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DCL
Last weekend, President Obama appointed Islam Siddiqui, former pesticide lobbyist, as chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The choice was not news—he was nominated back in October—but it had such little support that Obama apparently found it necessary to borrow the slimy recess appointment tactic so popular with his predecessor. (And, to be fair, used by Bill Clinton as well, but fewer times and with not as much damage caused as a result.)
Siddiqui's nomination was opposed by more than 80 environmentalists, small and organic farmers, and consumer groups—and according to the Center for Biological Diversity, more than 90,000 citizens contacted both the White House and the Senate to make clear their opposition to the nomination.
Siddiqui is a former pesticide lobbyist for companies including Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont and Dow, as well as vice president of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America (formerly known as the National Agricultural Chemicals Association)—the trade group that criticized Michelle Obama for making the White House garden organic.
The biotech and pesticide trade group lobbies to weaken the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act and claims that pesticides are not pollutants. And as an indicator of how in sync Siddiqui is with the principles of CropLife, he served as undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture when the first national organic labeling standards came out—which accepted sewage sludge fertilizer, GMOs, and irradiated food as organic until the public demanded a change in the rules.
Where's the Obama that his own party elected?
