Anonymous ID: 7bdb7d April 29, 2020, 9:21 a.m. No.8961930   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Bipartisan pair of senators want antitrust investigation into meatpackers amid plant closures

 

Sens. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, and Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, called upon the Federal Trade Commission to launch an antitrust investigation into the meatpacking industry. The Wednesday letter by the farm-state senators was sent after President Trump's executive order declaring, under the Defense Production Act, that meat processing plants were part of the critical infrastructure of the United States.

 

The meatpacking industry is controlled by only a handful of massive multinational companies that have focused meat processing into fewer and fewer plants across the nation. That has left the country’s food supply chain vulnerable to disruptions, the senators said. The shuttering of three pork plants due to the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted “in the shutdown of a staggering 15 percent of America’s pork production” at a time when stable supply chains have become more vital than ever, the letter from Baldwin and Hawley reads. “As a result, farmers cannot process their livestock — which are costly to maintain — and consumers risk seeing shortages at grocery stores, exacerbating the food insecurity that all too many Americans are currently experiencing,” the senators wrote. “These harms might have been mitigated if the meatpacking industry was less concentrated. The current COVID-19 crisis has exposed the vulnerabilities of American supply chains and the importance of ensuring that, when disaster strikes, America’s food supplies are not in the hands of a few, mostly foreign-based firms.”

 

Hawley and Baldwin caution that three multinational firms (Tyson Foods from the U.S., JBS from Brazil, and Smithfield from the People’s Republic of China) "control 63 percent of America’s pork processing." “The FTC has the power to shed light on these growing competition and security problems in our food supply," they said. "The Commission should ask probing questions about major meatpacking firms’ conduct, pricing, and contracting, as well as how their commitments to overseas interests impact the U.S. market and national security. Moreover, because a competitive food industry is so critical to the public interest, you should make the findings of any investigation public.”

 

The senators also argue that before the COVID-19 crisis, the financial effects of concentration in the American meatpacking industry have had a deleterious impact on U.S. farmers, ranchers, and consumers. "Between 1980 and 2009, the price a rancher was able to obtain per pound of beef declined from $1.97 to 93 cents (adjusted for inflation)," they said. "Likewise, between 1999 and 2008, real consumer prices for ground beef increased by 24 percent (adjusted for inflation), from a monthly average price of $1.89 a pound in 1999 to $2.34 a pound in 2008."

 

Over 150 of the nation’s largest meat-processing plants are in counties where the rates of coronavirus spread are among the nation’s highest, according to a study performed by USA Today and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. These facilities show over 1 in 3 of the country’s largest beef, pork, and poultry processing facilities, and although current production is stable, 2,200 meat processing workers have become infected at 48 different plants.

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bipartisan-pair-of-senators-want-antitrust-investigation-into-meatpackers-amid-plant-closures

Anonymous ID: 7bdb7d April 29, 2020, 9:28 a.m. No.8961997   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>2134 >>2291

White House releases disinfectant guidelines amid dust-up over Trump comments

 

The Trump administration has unveiled cleaning and disinfecting guidelines as part of the White House’s efforts to reopen the country. The guidelines come just days after President Trump was slammed for offhand remarks about injecting disinfectants during a coronavirus task force briefing. The White House has since said those remarks were taken “out of context” by media coverage, and Trump suggested he was being “sarcastic.” The new guidance, released Wednesday by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after weeks of work, calls on people to clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces such as doorknobs, light switches, countertops, phones, toilets, and sinks at least daily. Other areas, though, don’t need to be disinfected before they reopen. For example, businesses, schools, and other public spaces that haven’t been occupied for more than seven days only need to undergo routine cleaning because the coronavirus hasn’t been found to survive on surfaces longer than a week, according to the guidance shared with the Washington Examiner.

 

The EPA and the CDC also say outdoor spaces generally only need to be cleaned. Using disinfectants on sidewalks and in parks isn’t an “efficient use” of supplies and hasn’t been proven to reduce the risk of the virus spreading, the agencies say. “These guidelines will provide all Americans with information they need to help the country reopen as safely as possible,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. The EPA oversees the approval of disinfectants for use against the coronavirus. Since the start of the outbreak, the EPA has sped up its approval process, getting it down to roughly two weeks, according to the agency. The EPA now has more than 350 products on its approved list. In the absence of approved disinfectants, the agencies say people can use alternatives, such as a one-third cup of bleach added to a gallon of water. The agencies also say to use appropriate protective equipment, such as gloves, when dealing with the chemicals in disinfectants.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/white-house-releases-disinfecting-guidelines-amid-dust-up-over-trump-comments

https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-n-disinfectants-use-against-sars-cov-2

Anonymous ID: 7bdb7d April 29, 2020, 9:43 a.m. No.8962141   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Illinois retailer group says society must learn to ‘coexist’ with COVID-19 ahead of stay-at-home extension

 

With Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home orders set to expire later this week, new orders have yet to be filed. It’s expected the orders will be modified to allow for some retailers considered non-essential to operate. The governor’s current stay home order he said is meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 expires Thursday. Pritzker has yet to officially issue new orders, but has said a modified order to extend through May 30 is coming. A modified version from unofficial sources was published online, but the governor’s office hasn’t confirmed them. Those orders touch on allowing non-essential retailers to open for curbside, internet and delivery sales.

 

Illinois Retail Merchants Association’s Rob Karr said retailers have been working with the governor’s office, but something has to give for businesses on the brink of breaking. “Because they’re watching an entire life savings, sometimes decades of family work, evaporating,” Karr said. “Many of them are telling me absent some kind of opening, they won’t make it to June 1.” Karr said as policymakers and industries have worked well on the fly for solutions during the virus outbreak, there is a concern there could be rolling economic shutdowns if public health issues flare-up in the future. “We as a society, we as businesses, employers, the government, have to learn how to live, how to coexist with COVID-19”

 

The unofficial draft circulating online also lays out manufacturers may offer masks to employees and enforce social distancing. Ken Cooley, of ShapeMaster Inc. in Champaign County, said workers were already practicing such measures as they make things for hand sanitizer plants starting up in central Illinois and even components for COVID-19 antibody testing. One of his chief concerns was a workers’ compensation rule that would have presumed certain frontline workers diagnosed with COVID-19 contracted it on the job. “That’s the first time you’ve ever seen a flu that would somehow become related to workmen's comp,” Cooley said. “I think that that is just crazy.” That rule was withdrawn after being challenged in the courts. Cooley said another concern is other businesses in general that are going bankrupt. “People are going to lose their life savings if we don’t get Illinois opened back up,” Cooley said. “It’s got to be opened and it’s got to be opened now.” Cooley said the state and nation have stepped up to increase hospital capacity to take care of people who may get sick. “Enough said,” Cooley said. “We can take care of the people in this country now so the American people have to be trusted to make wise decisions.” The governor said the new order will include a requirement that people wear face coverings in places where social distancing can’t be practiced starting May 1. The governor also plans to allow elective surgeries to start again. Pritzker also is reopening some state parks.

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/illinois-retailer-group-says-society-must-learn-to-coexist-with-covid-19-ahead-of-stay-at-home-extension