Food Day

Floor Speech

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, today I wish to submit for the Record an article written by Ann Wittman, executive director of the Wyoming Beef Council and published October 8, 2011, in the Wyoming Livestock Journal. The article's title is ``Food Day Includes Gravy.''

As Ann correctly points out, Monday, October 24, 2011, is being billed as Food Day with events planned across the Nation. Here in Washington, DC, the National Archives will be hosting a Food Day open house in conjunction with their ``What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?'' exhibit. Of note, the open house is being supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Food and Drug Administration along with the primary Food Day sponsor, the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

It is the Center for Science in the Public Interest's agenda Ann calls into question. As she writes, the group's goal is to ``encourage people around the country to sponsor or participate in activities that encourage Americans to `eat real' and support healthy, affordable food grown in a sustainable, humane way.''

The question must be asked, who is defining what is or what is not sustainable, healthy, and humane? In the article she points out behind the innocent name of the ``Center for Science in the Public Interest'' are groups with very extreme positions such as the Humane Society of the United States, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Farm Animal Rights Movement, and FBI-designated terrorist groups, including the Animal Liberation Front. These groups push radical environmental, animal rights, and vegan positions and lifestyles that have very little to do with either science or public interest.

The USDA and FDA should not align themselves with fringe groups who push ideology over science. I commend Ann for her research and wise judgment in exposing special interest masquerading as public interest.

The material follows.

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