Interesting response to the Governor's Veto Message on House Bill 1222. It
echoes many of our concerns about treating the factory farm "issue" as simply
just an environmental problem, and not a broader corporate problem. Does
anyone know who these folks are?
FYI, House Bill 1222 was the Bill that attempted to remove local control
over factory farms from Township governments in Pennsylvania. It was a redux
of Senate Bill 1413 from last session that a unique coalition of environmental
groups, municipal governments, labor, and farm groups worked to defeat.
Best,
Thomas Linzey, Esq.
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
-------- Original Message --------
Prefatory Note: On December 31, 2003, Pennsylvania
Governor Ed Rendell vetoed House Bill 1222 -
legislation introduced by agribusiness corporations to
strip away local control over corporate factory farms
in Pennsylvania. In addition to the act of vetoing,
the Governor released a Veto Message which explained
that the Governor actually supported the goals of the
legislation, but preferred a more comprehensive
approach to what he termed "nutrient management." (a
copy of the Governor's Message can be obtained by
sending an e-mail to
sonsdaughtersofliberty@yahoo.com).
The below Veto
Message was drafted by the Sons and Daughters of
Liberty - a network of Pennsylvanians working to
confront the power that corporations wield over
communities in the Commonwealth. That network has
drafted a Veto Message that should have been delivered
by the Governor.
What the Governor's Veto Me
ssage of
House Bill 1222 Should Have Been
Drafted by the Sons and Daughters of Liberty
(Pennsylvania)
For more information on the Sons and Daughters of
Liberty, see http://www.greenwatchusa.org
TO THE HONORABLE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
I am returning herewith, without my approval, House
Bill 1222, Printer's No. 3127, entitled AN ACT
amending Title 42 (Judiciary and Judicial Procedure)
of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, further
providing for identification of incorrect debtor;
further defining "other specified offense" for
purposes of DNA data and testing; and further
providing for summary offenses involving vehicles, for
law enforcement records, for duration of commitment
and review; ESTABLISHING A CAUSE OF ACTION FOR
UNAUTHORIZED ENACTMENT OR ENFORCEMENT OF LOCAL
ORDINANCES GOVERNING AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS;
PROVIDING FOR CERTAIN ATTORNEY
FEES AND COSTS; AND
FURTHER PROVIDING for sentence of intermediate
punishment and for assessments.
For starters, let's look at our own Pennsylvania
Constitution.
Article I, § 2 declares that "all power is inherent
in the people, and all free governments are founded on
their authority." Article 1, § 26 declares that the
Commonwealth shall not "deny to any person the
enjoyment of any civil right." Article 1, § 27 of our
Constitution declares that the people "have a right to
clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of" the
natural environment.
Thus, people are the source of all political
authority, governments are established to secure
people's rights, and people have a right to the
protection of the natural environment.
Accordingly, I am returning House Bill 1222 to the
legislature unsigned because I find that the Bill
tramples our constitutional ideals of self-government
while strengthening the ability of agribusiness
corporations to eliminate family farmers, destroy
rural communities, and further harm people's health
and the safety of their food.
Although previous administrations have flouted the
Constitution and the ideal of self-government, I
refuse to do so. I, like the people who drafted the
Pennsylvania Constitution, believe that governments
exist to serve the majority of people, not the
corporate few.
Who has been clamoring for legislation like House
Bill 1222? This legislative travesty is not the result
of a great democratic groundswell, but is being
pressed, instead, by a few organizations invested in
corporate agriculture. Thus, I do not find it unusual
that one of the principal advocates for House Bill
1222 has been the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau.
Because of past experiences, I've taken the time to
learn what the Farm Bureau is.
The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau and its parent
organization, the American Farm Bureau Federation, are
lobbying arms for a
gribusiness corporations. Indeed,
the first Farm Bureau in the country was created not
by men and women of the soil, but by a New York State
Chamber of Commerce. The vast majority of Farm Bureau
"members" are either policyholders of one of numerous
insurance corporations affiliated with state Farm
Bureaus, or are customers of other farm bureau
business ventures. Such "members" have no say in
establishing or carrying out Farm Bureau policies. In
most cases, they don't even have a particular interest
in agriculture. The Farm Bureau is not a democratic
institution. It is run by a few for the benefit of a
few.
I believe that the Farm Bureau - and groups like
PennAg Industries Association - exist to impose a
corporate food system on the many that benefits the
corporate few. They lie about Pennsylvania needing
more industrial farms, and urge legislators to turn
more control over farming to the distant boardrooms of
agribusiness corporations. They say there's
no other
way to grow food.
Horsefeathers. Let's look at who's in charge of food
in the United States and who has benefited from that
control.
Currently, four corporations control over 70% of pork
production in the United States and over 80% of beef
production. Fewer than five corporations control 90%
of the export market for most major crops, and 10
cents of every food dollar spent in this country now
goes to that friend of public health, the Philip
Morris Corporation.
This corporate dominance of agriculture has been a
disaster for family farmers, rural communities, and
everyone who eats.
Over the past twenty years, a handful of agribusiness
corporations has managed to eliminate over 300,000
family farmers - and over 3,000 independent family
hog farmers in Pennsylvania alone. According to the
USDA, 6% of all farms - the large corporate farms -
now receive 59% of all farm revenue. Middle-sized
farms with gross sales und
er $100,000 are now being
eliminated at a faster pace than any other group of
farms.
As independent family farmers are consumed by
agribusiness corporations - or shoved into bankruptcy -
economic competitors are eliminated, and
agribusiness corporations are left with a deepening
economic monopoly. That economic control has resulted
in the creation of a political monopoly over
Pennsylvania's legislative Agriculture Committees,
which now foolishly refer to factory farms as "advanced"
farms.
That's quite a dead-end vision for Pennsylvania - one
which drives dollars from our family-farm based rural
communities into the deep pockets of a distant
corporate few.
True to our revolutionary heritage, Pennsylvanians
have not been taking this lying down. Many understand
the underlying truth of what is happening.
A Chairman of a Board of Supervisors in Fulton County
declared defiantly last year, "I was elect
ed to
represent the people of this Township, not factory
farm corporations." That Township has become one of
several to adopt local laws to stop the
corporatization of agriculture in the Commonwealth.
I, too, understand what is happening. I support those
Township Supervisors and their rural communities
across this State. I will not be a party to their
destruction.
I know that I didn't get overwhelming support from
rural Pennsylvania voters in the last election. We've
got some basic differences. But I also believe that we
share a core value - that the corporate few should
never dictate the rules to the rest of us.
And that's what House Bill 1222 is really about. It's
about trampling on the power of people to make
decisions about the future of your community. It's
about corporations using the people's legislature to
claim that corporate "rights" override the rights of
people and the land.
I believe that the ideal of democracy is in big
tr
ouble, precisely because corporations have been
preventing "We the People" from governing ourselves.
I believe corporations today act like governments.
Energy corporations make our energy policies.
Insurance corporations define the healthcare we
receive. Corporate polluters write our environmental
laws. Transnational corporations override state and
national laws through global corporate rights
agreements like NAFTA. Military contracting
corporations determine our foreign policy.
Their wealth and power trample people and communities -
along with the ideal of democracy - everyday across
this nation of ours.
As if that's not enough, corporations now claim the
protections of rights and privileges found in the
Constitution and our Bill of Rights. Rights and
privileges originally intended to only protect people.
Today, corporations wielding those rights and
privileges crush - and then seek to punish -
communities and elected officials daring to practice
democ
racy.
Several stories have struck me over the past year -
awakening me to this corporate trampling of
self-government. In small, rural Belfast Township in
Fulton County, residents told their local elected
officials that they didn't want corporate factory
farms. So, the Supervisors adopted an Ordinance
prohibiting agribusiness corporations from farming
within the Township.
Small, rural Rush Township in Centre County had faced
the death of Tony Behun, a child who died after being
exposed to corporate-hauled and land applied sewage
sludge. Residents and their elected Supervisors, like
many before them, found that comforting the bereaved
family of a dead child was simply not enough. To make
sure that no one else died from the actions of sludge
corporations, the Township adopted a local law
requiring the corporations to prove to the Township
that the sludge was safe prior to land application.
What happened next? Agribusiness corporate interests
swoop
ed in and sued Belfast Township. Synagro
Corporation descended on Rush Township. In both cases,
the corporations sued the communities for violating
what they called "corporate constitutional rights."
Demanding millions of dollars from the Townships, they
are pursuing the Township Supervisors individually and
personally for payment of those damages.
Township Supervisors taking such courageous stands on
behalf of the people in their community has been both
costly and dangerous. It has threatened to bankrupt
several Township governments. I don't like that one
bit.
Now, I've read our Pennsylvania Constitution. I've
read our U.S. Bill of Rights.
I don't believe that either document confers
constitutional rights - originally intended only for
people - onto corporations, thus enabling them to
override democratically-adopted laws.
Laws like House Bill 1222 make things even worse by
enabling corporations to take decisions that should
be
made at the local level and removing them into the
Courts - far from local legislators. What's more, laws
like House Bill 1222 seek to punish elected officials
for daring to actually represent the values of their
communities. I find those goals appallingly counter to
the ideal of self-government.
House Bill 1222 all but guarantees that people will
become powerless to make the rules for their
communities.
Which brings us to the real question. Who will make
the rules in the future?
Will it continue to be faceless, unelected corporate
managers located far away from Pennsylvania's rural
communities - acting like puppetmasters with
legislators dangling on long distance strings? Or will
it be the many Pennsylvania families - who live, work,
and raise children in rural Pennsylvania - who are
confronting and resisting the corporate takeover of
their communities? Those families fervently believe
that it is possible to produce clean and
nutritious
food in vibrant rural communities, anchored by healthy
family farms supported by people who eat.
Today, I stand with those Pennsylvania families and
their vision for this Commonwealth.
I call on the legislature - Democrats and Republicans
alike - to stop turning corporate wish lists into laws
that trash local self-government, undermine democratic
institutions, and destroy independent family farmers.
For the reasons set forth above, I must withhold my
signature from House Bill 1222 and I am returning the
Bill to the House of Representatives.
Edward G. Rendell
Governor
__________________________________
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