TYLER—Since before he became Agriculture Commissioner and continuing all the way to his inauguration, Todd Staples was very vocal about food safety and protecting Texas from agroterrorism. However, since taking office, Staples’ rhetoric hasn’t come close to matching his actions. He has done essentially nothing to combat agroterrorism or promote food safety at the Texas Department of Agriculture.

In Staples’ inaugural address upon taking office in 2007, he listed “food safety and security” as among his top priorities. As a State Senator, Staples delivered a major address in which he discussed agroterrorism, noting that the state was a “soft target” for agroterrorists.

“Minutes after he put his hand on the Bible and took the oath of office, he said food safety was a top priority for him. I’d like to know, if food safety was a top priority for Todd Staples, how badly his lesser priorities have faired under his reign,” said Hank Gilbert, the Texas Democratic Party’s nominee for Agriculture Commissioner.

“He said in 2004 that Texas was a soft target for agroterrorists, but to date he’s done nothing about it. He said food safety was a top priority but his agency has expended relatively little time, effort, and money to make our food supply more safe,” Gilbert said. “His reign as Commissioner has been nothing but a long line of broken promises to the people of Texas. It is, in fact, the only consistent thing about his tenure,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert pointed out that, while Staples’ likes to talk about what he’s done for food safety, the hard reality is much different.

As recently as this past April, Gilbert said that Staples wrote on his official TDA blog that he was taking credit for establishing food safety as one of “only four founding priorities” under the federal Specialty Crop Block Grant administered by TDA.

“That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard, because right in black and white in the USDA manual for these grants, it says that states are encouraged to develop certain projects pertaining to the specific areas and, lo and behold, food safety is right there,” Gilbert said. “He didn’t even come up with that on his own. He plagiarized it from a manual created by someone in the Obama Administration he claims to hate. In East Texas, we call that kind of thing a textbook example of hypocrisy,” he continued.

Gilbert also questioned why, if food safety was so important to Staples, of the 18 projects TDA selected for the Specialty Crop Block Grant awards in 2009, only three impacted food safety while seven focused on marketing and eight were to “influence industry development.”

“How is food safety your top priority if less than 20 percent of the grants you award—in a program you tout as being so key to a food safety initiative—have to do with food safety,” Gilbert said. “It simply numbs the mind,” he continued.

As for agroterrorism, Gilbert said he challenged TDA to point to any major initiative undertaken during Staples’ tenure as Commissioner designed to combat agroterrorism. “I don’t see any TDA inspectors at the Port of Houston, and I doubt many make it down to the Mexican border to look at commodities coming from Mexico, Central, and South America because they don’t even have enough inspectors in the agency to even keep gas pumps properly inspected,” Gilbert said.

“He’s blustered and deceived Texans in a vain attempt to make himself look good for the last four years. Now, all of the sudden, with food recalls in the news and people concerned about the safety of their food, he’s nowhere to be found. Texans realize all he’s done these last four years is hand out novelty checks and told Texans to go eat out more, because he damned sure hasn’t been on the forefront of food safety issues,” Gilbert said.

“He’s just the biggest empty pair of khaki pants in all of state government, and Texans should be scared for the safety for themselves and their families because Todd Staples is the absentee landlord of the Texas Department of Agriculture. He may be showing up at work, but he’s not doing anything for Texans,” Gilbert continued.

“No wonder his own employees call him ‘Tater Salad.’ He’s done about as much for food safety in Texas as a bowl of potato salad left out in 100 degree heat surrounded by horse flies at an August picnic in Llano,” Gilbert concluded.

FACT SHEET

Agrowhozawhatzit? Food Safety? Nah, Just Handin’ Out Big Checks.

FACT: Staples takes credit for making food safety a key part of Texas’ Specialty Crop Block Grant awards. [Staples’ Official TDA Blog, April 10, 2010. LINK]

EXCERPT: Here at the Texas Department of Agriculture, we continue to find new and better ways to protect consumers. For instance, we have invested more than $340,000 into projects that assist producers in adopting and implementing good agricultural practices. The funds specifically pay for the education of producers, audits on their farms and costs associated with implementing good agricultural practices in their operations. This funding resulted from actions I took in 2007 to establish food safety as one of only four funding priorities under the federal Specialty Crop Block Grant TDA administers.

FACT: Food safety was already built in to the modeling criteria for Specialty Crop Block Grant awards. [Specialty Crop Block Grant Program – Farm Bill

(SCBGP-FB) guidance manual. USDA. Page 3-4. [LINK]

EXCERPT: AMS encourages states to develop projects solely to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops pertaining to the following issues affecting the specialty crop industry: increasing child and adult nutrition knowledge and consumption of specialty crops; participation of industry representatives at meetings of international standard setting bodies in which the US government participates; improving efficiency and reducing costs of distribution systems; assisting all entities in the specialty crop distribution chain in developing “Good Agricultural Practices”, “Good Handling Practices”, “Good Manufacturing Practices”, and in cost-share arrangements for funding audits of such systems for small farmers, packers and processors; investing in specialty crop research, including organic research to focus on conservation and environmental outcomes; enhancing food safety; developing new and improved seed varieties and specialty crops; pest and disease control; and sustainability.

FACT: In the 2010 TDA guidelines for the same block grants, the words “Food” and “Safety” appear only once together. [LINK]

FACT: In Staples 2007 Inaugural Address, he listed Food Safety as one of his top priorities. [Palestine Herald Press, January 5, 2007. LINK]

FACT: As a State Senator, Staples was a strong proponent of protecting Texas Agriculture from agroterrorism. [Todd Staples’ speech to State of The Agriculture Industry Meeting, 2004. Records of Senator Todd Staples, Texas State Library and Archives, 2007/130-13.

EXAMPLE: [From Staples’ address to the State of the Ag Industry Meeting, 2004] “An attack on agriculture would threaten our physical and economic health and have significant psychological impact….While agencies like TDA, Animal Health, and the service agencies at A&M are working, we need more preventative and proactive initiatives….Texas takes seriously its charge to protect agriculture, which may be viewed as a soft target because of the lengthy international border, the high volume of agricultural products entering the state through its sea ports; and the diversity of the state’s agricultural crops and products.”

Groupo Bimbo, PepsiCo and McDonald's are some of the national brands benefiting from Texas taxpayer dollars in Todd Staples new advertising push with Texas Monthly

TYLER-Hank Gilbert, the Texas Democratic Party’s nominee for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, on Monday questioned why Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples was awarding more than $50,000 for a four-to-five page advertising spread and online banner ads to Texas Monthly magazine during tough economic times when agriculture producers are suffering and the state is facing an $18 billion shortfall.

“This is a prime example that illustrates the misplaced priorities of Todd Staples’ reign as Agriculture Commissioner. Not only is the state facing an $18 billion shortfall, but agricultural producers across the state are suffering in these tough economic times,” Gilbert said.

The ads, for Go Texan programs and the Go Texan Restaurant Round-Up, will run in the October issue of Texas Monthly. Web advertisements associated with the recently awarded bid will run in September and October according to bid documents from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

“I want Texas agricultural producers to gain more and better marketshare for their products as much as the next person. However, the Go Texan program has become a diluted brand.  Somewhere between retirement communities and rural communities and restaurants, the program seems to have lost sight of its mission-which was to promote the use and purchase of Texas agricultural products to help small and midsize agricultural producers,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert also said far too much is being spent on expensive marketing projects like the Texas Monthly advertisement spread and not enough time, effort, or funds are being spent actually connecting producers to a market for their products. Gilbert also said the Go Texan Restaurant program is misleading to consumers and Texas producers.

“Restaurants interested in joining the program only have to list five products made, grown, or ‘value added’ in Texas they regularly purchase-and pay a fee-to become part of the program. A restaurant that buys meats from Tyson, Frito Lay Chips, Mrs. Baird’s Bread, Pace Picante Sauce, and a bottle of Dripping Springs Vodka on whatever the department defines as a ‘regular basis,’ would qualify,” Gilbert said.

“With the exception of the Vodka, every one of those brands with manufacturing plants in Texas is or is part of a major American or Mexican multi-national company and produces a product in Texas in such a way that it qualifies under the ‘value added’ aspect of the Go Texan Restaurant Program,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert noted that the mission of Go Texan programs should be to help small and medium-sized businesses, farmers, and ranchers earn more and employ more Texans by creating greater in-state and out-of-state markets for Texas products.

“Groupo Bimbo and PepsiCo don’t need help from TDA to gain a greater marketshare for their products; they have billions of dollars to spend on advertising,” Gilbert said. “This program should be working to help Main Street businesses and local ag producers employ more people and turn a bigger profit. Helping Wall Street companies and traders on the Bolsa Mexicans de Valores and corporate agribusiness is not what Go Texan was intended for,” Gilbert said.

“We know–and Republicans like to remind us–that small businesses are the growth sector when it comes to adding jobs to our economy. Yet, we have Todd Staples creating more profit for McDonald’s and PepsiCo instead of standing up for small business,” he concluded.

Gilbert noted that a number of national chain restaurants-including McDonald’s-are listed as Go Texan Restaurants by the Texas Department of Agriculture. “This would be wonderful if those locations were buying a large portion of everything they use from small and midsize producers right here in Texas, but who knows how much or how many Texas products they really use,” Gilbert said.

“Staples has expanded a program developed by his Republican predecessors into a PR machine for himself and the Texas Department of Agriculture without really doing anything to monitor how much Texas produce these establishments use or to monitor if they are even really using the products they claim to use,” Gilbert said.

“Why, when we’re facing an $18 billion shortfall, is TDA spending more than $50,000 on advertising with Texas Monthly to promote restaurants like McDonald’s which-for all consumers know-are simply able to claim they use Texas products because they buy something from a multi-national like Groupo Bimbo that just happens to be made in Texas,” Gilbert questioned.

Gilbert said more efforts should be focused on actually connecting agricultural producers to restaurants and manufacturers. He said that, instead of a $50,000 glossy magazine spread, TDA should spend more time and money actually making farmer-to-producer connections. “This is more than $50,000 that could be better spent,” Gilbert said.

Click here for a copy of the supporting documents obtained from the Texas State Library and Archives

TYLER—When given the opportunity to comment by the Texas Department of Transportation on a major transportation strategic plan that was heavily slanted toward toll roads, then-Senator Todd Staples passed up the opportunity to say anything about them or how strongly they were emphasized in the plan.

The new revelation, found in documents from the Texas State Library and Archives, calls into question Staples’ newfound distaste for toll roads and his disingenuous work as a supposed champion for eminent domain reform.

“The words ‘toll,’ ‘toll road,’ or some variation thereof, are mentioned more than half a dozen times in a three page strategic plan proposal. I can’t believe that escaped his notice,” said Hank Gilbert, the Texas Democratic Party’s nominee for Texas Agriculture Commissioner. “In his response, he had absolutely nothing to say about toll roads or the eminent domain land grab that was the Trans-Texas Corridor,” Gilbert continued.

The Texas Mobility Fund Proposed Strategic Plan on which Staples’ comment was requested by TxDOT in the summer of 2004 included as a guiding principal that “toll roads are the fastest way to accelerate needed projects and stretch limited transportation dollars,” and “when feasible, every effort will be made to leverage the fund with toll projects.”

“Once again, we scratch the surface and expose the truth about Todd Staples’ record. He claims now to be a champion of eminent domain protection, yet as a State Senator, he couldn’t be bothered to comment at all on the fact that a major transportation plan was going to make as its number one priority toll roads—including Trans-Texas Corridor toll road projects which would have eaten up hundreds of thousands of acres of Texas farmland and condemned it using eminent domain,” Gilbert said.

“The most shocking omission is any protection for the taxpayers of this state who stand to lose tens of billions on these projects. This is what Staples missed, as I and many others realized early on. This is an inexcusable lapse in judgment that, unfortunately, is not an isolated event. Even today, rather than address issues, he spends his time slinging mud and lies at me. Voters won’t be fooled by Toll Road Todd this time around,” Gilbert continued.

DSHS Documents Highlight Gaps In Food Safety System In Texas

Click here to download the supporting documents released by DSHS.

TYLER—Several recently released state documents highlight alarming gaps in Texas’ food safety system and highlight the need for food safety reforms recently proposed by Hank Gilbert, the Texas Democratic Party’s nominee for Agriculture Commissioner, as part of his plan to restructure the Texas Department of Agriculture.

According to the documents released to the Gilbert campaign by the Texas Department of State Health Services in response to a public information request, numerous gaps exist in the food safety system as food makes its way from farms to consumers’ dinner tables and lunchboxes.

In one document, a briefing paper prepared to address food safety gaps following two nationwide salmonella outbreaks in 2008 and 2009 involving Texas food manufacturing or distribution entities, DSHS contends that the outbreaks have “brought to light a number of gaps in the food safety system in this state.”

Among gaps along the “farm to fork” continuum identified by DSHS include:

• Many food manufacturers unlicensed by DSHS who deliberately or accidentally fail to obtain a license are licensed by other state agencies including the Texas Department of Agriculture, the Texas Secretary of State, or the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

• Distributors of fresh, uncut produce are exempt from DSHS licensing requirements and FDA standards.

• Businesses that repackage but do not process fresh, uncut produce are exempt from DSHS licensing requirements and FDA standards.

• With the exception of milk, seafood, and meat, no state regulation exists relating to the transport of food products.

• Food manufacturers and distributors aren’t required to test their products for pathogens causing human disease (excluding some exceptions such as milk, meat, and bottled water).

• Food manufacturers who voluntarily test for disease-causing pathogens aren’t required to report positive test results to the state.

Additional documents released by the Department of State Health Services relating to salmonella tainted peanuts processed at the Plainview, Texas facility of Peanut Corporation of America—one of two PCA plants at the epicenter of a 2008-2009 salmonella outbreak—show confusion over whether or not specific state agencies possess the authority to inspect farms, that the Deputy Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture was calling a state agency to determine if a municipality had licensed the PCA Plainview facility, and significant confusion over what state agency may—or may not—have been inspecting agricultural products for salmonella contamination near the Texas-Oklahoma border in the days and weeks following the recall.

In one e-mail exchange dated February 25, 2010, the manager for Policy, Standards, and Quality Assurance at DSHS’s Division for Regulator Services contacted the TDA Deputy Commissioner to inquire if TDA had inspectors with badges stopping trucks along the Texas-Oklahoma border testing produce for salmonella.

In his reply, TDA’s Deputy Commissioner fully illustrated both the complicated and confusing food safety bureaucracy that presently exists in Texas as well as the failures of the Texas Department of Agriculture to take any significant steps to protect the state’s food supply:

“We are not operating a road inspection station in Grayson County along the border….These road stations run for 72 hours straight and we are NOT sampling for salmonella. We do inspect all trucks with produce and we only pull samples in instances where a plant health issue is suspected.” TDA’s Deputy Commissioner wrote [emphasis added].

In an email from DSHS’s Food And Drug Safety Officer to other DSHS employees dated February 13, it becomes clear that high-level TDA employees were in such a state of confusion over the Plainview peanut debacle that they didn’t even appear to understand where municipal food facility permitting records would be kept. According to the e-mail, TDA’s Deputy Commissioner called the Food and Drug Safety Officer at DSHS to ask if the Plainview PCA facility had ever been licensed by the city of Plainview—instead, evidently, of realizing that this information was maintained by the city itself. DSHS employees called the city and reported the information back to TDA.

In in a string of emails spanning a month from March 2 until April 2, TDA’s Deputy Commissioner contacted DSHS on behalf of Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples concerning a situation in Oregon in which it was alleged bulk peanuts from Texas were contaminated with Salmonella. Although the Plainview peanut debacle was still in full swing, the Deputy Commissioner of TDA wrote Dr. David Lackey, Commissioner of the Department of State Health Services asking “is it possible or probable to have salmonella on unprocessed nuts?”

In a later exchange, further confusion abounds when the Deputy Commissioner tells Lackey he “thought state law prohibited DSHS from conducting inspections on the farm,” and inquires about Lee County Peanut, inquiring, “Is Lee County Peanut not a farm?”

Closing the exchange, Lackey writes back to TDA that the department did investigate at Lee County Peanut, it was indeed a farm, and that the inspection was the result of a separate regulated activity conducted on the farm—peanut shelling. Lackey wrote:

“Due to our responsibility to protect public health, we have broad authority relating to compliance activities…Again, we would not typically be on a farm unless they were conducting a regulated activity or unless we were investigating an outbreak or food safety issue that led us there.”

Finally, in an email exchange that Hank Gilbert classifies as “stunning,” the number one bureaucrat in charge at TDA under Commissioner Todd Staples is engaging in an email exchange with various high-level DSHS officials to attempt to coordinate the Texas Department of Agriculture’s revocation of an organic certification for the plant. “I am REALLY hopeful that we can issue a revocation of a certification that this plant carries with us SIMULTANEOUS to your recall announcement. Is there anyway I can even get an email confirmation of the terminology of what your inspector found? It is essential to our revocation order,” the official writes. This email came days after the plant had voluntarily shut its doors following laboratory tests indicating the presence of salmonella.

“These documents clearly show that Texas’ food supply is at risk,” Gilbert said. “The patchwork quilt of regulation that exists for food safety is confusing and has gaping holes in it,” he continued. “DSHS has pointed out six major vulnerabilities that exist with regard to food safety, and the logical way to remedy these problems is by combining food safety and regulation under the Texas Department of Agriculture while removing bureaucracy and confusion from the process,” he said.

“Texans need to know that, from field to fork, their food is safe. Moms and dads need to know that the fruit, lunchmeat, and even packaged or processed foods they are putting in their child’s lunchbox every day aren’t contaminated with disease causing pathogens that will make their child sick or worse,” Gilbert continued.

“The time for finger pointing and playing the blame game is over. Under my reform plan, we’ll take a common sense approach to food safety in Texas by centralizing regulation and inspection under one agency and, by reducing the size of the bureaucracy, and being able to put more inspectors on the streets and in the fields,” he continued.

“Here, we have an email where the head bureaucrat in the Texas Department of Agriculture is telling the head of the Department of State Health Services that they only test produce when the health of a plant is questioned. That’s unacceptable. We need common sense reform that puts the safety of Texans first,” he continued.

Addressing the Plainview related emails, Gilbert said he was astounded. “It looks more like TDA was concerned about getting earned media by making its revocation simultaneous with DSHS’s recall announcement than actually revoking PCA’s organic certification. TDA didn’t need this information from DSHS. Federal regulations allow them to undertake their own investigation of an organic certified plant and provide provisions for revocation and denial of certification for which the findings published to that point would have been sufficient,” Gilbert said, referring to 7 CFR Sec. 205.661 and other provisions of the Code of Federal Regulations.

In terms of securing energy independence for our state and our nation, the Texas Department of Agriculture is truly an untapped resource. In spite of the fact that the Texas Legislature has given the department oversight of two biofuels and bioenergy committees, to date they have done little except spend $75,000 on a report–which has yet to be delivered—and will likely simply tell us what we already know: Texas is ready to become our state’s leading biofuel and bioenergy producer.

One of the biggest problems this state and our nation face is our dependence on fossil fuels, especially those sourced outside of the United States. As we’ve seen in the Gulf, drilling our way out of this problem can be extremely dangerous and it ignores one simple fact: the well will, at some point, ‘run dry’.

The solution to this problem will come from agriculture.

Two centuries ago, economist Thomas Malthus postulated that the population of people on earth would rapidly exceed the ability of the planet to sustain that population. Agriculture, time and again, has made tremendous advances that have led to our ability to feed a population that now numbers in the billions.

It is to agriculture that we must turn now to solve our future energy needs, end our dependence on foreign oil and provide cleaner burning fuels to protect the air and water on which we all depend.

In Unity,

Hank Gilbert

FIELD TO PUMP BIOFUELS INITIATIVE

Hank proposes launching the Field To Pump Biofuels Initiative, which will involve stakeholders including growers, refiners, distributors, and retailers and the promotion of cooperatives to more effectively generate crop production by creating a stable, efficient marketplace.

HOW IT WORKS:

Under the Field to Pump Biofuels Initiative, the Texas Department of Agriculture will make use of grant funding from Texas Agricultural Infrastructure & Economic Development Fund (proposed under his TDA reform plan) to provide seed funding to producers and refiners to help producers grow new, non-foodstock biofuel crops and help refiners develop refining capability for those products.

In addition, the Texas Department of Agriculture will work to help promote partnerships and cooperatives between growers, refiners, distributors, and funding partners to help make new biofuel crops and refining capability a reality in Texas.

WHAT CROPS ARE INVOLVED?

Cassava and sugar cane are two crops that are suited to both growing condition and land availability in Texas. Cassava can be grown in vast areas of West and South Texas which are not presently engaged in significant agricultural production of any kind. Sugar Cane can be grown in land currently encumbered under the Conservation Reserve Program because it is not soil degrading and would provide landowners a far better income stream than they receive from the USDA’s CRP payments.

DOES THIS ENDANGER OUR FOOD SUPPLY?

No. New sugar cane crops in Texas would be strictly for biofuels. Cassava is not considered a food staple in the United States and its growing and use wouldn’t alter food supplies. Cassava is used in both China and Brazil for ethanol production.

WON’T BIOFUEL CROPS IN WEST TEXAS NEED IRRIGATION TO GROW?

No. Cassava is a crop that requires little water to grow and is well-suited to the climate of West Texas and produces more ethanol per bushel than corn and doesn’t effect the world food supply.

WHAT IT DOES:

The Pump to Fuels initiative will produce biofuels at a price that’s completely competitive in the open market. Because of the significant amount of land available in Texas to produce biofuel crops, coupled with existing biofuel production in West Texas, Texas can and will become a biofuels leader and secure our state’s energy independence.

This will also help put our country on the track to energy independence and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

THE TEXAS ADVANCED BIOFUELS RESEARCH INCUBATOR

Hank proposes to create the Texas Advanced Biofuels Research Incubator at one of our state’s major four-year universities in order to foster additional research in areas such as using algae to produce biofuels and to study the best applications of other microbial biofuel stocks to produce biofuels in Texas.

BENEFITS OF HANK’S PROPOSAL

Carbon Credits will be a profit source for participants.

Since biofuel crop production removes carbon from the atmosphere that is not full replaced during conversion or combustion, producers would be entitled to sell carbon credits should a market develop for them. There is a lifecycle reduction of 61% for sugarcane ethanol and 41% for biodiesel.

Cleaner air.

Blending with highly oxygenated fuels increases combustion efficiency of petroleum based fuels, reducing the pollutants that enter the atmosphere as a result of burning transportation fuels. Such gases include carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, a leading cause of smog.

Enhanced performance of biodiesel.

Most biodiesel helps enhance performance in diesel engines using ultra low sulfur fuel by increasing lubricity.

Research to develop market based solutions.

A key component of Hank’s plan includes the formation of a technology incubator which will work with Texas Universities and private enterprise to create the next generation of biofuel feedstocks and develop new technologies to enhance current production.

“Texas has the potential to become a major biofuels producer,” Gilbert said. “There are crops—like cassava—which we can grow in areas of West Texas where nothing else is being grown right now that can produce alternative fuels and not increase the cost of the foods we bring to our family’s dinner table,” Gilbert said.  “Too, land near the Gulf Coast in South East Texas is perfect land on which we can grow sugar cane to use to manufacture fuels,” Gilbert continued.

Under Gilbert’s plan, entitled the Field to Pump Biofuels Initiative, the Texas Department of Agriculture would utilize funding from the Texas Agricultural Infrastructure & Economic Development Fund (proposed by Gilbert under his previously released reform plan for the agency), to provide start-up funding to agricultural producers to help grow new, non-foodstock biofuel crops and to refiners to help develop refining capacity for those products.

“The state would also help assist agricultural producers to help establish new cooperatives which would allow them to seek funding from outside sources to grow, market, transport—and even refine—their biofuel crops,” he continued.

Gilbert also noted that biofuels made from cassava and sugar cane will result in less pollution, cleaner air, and even additional money for farmers—should a market develop for the sale of carbon credits.