Articles by Grist staff

WaPo on the new USDA chief

As Tom Laskawy pointed out here a few days ago, controversy rages around new USDA chief Tom Vilsack's choice of deputy secretary -- traditionally a powerful figure within the agency, tasked with implementing policy in a sprawling bureaucracy.

The sustainable-ag world is rallying around Chuck Hassebrook, director of the Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska, who's thought to be under serious consideration for the post.

Evidently, the choice is being held up because Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) is threatening to fight it in the ag committee. It's pretty unsavory stuff -- Conrad is evidently furious that Hassebrook supports stricter limits on subsidies paid to a single farm (a policy also supported by Vilsack and President Barack Obama).

Astonishingly, this back-room brawl in what used to be a back-water agency has gotten high-profile attention. NYT pundit Nicholas Kristof weighed in on his blog recently.

As I've written before, the USDA suddenly operates under the glare of media attention. Can anyone remember a similar situation at USDA during Bush II's reign? I tried to make a fuss when Bush chose a deputy secretary who had served as president of the Corn Refiners Association. No one seemed to see what the big deal was.

Those days are over. Now the USDA chief's got reporters bird-dogging him about his attitude toward reform. And he's been making an effort -- unprecedented, as far as I know -- to soothe his critics in the sustainable-food world. Here he is waxing downright Pollanesque to a Washington Post reporter:

Kudos and fingers as IM dialogue

GristEditor: So what's the deal with climate kudos/finger this week? Got any ideas?

Reporter@Grist: Stop bugging me. Watching cat videos.

GristEditor: seriously, we gotta publish this on fri. need your ideas.

Reporter@Grist: argh. ... ok. hold on.

GristEditor: I was thinking Hillary Clinton for planning to jump on the climate/China issue

Reporter@Grist: Boooooooring

Reporter@Grist: Barbara Boxer should definitely get finger for that screwed up roads package she's cosponsoring with Inhofe.

GristEditor: That's so inside baseball. Plus, Boxer outlined her climate principles this week -- deserves a kudo for that.

Reporter@Grist: Not really. Boxer's "principles" very vague.

Reporter@Grist: how 'bout the Senate for passing that dumbass amendment to give money to people to buy cars?

GristEditor: But that might be good if $ spent to buy hybrids or electric vehics.

Reporter@Grist: Sigh. Hey, you want to avoid inside baseball? How about Molson? Bad beer, good climate record.

GristEditor: Salazar for reversing the Utah oil leases?

GristEditor: Lugar for writing an op-ed arguing for increasing the gas tax?

GristEditor: Finger to the Czech PM for perpetuating skeptic line?

Reporter@Grist: Yeah, maybe.

GristEditor: geez. maybe we just blow it off this week ...

Reporter@Grist: :-)

GristEditor: not funny.

Cheap-chicken ad from KFC hides true cost of food; here’s a tastier, low-cost alternative

What’s he hiding? Undeterred by the thorough trouncing he received last time he threw down the gauntlet, the Colonel has placed it gingerly at my feet once more, with another apocryphal advertisement that premiered during — what else? — the Super Bowl. I know that times are tough, and every business has a right — […]

Chinese envoy urges U.S. help on climate change

WASHINGTON — The United States has a profitable self-interest in assisting Chinese efforts to combat climate change, China’s ambassador here said Thursday as global talks loom. Zhou Wenzhong said China must focus on industrial growth to lift millions of its citizens out of poverty but was not stinting in the global warming fight, outlining a […]