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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Letter Raises Concerns about Big Chemical-Company Mergers

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Wednesday, February 15, 2017   

LINCOLN, Neb. – Nearly 325 organizations have signed a letter pressing new U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to make sure the Justice Department does its job without political interference when it looks at a proposal to let Dow Chemical and DuPont, Monsanto and Bayer, and Syngenta and ChemChina merge.

Tiffany Finck-Haynes, the food-futures campaigner of Friends of the Earth, says her group and others want Congress to provide oversight because President Donald Trump met with the CEOs of Monsanto just before he was inaugurated.

"It raised a lot of ethics questions for lawyers who are very well versed in anti-trust law, because they said that this is very uncommon; that presidents hardly ever, and really in history, have not interfered in this way," she explained.

The letter says if all three deals were to close, the newly created companies would control nearly 70 percent of the world's pesticide market, more than 60 percent of commercial seed sales, and 80 percent of the U.S. corn-seed market. Trump has said the mergers would create jobs and boost the U.S. economy.

Joe Maxwell, executive director of the Organization for Competitive Markets, says big mergers are bad for the environment, small farmers, rural communities and consumers. He cites climate change as one reason the nation needs more diversified and competitive development.

"There's little incentive for these companies to do further research and development on these seeds," he said. "We all worry about having too few strains or genes in those seeds. If we become too dependent, we'll look just like Ireland did in the potato famine."

Lisa Griffith, interim director of the National Family Farm Coalition, warns that when these mergers happen, prices go up and some seed varieties disappear.

"A lot of these varieties that are available from the agri-chemical corporations are GM varieties, genetically modified, which may not be what the farmer wants," said Griffith.

The letter was signed by groups of varying interests and causes, including Food and Water Watch, Family Farm Defenders, Migrant Justice and the Center for Sustainable Medicine.


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