Obama and Vilsack Push For Conservation Compliance
The Obama Administration is ramping up efforts to link crop insurance subsidies with conservation requirements.
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Crop Insurance: A never-ending disaster
As the cost of crop insurance has ballooned – from less than $500 million a year in the 1990s to more than $14 billion in 2012[1] – the program's most ardent defenders keep repeating the same mantra...
Bipartisan Coalition Would Link Land Conservation to Farm Subsidies
Seven U.S. senators last week called for re-linking the federal crop insurance program to conservation compliance during a House-Senate conference committee meeting on the 2013 farm bill. The ranking...
Stop Unrestrained Antibiotic Use Before It’s Too Late
It's just common sense: If you're not sick, your doctor doesn't prescribe you medicine. Why should the animals we eat be treated any differently?
Programs to Reduce Ag’s Water Use Must Be Strengthened, Not Cut
Since it was first authorized in the 1996 farm bill, USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program has grown into the single most important federal program that helps farmers and ranchers protect...
Unlimited Subsidies, High Prices Threaten “Prairie Potholes”
High crop prices combined with unlimited insurance subsidies are contributing to the rapid loss of wetlands and prairie grasslands in the “prairie pothole” region of North and South Dakota, Montana...
Research
The PFAS and the Furious
Rob Bilott's Exposure is a real-life whodunit, a page-turning courtroom drama, a David-and-Goliath story of one man against an industrial colossus and a shocking exposé of America's utterly broken environmental policy. You should also take this book personally – because the “exposure” of the title is yours.
Expert Panel Confirms that Fragrance Ingredient Can Cause Cancer
Last month (July 28) a committee convened by the National Academy of Sciences confirmed a federal interagency group's conclusion that styrene, a chemical building block used to produce a wide variety...
Why Environmentalists (and Every American) Should Reject the House Farm Bill
The budget-busting farm bill approved Wednesday night (May 15) by the House Agriculture Committee and its leaders – Reps. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) – is nothing but bad news...
Reject Farm Bill Bait and Switch
Here's the bottom line: Both farm bills proposed this week (May 13) by the House and Senate Agriculture committees would cut funding for the hungry and the environment to help boost subsidies for the...
Research
Duke Energy’s Epic Fails: $11.6 Billion in Scrapped Projects Since 2013
In July, Duke Energy and Dominion Energy canceled the $8 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Six months earlier, Duke and three partners canceled the $1 billion Constitution Pipeline. These surprising decisions – made shortly after both ventures seemed assured of going forward – sent shock waves through the industry, with Dominion selling off much of its natural gas infrastructure, even as Duke
Where is the Scrutiny of Crop Insurance Fraud?
Minnesota Congressman Colin Peterson (D-Minn.) struck a nerve this month when he said that “there is five times as much fraud” in the federal crop insurance program as there is the Supplemental...
Lawmakers Could Look to Farm Bill for $100 Billion in Additional Budget Savings
EWG's Scott Faber joined representatives of several fiscally conservative organizations in calling on Congress not to slip a full farm bill reauthorization into any legislative package they cobble...
Crop Insurance: Bad for Taxpayers, Bad for the Environment
Unlimited crop insurance subsidies lead growers to make planting decisions that are bad for the environment, two of the nation's most respected agricultural economists conclude in a newly published...
The Audacity of Scope
Late Wednesday night, July 11, the House Agriculture Committee added an amendment by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) to the farm bill that would severely limit states' authority to regulate conditions or...
Insurance for Corn, Not Kids?
On the same day that the House will vote to end health insurance subsidies for low income Americans, the House Agriculture Committee will vote to increase crop insurance subsidies for the largest and...
Really?
The farm bill proposed yesterday by House Agriculture Committee leaders would cut funds for nutrition programs and the environment to help finance new price and revenue guarantees and increase...
Crop Insurance Subsidy Double Speak
When the government allows oil and gas companies to avoid paying taxes, lawmakers call it a “subsidy.” But when the government pays 62 percent of the cost of obtaining crop insurance, it's called a...
Subsidy Buffet for Agribiz, Table Scraps for Good Food
The farm bill draft released by the Senate Agriculture Committee last week (April 20) falls far short of providing farm and food policies Americans want. In a national poll last year, 78 percent said...
Local Food and The Farm Bill: Small Investments, Big Returns
For too long, funding provided by the United States' most far-reaching food and farm legislation has primarily benefited agri-business and large scale industrial-scale commodity farms that aren't...
Farm Subsidy Research and Analysis
Since 1995 U.S. taxpayers have sent $194 billion in subsidies to farmers including $5 billion per year in fixed direct payments paid regardless of need or crop price. Below is a list of recent EWG...
FRAC Act Re-introduced to Senate
Amid widespread fears that the boom in “fracking” for natural gas poses a growing array of environmental threats, some members of Congress are making a new effort to reverse a 2005 law that exempted...
The Flip-flopper’s Guide to “Fiscal Conservatism”
Under the best-case scenarios, crop insurance alone is expected to cost taxpayers $9 billion over the next 10 years. So who are the 48 Republicans who voted for this lavish taxpayer funded giveaway?
