Washington Insider-- Tuesday

By DTN's Washington Insider

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

Omnibus Spending Bill Directs Dieticians to Keep Hands Off Agricultural Production Practices

The government-appointed group of top nutrition experts assigned to lay the scientific groundwork for a new version of the nation's dietary guidelines has been directed by Congress to back away from its reported plans to address farm production and environmental practices when it makes its dietary recommendations to the Obama administration.

The omnibus appropriations bill that gained final congressional approval last Saturday night includes a list of "congressional directives," one of which expresses concern that the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee "is showing an interest in incorporating agriculture production practices and environmental factors" into its recommendations, and directs the Obama administration to ignore such factors in the next revision of the guidelines, which is due out next year.

According to media reports, the dietary guidelines panel decided earlier this year to collect data on the environmental implication of different food choices as it prepared to write its new recommendations. The main criticism of this approach is that most dieticians and nutritionists lack the expertise to address issues involving production techniques used in commercial agriculture. Coming in a close second is the observation that there is no empirical evidence that links farming production practices to the nutritional value of the products produced. The guidelines panel is meeting this week, and may choose to respond to the concerns raised by Congress.

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FDA Prepares Final Rules to Implement Food Safety Modernization Act

In January 2011, President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), a law that was touted as the most sweeping reform of U.S. food safety laws in more than 70 years. Earlier this year, U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed a number of regulations intended to carry out the wishes of Congress when it wrote FSMA, and the public comment period regarding those proposals closed Monday. FDA is now evaluating the views it received.

Among other things, the law aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus from responding to contamination to preventing it. Accordingly, FDA's proposed rules are intended to carry out this directive, but in so doing, the agency has ruffled many feathers.

The trade association that represents fruit and vegetable growers has been especially critical of FDA's proposals regarding safety rules for these crops. Among other things, FDA's proposed FSMA rules appear at odds with sections of another FDA regulation, the "Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Food for Humans," also known as the preventive controls rule.

It is expected that FDA will work out any internal contradictions in its various food safety rules before issuing its final FSMA regulations. Food safety advocates are hoping that process will not take another four years.

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Washington Insider: Climate Change Accord

The press has widely reported a new "Peru Accord" on climate change that was reached early Sunday morning after a marathon session. The deal was made by top officials from nearly 200 nations and although it remains quite general for now, is being touted by participants as offering the possibility that every country in the world will actually work to reduce fossil fuel emissions that worsen global warming.

The deal was seen as a breakthrough in a two-decade long effort, and is the first time that all the nations, developed and developing alike, have agreed to cut back on the use of oil, gas and coal. However, the agreement still includes few specifics and no teeth, and it is far from clear how well it will work.

If that sounds shaky, it is, since enforcement depends on global promises and peer pressure. The idea is that over the coming months each country will put forward a plan to reduce its emissions and spell out the laws and policies necessary to meet its specific goals. The key question is: what if they don't? Or what if the plan's targets are too low to offset changes now expected? Those questions were left unanswered, at least for now.

This step-by-step strategy reflected a conscious decision by the delegates to get agreement from everyone. Separate national plans will be developed by next March designed to address both the specific targets for cuts after 2020 and the domestic policies that will be needed.

Oddly, the delegates agreed countries that miss the March deadline will not be penalized, but will be allowed to present their plans by June. Then the "Intended Nationally Determined Contributions" will provide the basis for a sweeping new deal to be signed in Paris in 2015. At least that is the current hope.

Critics of the accord have been quick to weigh in, worrying that since there are no specifics that guarantee the significant cuts needed to stave off global warming, countries may find it politically attractive to offer weak plans that amount to little more than business as usual. Countries can even choose to ignore the deal and submit no plan at all. In fact, "if a country doesn't submit a plan, there will be no punishment, no fine, no black U.N. helicopters showing up," said Jennifer Morgan, an expert on climate negotiations with the World Resources Institute, a research organization.

Instead, the architects of the plan, including top White House officials, say they hope that the agreement will compel countries to act to avoid international condemnation. "It relies on a lot of peer pressure," Morgan said. Press reports call this approach a "name-and-shame" plan with plans submitted are to be posted on a United Nations website and made available to the public.

Even the proposed requirement for the use of identical metrics to allow ready comparisons among plans was deleted from the accord because of the objection of developing nations. But observers suggest there will be plenty of groups working to crunch the numbers and make appropriate comparisons. "We see the sunlight as one of the most important parts of this," Todd Stern, the Obama administration's senior climate-change negotiator, told the press.

Whether such soft approaches will succeed in stimulating significant emissions cuts remains to be seen and certainly seems to involve a great deal of wishful thinking at this point. The United Nation's climate deal negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 included widespread efforts by European nations, Russia and developing countries in general, as well as the United States, to avoid any commitment beyond that of trading partners, or others. Hard numbers were used some, but were widely ignored. Shame did not seem much of a factor.

Will that approach work now? We will see. The facts seem worse now, and some developing countries that were the most reluctant before now seem committed, along with more developed countries.

The accord's sensitivity to everyone may help since it seems that increasing numbers of participants now agree that the stakes are high and a fair approach can be worked out. Still, it is clear that the fight against climate change still has a long way to go before it can be expected to make an important difference. The initial steps will be very important and should be watched carefully as they emerge, Washington Insider believes.

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(GH/CZ)

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