The Corpus Callosum

I'm harping on the same string.  A month ago, I noted how it was not necessary for terrorists to figure out how to poison us.  Our own companies are doing it for them.  Now, our government is doing a heck of a job to make it easier for companies to poison us, and to get away with it.  

As noted by the former WaPo reporter, Ed Bruske, the USDA is no longer keeping track of pesticide use.  Formerly, the USDA published an annual report a chemical usage in agriculture.  It was the only comprehensive, reliable source of information regarding national agricultural use of pesticides.  Bruske elaborates on his blog, The Slow Cook:

...Now it emerges that the Bushites also plan to discontinue the federal government's database on agricultural pesticide use.

Anyone--scientists, researchers, public interest groups--wanting to know how much of a certain pesticide is being spewed into the atmosphere could in the past turn to the annual Agriculture Chemical Research Reports. The reports, while hardly the stuff of headline news, have helped show that genetically modified crops that are supposed to help farmers achieve weed-free croplands have actually spawned new types of herbicide-resistant weeds, resulting in more and more chemicals being sprayed onto the land

I suspect that many of these chemicals are fairly innocuous, and that for others, the benefits outweigh the risks.  Bu there is no way to know that, without data.  

Elanor, writing at The Ethicurean, has more:

Last year, ostensibly because of budget cuts, the USDA scaled back the surveys to cover only a few crops. Then early this year, in a cryptic notice published deep in the Federal Register, the agency announced that all chemical-use surveys would be suspended until at least 2010. In other words, the government will no longer be keeping track of what kinds of pesticides are used on U.S. crops, nor how much.

Elanor (it really is spelled like that) also links to a very informative letter  signed by an ad-hoc collective of environmental advocates.  The letter is posted by the Natural Resources Defense Council; they have a lot more here, which you can read if you don't mind getting depressed for the rest of the day.

Knowledge is power; if the people have no knowledge, then they don't have any power.  The elitists in the White House think that they are the ones who should make all the decisions.  By keeping everyone in the dark, they ensure that there won't be another center of power coalescing to challenge them.  

What worries me here?  Even more than the potential hazards from pesticides, I'm concerned about how easily the Administration gets away with this.  

I suppose that one could see the counter-argument.  Access to this information will only empower perky tree-huggers and even peskier trial lawyers, and annoying ivory-tower types, such as epidemiologists and occupational health folks.  They'll get their hands on the information and engage in all kinds of anti-growth, anti-business activities.

Libertarian-type folks might think it makes sense for the government to stop enabling this kind of activism, since activists really ought to just mind their own business.  

But the issue is far larger than that.  Secrecy is a way for the government to have more power.  Selective secrecy is a way for the government to empower some, while disempowering others.  Or, for those who are able to sway government, to empower themselves at the expense of others.  It is hard to imagine that anyone really thinks that this is a good idea.