GOP targets new food guidelines

While the recommendations are merely that — a recommendation — the report from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, an independent scientific panel of food nutritionists, has caused anger on Capitol Hill and within the meat industry. Opponents see it as an ideological play in President Obama’s climate agenda.

“These recommendations, which claim that red meat production is damaging to the environment and proposed taxes on certain foods, go far beyond the panel’s purview,” said Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., who heads the Appropriations subcommittee that covers the Agriculture Department.

If adopted, the recommendations would hurt the meat industry, particularly those producing red and processed varieties.

“This particular round with the recommendations that are centered on foods raised sustainably, I’ll admit, that was a much bigger flag than typically pops up,” said Dale Moore, executive director of public policy with the American Farm Bureau Federation. “We are concerned.”

At issue is a section in the panel’s recommendations that said a plant-based diet would cause less strain on the environment than those heavy on meat.

“Consistent evidence indicates that, in general, a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with lesser environmental impact ([greenhouse gas] emissions and energy, land, and water use) than is the current average U.S. diet,” the panel said.

The guidelines are a joint effort by the Agriculture Department and the Department of Health and Human Services that are revised every five years. Health and Human Services is the head agency this time, as leadership alternates. Previous iterations have touched on sustainability, with the logic being that poor land stewardship and climate effects would impair U.S. food production, but not to the same extent as the latest version.

“It’s not up to [Agriculture Secretary Tom] Vilsack alone,” said Jeff Stier, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research. “I’ve seen kind of a creep in moving toward sustainability.”

In the spending bill it approved in December, Congress included instructions that the dietary guidelines must stick to nutrition in anticipation of the fight, on which the meat and livestock industry have been lobbying.

“Congress made their directive very clear,” said Chase Adams, a spokesman with the National Cattleman’s Beef Association.

But the Obama administration could easily disregard that directive. The dietary guidelines aren’t a specific line item in the budget, so there is little punitive action Congress can take ahead of time. If the agencies flout Congress, lawmakers are likely to ramp up oversight or take shots through the fiscal 2016 budgets.

Environmental groups hope that, with the health department helming the process, the guidelines will lead to victories on sustainability and climate change.

“HHS has a very big financial interest in advancing the recommendation around less meat and more plants because the evidence is clear that diets that are heavy in red meat and processed meat increase the risk of diet-related diseases … that costs the economy billions upon billions of dollars,” said Kari Hamerschlag, senior program manager with environmental group Friends of the Earth.

Detractors of the process noted that the advisory panel is comprised of nutritionists, not necessarily environmental scientists or sustainability experts. They said that raises questions about the panel’s credibility when it comes to assessing environmental and energy effects of meat and poultry production.

“They are all nutrition scientists. None of them have any background in environmental or agricultural science,” said Adele Hite, a longtime critic of the panel who is executive director of the Healthy Nation Coalition.

For now, Republicans are keeping Obama officials honest. They peppered Vilsack at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing last month about how he planned to handle the guidelines.

“These recommendations are just that. They are not the guidelines. I know there are scientists who do feel differently about all this,” Vilsack said, according to AgriPulse.

But he wouldn’t commit to adhering to the congressional directive. An USDA spokesman later told Politico that it’s not clear how involved Vilsack will be in the final guideline. That’s partly because HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell will have the lead role, Hamerschlag said.

“HHS is more impervious than USDA to industry pressure,” she said.

It’s an industry that feels under siege, Moore said, though he has been pleased with the level of attention the guidelines are getting from both parties.

Still, new movements such as “Meatless Monday,” in which people are encouraged to cook a vegetarian dinner to reduce the impact of soil, water and energy used in animal-based diets, have rattled meat producers. When the USDA in 2012 plugged “Meatless Monday” in its weekly newsletter, the beef industry pushed back and got it retracted. In 2013, a coalition of meat groups named the Farm Animal Welfare Coalition pressured the Longworth House Office Building’s “Meatless Monday” menu.

Moore said farmers and ranchers need to do a better job of pushing back against the “constant drumbeat” from environmental and animal welfare groups. He said his group has boosted spending on social media outreach to give meat a more positive face to younger generations.

“One of the things that we are increasingly doing — I mean, we know how to lobby Congress and an agency — is how do we reach out to folks?” Moore said.

Hamerschlag said the sustainability recommendations, even if they don’t make it into the final guidelines, hint that momentum is heading against the meat industry. She said those decisions will arise as the effects of climate change — some scientists have linked shifting crop yields and prolonged drought to a warming planet — take root.

“It’s inevitable that this is going to become much more integrated in the way we think about our food choices,” Hamerschlag said.