The Hightower Report

USDA and Synthetic Organics

Since I grew up eating such nutritionally challenged foods as fried Spam sandwiches, I do not even pretend to be a food purist.

So even though I'm a strong proponent of organic foods, I recognize that there are times when producers are unable to obtain some particular organic ingredient – for example, organic beer might sometimes include conventionally produced hops. Recognizing this reality, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "certified organic" program allows up to 5% of a certified product to consist of nonorganic ingredients.

However, this exemption was not meant to be a loophole big enough to drive a chemical truck through. Any nonorganic substance has to be reviewed and approved by the National Organic Standards Board, and use of these substances is supposed to be temporary, while users search for organic alternatives.

But such agribusiness giants as Kraft and Dean Foods have surged into the multibillion-dollar organic market, and they view the organic certification program not as an assurance of integrity but as a marketing tool. So they have lobbied to expand the use of synthetics. At the start of the USDA's certification program in 2002, only 77 nonorganic ingredients were on the allowable list, which was supposed to shrink over time. Today, 245 synthetics are listed.

Barbara Robinson, the corporate-friendly director of the agency's organic program, agrees with the giants that the main purpose of the organic label is not to protect consumers but to "grow the industry." How bizarre – to expand organic production, they say they must eliminate the requirement that it be organic!

A better idea is to eliminate Robinson and all the corporate pretenders. Tell Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to do just that. Here's his number: 202/720-3631.

Chevron Runs but Can't Hide

Chevron, the world's second-largest (and second-most-profitable) oil giant, has been running a carefully crafted PR campaign telling us what a gentle giant it is. A current TV ad solemnly assures us that oil and the environment are not in conflict – "This is not a liberal or conservative issue," intones an announcer. "It's a human issue."

Imagine the amazement that this claim brings to the poor people living in the once-pristine Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador. For a quarter of a century, Chevron's Texaco subsidiary willfully contaminated the land, water, and people of this region with an oil extraction process so crude, careless, and deadly that it still stands as one of the world's grossest examples of corporate insensitivity. In 1990, having taken its profits, Texaco abandoned the region, removing all of its assets and leaving behind its ruinous toxic stew.

This led the Ecuadorans to file a landmark lawsuit against ChevronTexaco in both New York City and Houston. Corporate lawyers, however, convinced a U.S. judge that the case should not be heard here but in Ecuador. In those days, the courts there were notoriously corrupt and corporate-friendly, so, expecting the judicial skids to be greased in its favor, the oil giant happily went to trial in Ecuador. Lo and behold, though, political reform has since swept that country, and Chevron now faces the likelihood of an Ecuadoran judgment of $27 billion in damages.

"The gentle giant" is reacting by roaring that it is being bullied by the people it harmed. It is attacking the reputation of Ecuadoran experts and judges, and – get this – it has rushed back to the U.S. to beg that courts here now take over the case.

It's time for Chevron to come clean, own up, and pay up. For updates and more information, contact www.chevrontoxico.com.