Catch up on the latest news and analysis from EWG’s team of experts.
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Shelf Life Theory Has Short Expiration Date
The large, industrial growers of corn floated a trial balloon recently (July 20) in an attempt to justify continued taxpayer subsidies that have totaled $73.8 billion since 1995 for the ubiquitous...
The Bitter Ironies in USDA's Firing of Shirley Sherrod
The conflagration that embroiled the US Department of Agriculture last week (July 19) over the knee-jerk dismissal of an African American official who was falsely accused of reverse discrimination is...
Craven Corn
Hopes for comprehensive legislation to combat climate pollution evaporated Thursday (July 22) after months of wrangling in the Senate. In its place Senate leaders are proposing what is being billed as...
Hold the Mayo, Extra Pesticides
Over the past decade, organic produce sales have soared from 3 percent of the retail produce market in the U.S. in 2000 to nearly 11 percent last year, to $9.5 billion. According to surveys by the...
More Potential Giveaways to Ethanol in Energy Bill
In an bid to garner support for legislation to address the looming danger of climate change, Midwest senators are reportedly pressing to attach a long-term extension of biofuel tax breaks to a Senate...
Nitrogen Fertilizer's Toll: Not Just Dead Zones
Last week began with a front page story in the San Francisco Chronicle (July 5) detailing the links between increased fertilizer run-off due to corn ethanol production in the Mississippi River Basin...
Aim Chesapeake "Pollution Diet" at the Worst Gluttons
On the first of the July, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a plan to put everyone who lives or works in the Chesapeake Bay watershed on a "rigorous pollution diet" intended to cut...
$600 Million for BP -- Courtesy of US Taxpayers
2010 won't be all lemons for BP. Sure, the company will be best remembered for blowout preventers, top kill and Tony Hayward, but along the way the oil giant stands to make a killing from its...
Farm Subsidy Database
The decades-old momentum behind federal farm subsidies delivered $13.4 billion to farmers in 2006, according to the latest update of the Environmental Working Group's Farm Subsidy Database website...
Shopper's Guide to Pesticides
Well, as we do each year, EWG released (on June 19) the latest Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce and as we suspected, eaters around the country are still concerned about high levels of toxic...
Quickly, a "Lie" Becomes an "Overstatement"
Since the May release of the Environmental Working Group's update of its farm subsidy database, the media have paid a lot of attention to Tea Party candidates for Congress who paradoxically receive...
Huge Taxpayer Investment in Ethanol Yields Paltry Payoff
Between 2005 and 2009, U.S. taxpayers spent a whopping $17 billion to subsidize corn-ethanol blends in gasoline. What did they get in return? A reduction in overall oil consumption equal to an...
Huge Taxpayer Investment in Ethanol Yields Paltry Payoff
Between 2005 and 2009, U.S. taxpayers spent a whopping $17 billion to subsidize corn ethanol blends in gasoline. What did they get in return? A reduction in overall oil consumption equal to an...
Farm Subsidy Recipients Say the Darndest Things
In the month since EWG's 2010 update of our Farm Subsidy Database, subsidy recipients and program defenders have been reacting in interesting ways to the new data. Here's a roundup: Tennessee...
Greenwashing Corn
Starting this week (June1) in Washington, DC, the National Corn Growers Association and its affiliated state associations are rolling out a $1 million ad campaign to boost corn's tarnished image. It's...
Harvesting Taxpayers for Disaster Payments
The 2008 farm bill included a new program to replace ad hoc disaster appropriations that have averaged $2 billion per year in recent years. The Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE) Program...
Assessing EPA Efforts to Clean Up Chesapeake Bay
On April 23, the Environmental Working Group's Rebecca Sutton, PhD, submitted a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency articulating EWG's support for the Agency's proposed pollution controls...
More Attention for USDA's Lack of Transparency
There is increasing attention on the restriction of access to government records on taxpayer funded farm subsidies reported by the Environmental Working Group. 74 percent of payments administered by...
Obama's USDA Less Transparent Than Bush's
The Environmental Working Group has worked hard to track the billions lavished on the wealthiest and largest farm operations in the country, in the hope that releasing the information would spur...
Farm Income Data Debunks Subsidy Myths
Environmental Working Group's updated Farm Subsidy Database, released May 5, chronicles where federal farm subsidy dollars have gone from 1995 through 2009, revealing the true impact of farm programs...
