What a difference a day makes in the Shirley Sherrod fiasco. According to three sources who spoke to Politico’s Ben Smith, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina praised the speed at which the administration acted, and reportedly said Tuesday morning: We could have waited all day — we could have had a media circus — but we took decisive action, and it’s a good example of how to respond in this atmosphere. And here is White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, just a few minutes ago: Without a doubt, Ms. Sherrod is owed an apology. I will do so on behalf…
Browsing: Agriculture
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today he is further reviewing the case of Shirley Sherrod, who resigned under pressure Monday as part of a growing racial controversy. The conservative website Biggovernment.com, run by Andrew Breitbart, on Monday posted an edited video of Sherrod, who is black, telling a story about a 1986 incident where she didn’t help a white farmer as much as she could have. But the full video shows Sherrod’s story was meant to illustrate the importance of moving beyond race. In it, she describes how she first steered the white farmer to a white lawyer who could…
CNN has an interview with Shirley Sherrod, an Agriculture Department official who stepped down yesterday after a video surfaced where she describes a 1986 incident where she didn’t help a white farmer as much as she could because of his race. The NAACP applauded her resignation, but Sherrod — who was USDA’s director of rural development in Georgia — said the comments in the video don’t tell the whole story, and said the incident took place before she joined USDA. What do you think? Did Sherrod cross the line? Or is this a puffed-up controversy?
(Technically it was hemp, the other variety of the cannabis sativa plant that can’t get you high. But that distinction is usually lost on all the annoying stoners who love to philosophize in college dorms about how legalizing hemp would renew our nation’s agriculture, fix our tax base, and, like, George Washington totally grew it, too. This one’s for them.) Hemp advocates, who feel that the government has wrongly banned the cultivation of their beloved plant, have a new patron saint: Agriculture Department botanist Lyster Dewey. The Washington Post reports that Dewey tended “Uncle Sam’s hemp farm” on a plot…
Agencies’ plans for meeting the green government mandates outlined in President Obama’s October executive order aren’t due until June 2, but the Agriculture Department’s chief sustainability officer already has identified one of her top priorities: cutting energy consumption in data centers. Robin Heard, a lifelong conservationist who joined Agriculture in 1976, said she had no idea how much energy is consumed by data centers until she took on her new role as the department’s deputy assistant secretary for administration about a year ago. Speaking Tuesday on the opening day of the GSA Expo in Orlando, Heard said she wants to consolidate the…
Many agencies use a single e-mail messaging system across all departments and offices. That’s not the case at the Agriculture Department, which operates 27 different e-mail systems, USDA Chief Information Officer Christopher Smith told a House Agriculture subcommittee Wednesday. Only the largest departments within the USDA have modernized and use shared e-mail systems. The other departments and agencies operate as they have for years — separately and without collaboration. Each office is responsible for monitoring and maintaining its own e-mail system, which is time consuming and slows down the USDA’s modernization, Smith said. This fragmented approach has hampered USDA’s ability…
Federal researchers have been hard at work trying to develop alternate sources of clean renewable energy, and yesterday they announced a major breakthrough in their efforts. Scientists from the Agriculture Department and the Energy Department’s Joint Genome Institute for the first time have sequenced the genes of a wild grass species. The research, which is published in the current issue of the journal Nature, will help researchers develop grasses specifically tailored for use as biofuel, said Molly Jahn, Agriculture’s acting undersecretary for research, education and economics. Energy security looms as one of the most important scientific challenges of this century.…
A partially decomposed body of a 6-foot tall white man was found on Plum Island, N.Y., home of the the government’s Animal Disease Center, according to a New York Daily News report. A facility guard found the body, which reportedly had no signs of trauma, on a beach that was part of a secure area of the island. This is the latest mystery on an island shrouded in mystery. Some of the world’s most lethal livestock diseases are researched here. During the Cold War, it was home to the government’s bilogical weapons program. Plum Island’s history as a super-secure animal…
The Agriculture Department shut down a Vermont slaughterhouse following the release of a video of animal abuses allegedly witnessed by a USDA inspector. In the video, an employee at Bushways Packing Inc. in Grand Isle tries to skin alive a days-old calf in front of an alleged USDA inspector, among other abuses. A Humane Society investigator took the video while employed undercover at the slaughterhouse. “This government official tells the worker, on hidden camera, that if another USDA inspector saw this, the plant would be shut down, but he allows the abuse to continue,” the Humane Society said in a…
One of the Forest Service’s most recognizable faces turns 65 on Sunday. Just don’t go lighting any birthday candles for him. Smokey Bear has been preaching the dangers of forest fires since Aug. 9, 1944. His trademark catchphrase, “Only you can prevent wildfires,” is one of the longest running public service announcement campaigns in U.S. history. His enduring message certainly has played a major role in helping reduce forest fires. Since 1944, the number of acres lost annually to forest fires has dropped from about 22 million to 6.5 million, the Forest Service says. However, there’s still plenty of work for Smokey Bear…