The following is mirrored from its source at:
http://www.greenwatchusa.org/1222Veto-ShouldHave.pdf
What the Governor's Veto Message of
House Bill 1222 Should Have Been
The Sons and Daughters of Liberty (Pennsylvania)
Prefatory Note: On December 31, 2003, Pennsylvania Governor Ed
Rendell vetoed House Bill 1222 -- legislation introduced by
agribusiness corporations to strip away local control over
corporate factory farms in Pennsylvania. In addition to the act of
vetoing, the Governor released a Veto Message which explained that
the Governor actually supported the goals of the legislation, but
preferred a more comprehensive approach to what he termed
"nutrient management." (a copy of the Governor's Message is at
http://www.greenwatchusa.org/1222Veto-DidSay.pdf). The below Veto
Message was drafted by the Sons and Daughters of Liberty -- a
network of Pennsylvanians working to confront the power that
corporations wield over communities in the Commonwealth. That
network has drafted a Veto Message that should have been delivered
by the Governor.
What the Governor's Veto Message of
House Bill 1222 Should Have Been
Drafted by the Sons and Daughters of Liberty (Pennsylvania)
For more information on the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, see
www.greenwatchusa.org
TO THE HONORABLE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
I am returning herewith, without my approval, House Bill 1222,
Printer's No. 3127, entitled "AN ACT" amending Title 42 (Judiciary
and Judicial Procedure) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes,
further providing for identification of incorrect debtor; further
defining "other specified offense" for purposes of DNA data and
testing; and further providing for summary offenses involving
vehicles, for law enforcement records, for duration of commitment
and review; ESTABLISHING A CAUSE OF ACTION FOR UNAUTHORIZED
ENACTMENT OR ENFORCEMENT OF LOCAL ORDINANCES GOVERNING
AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS; PROVIDING FOR CERTAIN ATTORNEY FEES AND
COSTS; AND FURTHER PROVIDING for sentence of intermediate
punishment and for assessments.
For starters, let's look at our own Pennsylvania
Constitution.
Article I, § 2 declares that "all power is inherent in the
people, and all free governments are founded on their authority."
Article 1, § 26 declares that the Commonwealth shall not "deny to
any person the enjoyment of any civil right." Article 1, § 27 of
our Constitution declares that the people "have a right to clean
air, pure water, and to the preservation of" the natural
environment.
Thus, people are the source of all political authority,
governments are established to secure people's rights, and people
have a right to the protection of the natural environment.
Accordingly, I am returning House Bill 1222 to the
legislature unsigned because I find that the Bill tramples our
constitutional ideals of self-government while strengthening the
ability of agribusiness corporations to eliminate family farmers,
destroy rural communities, and further harm people's health and
the safety of their food.
Although previous administrations have flouted the
Constitution and the ideal of self-government, I refuse to do so.
I, like the people who drafted the Pennsylvania Constitution,
believe that governments exist to serve the majority of people,
not the corporate few.
Who has been clamoring for legislation like House Bill 1222?
This legislative travesty is not the result of a great democratic
groundswell, but is being pressed, instead, by a few organizations
invested in corporate agriculture. Thus, I do not find it unusual
that one of the principal advocates for House Bill 1222 has been
the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau.
Because of past experiences, I've taken the time to learn
what the Farm Bureau is.
The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau and its parent organization, the
American Farm Bureau Federation, are lobbying arms for
agribusiness corporations. Indeed, the first Farm Bureau in the
country was created not by men and women of the soil, but by a New
York State Chamber of Commerce. The vast majority of Farm Bureau
"members" are either policyholders of one of numerous insurance
corporations affiliated with state Farm Bureaus, or are customers
of other farm bureau business ventures. Such "members" have no say
in establishing or carrying out Farm Bureau policies. In most
cases, they don't even have a particular interest in agriculture.
The Farm Bureau is not a democratic institution. It is run by a
few for the benefit of a few.
I believe that the Farm Bureau -- and groups like PennAg
Industries Association -- exist to impose a corporate food system
on the many that benefits the corporate few. They lie about
Pennsylvania needing more industrial farms, and urge legislators
to turn more control over farming to the distant boardrooms of
agribusiness corporations. They say there's no other way to grow
food.
Horsefeathers. Let's look at who's in charge of food in the
United States and who has benefited from that control.
Currently, four corporations control over 70% of pork
production in the United States and over 80% of beef production.
Fewer than five corporations control 90% of the export market for
most major crops, and 10 cents of every food dollar spent in this
country now goes to that friend of public health, the Philip
Morris Corporation.
This corporate dominance of agriculture has been a disaster
for family farmers, rural communities, and everyone who eats.
Over the past twenty years, a handful of agribusiness
corporations has managed to eliminate over 300,000 family farmers
-- and over 3,000 independent family hog farmers in Pennsylvania
alone. According to the USDA, 6% of all farms -- the large
corporate farms -- now receive 59% of all farm revenue.
Middle-sized farms with gross sales under $100,000 are now being
eliminated at a faster pace than any other group of farms.
As independent family farmers are consumed by agribusiness
corporations -- or shoved into bankruptcy -- economic competitors
are eliminated, and agribusiness corporations are left with a
deepening economic monopoly. That economic control has resulted in
the creation of a political monopoly over Pennsylvania's
legislative Agriculture Committees, which now foolishly refer to
factory farms as "advanced" farms.
That's quite a dead-end vision for Pennsylvania -- one which
drives dollars from our family-farm based rural communities into
the deep pockets of a distant corporate few.
True to their revolutionary heritage, Pennsylvanians have not
been taking this lying down. Many understand the underlying truth
of what is happening.
A Chairman of a Board of Supervisors in Fulton County
declared defiantly last year, "I was elected to represent the
people of this Township, not factory farm corporations." That
Township has become one of several to adopt local laws to stop the
corporatization of agriculture in the Commonwealth.
I, too, understand what is happening. I support those
Township Supervisors and their rural communities across this
State. I will not be a party to their destruction.
I know that I didn't get overwhelming support from rural
Pennsylvania voters in the last election. We've got some basic
differences. But I also believe that we share a core value -- that
the corporate few should never dictate the rules to the rest of
us.
And that's what House Bill 1222 is really about. It's about
trampling on the power of people to make decisions about the
future of your community. It's about corporations using the
people's legislature to claim that corporate "rights" override the
rights of people and the land.
I believe that the ideal of democracy is in big trouble,
precisely because corporations have been preventing "We the
People" from governing ourselves.
I believe corporations today act like governments. Energy
corporations make our energy policies. Insurance corporations
define the healthcare we receive. Corporate polluters write our
environmental laws. Transnational corporations override state and
national laws through global corporate rights agreements like
NAFTA. Military contracting corporations determine our foreign
policy.
Their wealth and power trample people and communities --
along with the ideal of democracy -- everyday across this nation
of ours.
As if that's not enough, corporations now claim the
protections of rights and privileges found in the Constitution and
our Bill of Rights. Rights and privileges originally intended to
only protect people. Today, corporations wielding those rights and
privileges crush -- and then seek to punish -- communities and
elected officials daring to practice democracy.
Several stories have struck me over the past year --
awakening me to this corporate trampling of self-government. In
small, rural Belfast Township in Fulton County, residents told
their local elected officials that they didn't want corporate
factory farms. So, the Supervisors adopted an Ordinance
prohibiting agribusiness corporations from farming within the
Township.
Small, rural Rush Township in Centre County had faced the
death of Tony Behun, a child who died after being exposed to
corporate-hauled and land applied sewage sludge. Residents and
their elected Supervisors, like many before them, found that
comforting the bereaved family of a dead child was simply not
enough. To make sure that no one else died from the actions of
sludge corporations, the Township adopted a local law requiring
the corporations to prove to the Township that the sludge was safe
prior to land application.
What happened next? Agribusiness corporate interests swooped
in and sued Belfast Township. Synagro Corporation descended on
Rush Township. In both cases, the corporations sued the
communities for violating what they called "corporate
constitutional rights." Demanding millions of dollars from the
Townships, they are pursuing the Township Supervisors individually
and personally for payment of those damages.
Township Supervisors taking such courageous stands on behalf
of the people in their community has been both costly and
dangerous. It has threatened to bankrupt several Township
governments. I don't like that one bit.
Now, I've read our Pennsylvania Constitution. I've read our
U.S. Bill of Rights.
I don't believe that either document confers constitutional
rights -- originally intended only for people -- onto
corporations, thus enabling them to override
democratically-adopted laws.
Laws like House Bill 1222 make things even worse by enabling
corporations to take decisions that should be made at the local
level and removing them into the Courts -- far from local
legislators. What's more, laws like House Bill 1222 seek to punish
elected officials for daring to actually represent the values of
their communities. I find those goals appallingly counter to the
ideal of self-government.
House Bill 1222 all but guarantees that people will become
powerless to make the rules for their communities.
Which brings us to the real question. Who will make the rules
in the future?
Will it continue to be faceless, unelected corporate managers
located far away from Pennsylvania's rural communities -- acting
like puppetmasters with legislators dangling on long distance
strings? Or will it be the many Pennsylvania families -- who live,
work, and raise children in rural Pennsylvania -- who are
confronting and resisting the corporate takeover of their
communities? Those families fervently believe that it is possible
to produce clean and nutritious food in vibrant rural communities,
anchored by healthy family farms supported by people who eat.
Today, I stand with those Pennsylvania families and their
vision for this Commonwealth.
I call on the legislature -- Democrats and Republicans alike
-- to stop turning corporate wish lists into laws that trash local
self-government, undermine democratic institutions, and destroy
independent family farmers.
For the reasons set forth above, I must withhold my signature
from House Bill 1222 and I am returning the Bill to the House of
Representatives.
Edward G. Rendell
Governor
http://www.ratical.org/corporations/1222VetoSDL.html (hypertext)
http://www.ratical.org/corporations/1222VetoSDL.txt (text only)
http://www.ratical.org/corporations/1222VetoSDL.pdf (print-ready)