by Frank James

The just-passed farm bill, which is valued at $290 billion to $307 billion, depending on who's counting, is taking some heavy flak from the city slickers who comprise the editorial pages of some of the nation's largest newspapers. The biggest complaint? it subsidizes wealthy farmers and contains all kinds of goodies for the well-connected.

This is from the Washington Post:

The farm bill is the epitome of old-style Washington politics. A small number of farm-state senators from both parties demanded its most wasteful provisions, such as guaranteed payments to big cotton and rice growers and "disaster relief" for farmers in arid areas. These members of the less-representative body leveraged their right to filibuster into billions of dollars for people who are better off than the average taxpayer. The bill includes only the most tepid reforms, which, though trumpeted by the bill's advocates, deny benefits to only a tiny handful of farms.

This is from the Chicago Tribune:

Farmers are enjoying record high prices for crops. Farm income has risen 56 percent over the last two years.

Crop prices have been rising much faster than gasoline prices. (A gallon of unleaded gas in Chicago costs 35 percent more than it did two years ago.) High gas prices and record oil earnings prompted Capitol Hill hearings on price gouging and bills to limit oil industry tax breaks.

On April 23, 2008, a motorist fuels up at a San Mateo, Calif. gas station. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, file)

by Matthew Hay Brown

House Democrats are concluding their gas price-themed by calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate gasoline prices for possible market manipulation.

In a letter today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and other senior Democrats called on Commission William E. Kovacic to exercise new investigative authority granted by Congress in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

"Congress provided this authority to the FTC four months ago - but to date, the FTC has failed to exercise its power to protect consumers from skyrocketing energy costs," they wrote. "Recent price volatility and investor speculation in the oil market require the diligent oversight Congress called for, especially when oil prices break records daily."

On Thursday, Pelosi urged President Bush to stop suspend deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. She also has called on Bush and congressional Republicans to work with Democrats to pass legislation to crack down on gasoline price gouging, hold OPEC accountable for price fixing and end tax breaks for oil companies and invest the savings in renewable energy.

The letter follows.

by Frank James

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is testifying to the House Budget Committee at this hour.

Here's the money quote from his prepared statement which he essentially read word for word.

To be useful, a fiscal stimulus package should be implemented quickly and structured so that its effects on aggregate spending are felt as much as possible within the next twelve months or so. Stimulus that comes too late will not help support economic activity in the near term, and it could be actively destabilizing if it comes at a time when growth is already improving. Thus, fiscal measures that involve long lead times or result in additional economic activity only over a protracted period, whatever their intrinsic merits might be, will not provide stimulus when it is most needed. Any fiscal package should also be efficient, in the sense of maximizing the amount of near-term stimulus per dollar of increased federal expenditure or lost revenue. Finally, any program should be explicitly temporary, both to avoid unwanted stimulus beyond the near-term horizon and, importantly, to preclude an increase in the federal government's structural budget deficit.

What he's basically calling for is for the federal government to take steps to quickly put money in taxpayers' and consumers' pockets. That will have the biggest bang for the buck. He didn't say this but such steps could include a tax rebate to give taxpayer a few extra hundred dollars. Or it might include an extension of unemployment benefits.

By William Neikirk

Nancy Nord, embattled head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, came up with an unusual defense today for accepting free trips from the industry she regulates.

Her agency's budget is so limited, she said, that she'd rather take free travel and spend the rest of enforcement or research.

"Faced with limited enforcement dollars, I would much rather spend $900 in a laboratory than on an airline or hotel," she told a panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Besides, she said, the practice of accepting free trips from industry has been an agency practice for more than 20 years and there was nothing inherently wrong with it--a statement that caused some members of the panel to bristle.

by Matthew Hay Brown

After a summer of toy recalls, the acting head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission is now the latest member of the Bush administration to stumble into the crosshairs of congressional Democrats.

A week after acting Chairwoman Nancy Nord told a Senate committee that a Democratic proposal to expand her agency "could have the unintended consequence of hampering, rather than furthering, consumer product safety," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called today for her resignation.

"Any commission chair who does not, in the face of the facts that are so clear, say we don’t need any more authority or any more resources to do our job, does not understand the gravity of the situation," Pelosi said.

Pelosi and other Democrats have criticized the administration’s response to the recalls last summer of Thomas the Tank Engine accessories and other toys tainted with lead paint.

"There is only one inspector charged with testing toys to make sure that they are safe for our children," Pelosi told reporters. "There are toys being sold in our stores now that are untested and unsafe."

by Frank James

How's this for a reaction to a newspaper investigation? Actually, it's probably more accurate to call it pre-action.

Even before the Tribune could run a scheduled investigative piece on a crib flaw that has killed several children, Simplicity, the manufacturer, is recalling one million of the cribs.

Here's how the Chicago Tribune website is reporting the situation:

In response to a Tribune investigation coming this weekend, the Consumer Product Safety Commission today announced it is recalling one million cribs made by Simplicity for a potentially deadly drop rail hazard. Three deaths have been linked to the flaw. The Tribune special report will detail how the company and the federal agency were slow to react to this danger.

by Steve Hedges

Sen. Dick Durbin has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to explain how thoroughly it tests seafood from Asia, especially in light of the “import alert” the FDA has imposed on some seafood from China.

In a letter to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, Durbin, a Democrat, cites a Sept. 16 Tribune story headlined, “As FDA gets tough on China seafood, it fails to hold others to same standard.” The story details how popular seafood from other Asian countries continues to be imported without the safety restrictions placed on China.

Yet many of those Asian countries, the story reports, use the same fish-farming techniques -- and experience the same contamination problems -- as Chinese fisheries.

By Gabrielle Russon

Thomas Moore had an appointmenrt with his dentist today. But it came at an awkward time, just as the Consumer Products Safety commissioner was scheduled to attend a congressional hearing.

So after testifying for about six minutes, Moore headed out, leaving the commission’s acting chairwoman alone to fight off criticism that the agency wasn’t aggressive enough in stopping tainted Chinese-manufactured products from appearing on American shelves.

“Are you leaving?” Nancy Nord asked as Moore stood up to make his exit. “Can I come with you?”

A burst of laughter erupted from the audience, a sudden break from talk about lead-based paint, Chinese exports and Thomas the Tank Engine recalls.

“You’re facing your own dentist here,” a man told Nord.

“This is a sad day when you’d rather go to the dentist,” she shot back.

And then, without skipping a beat, the hearing continued.

Minus Moore, of course.