Dr. Hagen was not the Obama administration's first choice to lead FSIS.
The administration also courted Caroline Smith Dewaal, director of food safety
at Center for Science in the Public Interest, a GAP coalition partner. Smith DeWaal
is a food safety expert with 20 years worth of experience working on policy and
food safety issues. DeWaal’s nomination was halted after it was discovered that
she is a registered lobbyist, which goes against the administration's policy
against hiring lobbyists.
GAP’s not taking a side on Hagen with this post, in any way. But GAP,
last week as part of a coalition of 13 groups, sent a letter to President Obama
asking for a change in the year-old executive order that bans hiring lobbyists.
The order lumps together lobbyists for the private sector with those who
represent charities and public interest causes – people who don't have any type
of financial interest in government policies. This means, that "countless
charities that have no actual or perceived financial conflicts of interest are
treated as 'collateral damage,' and discouraged from much-needed policy
involvement." The coalition believes the order was well-meaning, but
ultimately flawed, as it prevents experts such as Smith DeWall, who would have
been a fantastic choice, from joining the government and using their expertise
to help protect the public.
Ironically, it turned out that CSPI, the actual registrant, had been improperly listing Food Safety Director Caroline DeWaal as a CSPI lobbyist for several years, and in the Fall of 2009 amended/corrected its filings to remove the erroneous listing during that time period.
Posted by: Ian | February 01, 2010 at 10:43 AM