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Lobbyist for Junk Food Now Works at USDA Writing Dietary Guidelines
Sometimes the headline says it all. Once you've stopped shaking your head in disgust, please continue to read below.
For a year now, lobbyists have swarmed the White House under President Donald Trump, attaining positions within various federal agencies just days after leaving government affairs jobs at lobbying firms, trade groups and corporations. Back in 2009, then-President Barack Obama issued an executive order on ethics that barred lobbyists from joining agencies they had lobbied in the previous two years. But Trump weakened that order shortly after becoming president, allowing lobbyists to join agencies they recently lobbied so long as they recused themselves from working on specific issues on which they had lobbied within the previous two years. The Trump administration has been sidestepping even that stipulation — in some cases by ignoring it, and in others, by granting ethics waivers.
Drain the swamp he said?
In late August of 2017, White House counsel Donald McGahn issued a waiver for a new member of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), previously a lobbyist for the corn syrup industry, to advise the department on dietary guidelines....
Tkacz was director of food policy for the Corn Refiners Association, a trade group for corn syrup manufacturers, for two years before immediately leaving for the Trump administration in July 2017..... Before that, she lobbied for the Snack Food Association and the National Grocers Association.
A person who specializes in representing the interests of junk food.... an expert in lobbying for policies that favor industries that profit from selling us garbage food..... is now working at the USDA writing policy on what we should be eating.
Tkacz lobbied the USDA, as well as the House, Senate, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration on “education regarding federal food policy” as recently as the second quarter of 2017.... Now she helps set that policy.
This is EVERYTHING that is wrong with what is supposed to be OUR government. This is corporations running the show and doing everything they can to maximize their profits.
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