations effort and sent staff to support the Congressional delegation that attended the Conference.... I would encourage you to please reconsider this decision and not only attend the Conference, but also provide funding to ensure its success." ("Ruminations on President Obama's Tenure Thus Far and 'Acceptable Punditry,'" March 2, 2009, http://www.gp.org/cynthia/index.shtml)

Rosa Clemente, Green Vice Presidential candidate in 2008, also attended the 2001 Durban conference and sat on the Reparations Committee. The Green Party protested the Bush Administration's withdrawal from Durban 1 in 2001 (http://www.gp.org/press/pr_08_13_01.html).

"We are encouraged by recent reports that senior White House officials may be leaning in favor of participating in Durban 2," said Ms. Clemente (http://www.gp.org/speakers/tour-rosa.shtml), who was present in Durban 1 and witnessed the US pullout. ("U.S. leaning toward taking part in Durban 2 summit," Haaretz, April 12, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1078011.html)

"The election of an African American president has not erased racism within US borders. Enormous ethnic disparities remain in economics, opportunity, the justice and incarceration systems, the election system in many states, immigration policies, environmental policies such as the citing of toxic plants and dumps, and Native American land rights. We've also failed to address reparations for past injustices, from slavery to Jim Crow to mid 20th century Federal Housing Administration redlining that still suppresses the financial power of African Americans. President Obama can show he's serious about eliminating racism in the US and around the world by sending representatives to Durban 2," Ms. Clemente added.

Greens expressed concern over the removal of language addressing reparations, the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity, as well as paragraphs strengthening the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (UN Commission on Human Rights), from documents by the Durban review committee.

The most publicly discussed reason for avoidance of Durban 2 by the US and European nations is expected criticism of Israel for its brutal treatment of Palestinians in over 40 years of occupation, including the recent invasion of Gaza, and apartheid-style denial of human rights to non-Jewish Israeli citizens.

"The US refuses to hold Israel -- recipient of billions in US aid -- responsible for legally mandated inequality and segregation within its own borders and conquest of Palestinian lands based on a claim of ethnic and religious rights," said Justine McCabe, co-chair of the Green Party's International Committee (Speakers Bureau page: http://www.gp.org/speakers/detail.php?ID=35). "Because Democratic and Republican leaders are reluctant to stand up to AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobbies, American taxpayers' dollars are backing Israel's government and fueling its military operations. The same lobbies demand that the US boycott Durban 2. The Green Party rejects the idea that Israel possesses a special right never to be criticized or that such criticism is antisemitic."

The Green Party of the United States has endorsed the international call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions as a nonviolent strategy to exert economic pressure on Israel to end the occupation and guarantee full human rights, calling reversal of Israel's policies the only hope for peace and security for all Palestinians and Israelis (http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=192).

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
• Tally of Green election victories http://www.gp.org/2008-elections/election-results.html
• Green candidate news http://www.gp.org/2008-elections/candidate-news.php
• Green candidate database for 2008 and other campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Green Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/2008-elections

"Obama's Failure on International Human Rights and Racism"
By Vernellia Randall, Professor of Law, University of Dayton, March 21, 2009
http://academic.udayton.edu/Race/ObamaandRacism/Obama06.htm)

"US Posture Toward the Durban Review Conference and Participation in the UN Human Rights Council"
Press release, February 27, 2009, Robert Wood, Acting Department Spokesman, Office of the Spokesman, US Department of State
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/02/119892.htm

The 2001 Durban conference http://www.un.org/WCAR

Green Pages, Vol. 13, No. 1
The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog


~ END ~

Greens urge amendment to food safety bills, citing need to protect family farms and organic farming

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Monday, April 6, 2009

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org

Green Party Speakers Bureau: Green leaders available to speak on environmental policy http://www.gp.org/speakers

"The First 100 Days: What Would a Green Administration Look Like?" (video and text) http://www.gp.org/first100


WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders voiced concerns about the "Food Safety Modernization Act" (HR 875 and S 425) and, while supporting the goal of food safety and farm inspections, urged amendments in the bill to protect small and family farms, farmers' markets, and organic farming.

"America needs national food safety guarantees in the age of genetic modification, misleading labeling, food-borne illnesses and contaminants, especially pesticides. But the 'one size fits all' approach of the bills endangers family farms and local, organic agriculture. Without amendments, the result of HR 875 and S 425 may be the demise of small farms and organic agriculture, increased profits and the expansion of giant agri-businesses," said Nancy Allen, farmer and member of the Maine Green Independent Party.

"Rather than crushing protocols and penalties, we call for regulation that ensures food safety by working with family farms, farmers markets, and similar small businesses and promotes the selling of locally, organically, and sustainably grown produce," Ms. Allen added.

Greens noted that the bills do not address the problems of the large corporate farms: poor working conditions, limitations on fast marketing because of large quantities of produce, long-distance markets, overuse of chemicals, petroleum dependence, and lack of quality, nutrition, taste, and freshness.

Recent breakdowns in food safety have been the result of major corporate farming practices that fail to control pathogens, because of indequate regulatory oversight caused by the influence of agricultural monopolies on state and national agencies responsible for protecting consumers. Greens said that all farms should be held to strict standards and undergo inspections, but warned that the cost of paperwork and oversight protocols would be prohibitive to small farms and would ultimately harm consumers if small farms were subjected to the same requirements as huge agribusiness farms.

The Green Party's national platform advocates "legislation that assists new farmers and ranchers, that promotes widespread ownership to small and medium-sized farms and ranches, and that revitalizes and repopulates rural communities and promotes sustainable development and stewardship" (http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/ecology.html#753970).

For more information on the Food Safety bills and concerns about their effect on small farms, visit the Cornucopia Institute's web pages: "Farmers Fear Being Run over by Food Safety Juggernaut" (April 2, 2009) (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_17451.cfm); Action Alert: Critical Pending Food Safety Legislation (http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/03/action-alert-critical-pending-food-safety-legislation).

See also "Food Safety Hits the Fan: Regulatory Action, Inaction and Over-reaction and the Effects on Small Scale Growers" by Steve Gilman, Northeast Organic Farm Association - Interstate Council Policy Coordinator (http://www.nofa.org/policy/leafygreens.php).

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193

Tally of Green election victories http://www.gp.org/2008-elections/election-results.html
Green candidate news http://www.gp.org/2008-elections/candidate-news.php
Green candidate database for 2008 and other campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
Green Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/2008-elections

Green Pages, Vol. 13, No. 1
The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog