Some of the biggest commodity groups in the country have enlisted lawmakers in a quiet campaign to shut off public access to the activities of the quasi-governmental boards that promote U.S. cotton, beef, eggs and other agricultural products.
While the groups told Capital Press that they don’t want to waste money “pulling paperwork,” the NPR blog The Salt says the proposal also would keep embarrassing emails and other documents from becoming public. Last year, for example, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request shook loose documents showing that the president of the American Egg Board tried to organize a public relations campaign against a company selling a vegan version of mayonnaise.
The Egg Board is one of 22 so-called checkoff programs, authorized by law and operating under USDA supervision, that collect money from producers for research and promotion work on behalf of the industry. Producers vote periodically whether to keep the programs, which range from beef, milk and eggs to Christmas trees, watermelons and softwood lumber, in operation. The USDA says it “provides oversight, ensuring fiscal responsibility, program efficiency and fair treatment of participating stakeholders.”
At present, the USDA fulfills FOIA requests for material from the checkoff boards. That would change if the agency follows a powerful signal that could be headed its way from Congress. In the report that accompanies the $147 billion USDA-FDA funding bill, the House Appropriations Committee “urges USDA to recognize that such boards are not subject to” FOIA. While it is non-binding, report language provides strong direction on how agencies should operate.
In one paragraph on page 34 of the committee report, appropriators preface the instructions on FOIA by saying the checkoff programs do not use any federal money and, instead, rely on producer funds.
Associate professor Parke Wilde of Tufts says the checkoff boards “have always been subject to freedom of information laws. It stands to reason: Farmers and the public deserve to know what’s really going on with these well-funded USDA-sponsored programs.” Writing on his U.S. Food Policy blog, Wilde says the government uses its taxing powers to enforce collection of more than $500 million a year for the checkoff programs.
The USDA bills the checkoff boards for oversight work, including time spent on public-records requests, said Capital Press. The commodity groups said the change on FOIA policy would focus the boards’ resources on research and market promotion, rather than searches of records. Spokesman Chase Adams, of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Board told Capital Press, it was a common-sense change that clarifies the intent of FOIA.
It was a FOIA request that allowed Wilde to obtain documents about the 2006 decision by the Pork Board to pay $60 million to the National Pork Producers Council for the rights to the advertising slogan of pork as “the other white meat.” Wilde wrote in 2013, “It looks to me like the sale price was drastically inflated as a way of funneling money from the semi-public checkoff program to the private-sector trade association.” The transaction inspired years of controversy. On its website, the Pork Board says, “‘The other white meat’ brand continues to have high consumer recognition and is a valuable asset of the pork industry.”
Wilde told NPR that the commodity groups “very much want to have it both ways” — a federal aegis for the programs and the collection of the funds, but exclusion from FOIA searches. “The House Appropriations Committee has now adopted that view. Even if it became law, the language could face a challenge in the courts,” says NPR.