An eighth-grader at Louisville Middle School enjoys a slice of cheese pizza before listening to U.S. Rep. Jared Polis speak Monday. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“Congress said that eating pizza is the same as eating green beans or peas or broccoli,” U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., told the students. “While most of us know that sounds crazy, Congress apparently doesn’t.”

Just after the teens finished eating — what else? — cheese pizza, a vegetable salad, grapefruit slices and whole strawberries, Polis used the Louisville Middle School lunchroom as the backdrop for the introduction of a new bill, the School Lunch Improvements for Children’s Education (SLICE) Act.

The legislation would close the loophole that allows a pizza without vegetables to be counted as a serving of vegetables in federally subsidized lunches eaten by almost 32 million U.S. school children.

Two years ago, Congress passed a child nutrition law that called on schools to improve the nutritional quality of lunches they serve but then lobbyists for frozen pizza sellers like ConAgra Foods Inc. and Schwan Food Co. started hanging around the Capitol and the next thing you know pizza was classified as a vegetable. Lobbyists for french fry makers like the one that supplies McDonald’s Corp. also succeeded in preventing limits on how many starchy vegetables, like potatoes, are served.

There is an epidemic of childhood obesity across the nation and around the world. Experts estimate one in five children between the ages of 6 and 17 are overweight in the United States.

“We all eat pizza. I eat pizza. I enjoy pizza,” Polis said, calling a slice of pie “a good snack from time to time” that “can be part of a healthy diet” so long as all of its carbohydrates, calories and saturated fat are balanced out by exercise and overall healthy eating. While “pizza can be a lot of things to a lot of people,” he stressed that one thing it certainly is not is a vegetable.

In addition to setting higher standards for when tomato paste and puree counts as a vegetable, the SLICE Act (pdf) seeks to implement sodium-reduction targets and a whole grain requirement.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture spends $18 billion a year on its student lunch program.

“While the courts continue to wrestle with roadless policy, I will continue to work with the USDA Forest Service to ensure we protect roadless areas on our National Forests,” Vilsack said in a release. “Renewing this interim directive reflects President Obama’s commitment to protecting our forests by ensuring that all projects in roadless areas receive a higher level of scrutiny.”

Tom Vilsack

The roadless debate has been waged in courtrooms across the country virtually from the moment President Bill Clinton ordered sweeping protections for inventoried roadless areas toward the end of his administration. The Bush administration quickly tossed out the Clinton Roadless Rule and allowed states to petition for their own roadless rules.

Only Colorado and Idaho followed that path, with former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens initiating the Colorado Roadless Rule petition and current Gov. Bill Ritter continuing a course of action that actually protects more acreage than the original Clinton rule but, according to critics, allows too many exemptions for logging, coal mining and ski area expansion. Vilsack is currently considering the controversial Colorado Roadless Rule.

Vilsack first imposed a moratorium on road building last year, but earlier this month exempted 21 projects, including the Elk Creek coal mine near Paonia. By re-imposing the so-called “time out” on road building, it appears the West Elk coal mine, also on the North Fork of the Gunnison River near Paonia, will not receive an exemption to build roads for methane venting needed to expand operations – at least for another year. A West Elk representative could not provide comment Friday because of the upcoming holiday weekend.

Environmentalists, displeased with Vilsack’s recent road-building exemptions, were happy with his decision on Friday:

“The renewal of the time out directive is good news,” said Jane Danowitz, director of the Pew Environment Group’s U.S. public lands program. “Today’s announcement is a welcome reaffirmation of a national policy that helps protect America’s most pristine forests.

“It also reflects the reality that the 1872 Mining Law leaves roadless forests and western water sources threatened by gold, uranium and other mining operations. Reform of the mining law is long overdue, and the Obama administration and Congress should make it a high priority.”

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(flickr, cc; Jelles)

Starting Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will make one-time payments to dairy farmers, based on the amount of milk produced and marketed between February and July, 2009.

It’s the latest in a series of efforts to help the nation’s dairy farmers. In Colorado, as a number of farmers have been pushed to bankruptcy this fall, observers have blamed the tough times on two factors: the fact that milk commodity prices are at their lowest level since the 1970s and the collapse of New Frontier Bank in Greeley.

A press release from Democrat Betsy Markey, representing Colorado’s Fourth District in the U.S. House of Representatives, quantified the recent declines in milk prices:

Milk prices declined substantially through early-to-mid-2009, with the national price for milk averaging $16.80 per hundredweight (cwt.) in the fourth quarter of 2008 and averaging $12.23 per cwt. in the first quarter of 2009, a 27-percent decline.  On average, the price U.S. dairy producers received for milk marketed in the summer of 2009 was about half of what it cost them to produce milk.

“This program will serve as a critical stop-gap measure to help dairy farmers stay in business in the short-term,” said Markey, a member of the House Agriculture Committee. She added that she had heard from farmers across Northern and Easter Colorado about declining milk prices over the last year.

But according to BusinessWeek, others worry that greater efforts will have to be undertaken.

Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said she believed the plan would provide needed relief to dairy farmers but said it was only one step in the path to recovery.

“This is only a temporary solution to the fundamental problems with our dairy pricing system,” she said.

Read more at our sister site, The Iowa Independent.

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Sherman, who also serves on the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission board that spearheaded tougher, more environmentally stringent drilling regulations, has been lauded for helping to give more weight to air and water quality and wildlife habitat issues during the state’s recent natural-gas boom.

“Over the past two years, Sherman showed bold leadership in protecting our land, water, and wildlife resources from the impacts of oil and gas development,” Environment Colorado advocate Matt Garrington said in a release. “Sherman’s leadership was key in passing strong protections of our natural resources in the face of unbalanced energy development.”

Pending U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee and full Senate approval, Sherman would oversee the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the U.S. Forest Service – the agency in charge of millions of acres of federal lands in Colorado where a great deal of oil and gas development has occurred over the past decade.

Others in the environmental community felt Sherman’s direction of the Department of Natural Resources during the state’s push for its own roadless rule would hurt his chances. The Colorado Roadless Rule, crafted by the state to manage more than 4 million acres of the state’s largely undeveloped public lands, has been moved steadily forward by Gov. Bill Ritter’s administration despite conservationist’s concerns that it allows far too many road-building exceptions for power and water infrastructure, logging, ski area expansion and oil and gas development.

In fact, a group of Colorado environmental groups is launching the “Don’t Sell Colorado Short” Roadless Road Show at the Alliance Center in lower downtown Denver Friday, heading to Durango for a formal launch before moving around the state to document and call attention to Coloradan’s support for a more restrictive roadless rule like the one the Clinton administration put in place in 2001. That rule was quickly tossed aside by the Bush administration, but conservationists, for the most part, seek reinstatement of a nationwide rule similar to the Clinton rule.

“We would like to congratulate Mr. Sherman and ask that he promote the long-term conservation of our backcountry hunting and fishing traditions,” said Joel Webster, associate director of campaigns for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s Center for Western Lands, “including upholding and defending the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which safeguards our nation’s roadless areas, should he be confirmed as undersecretary.”

Ritter also issued a statement of support for Sherman, which in part reads:

“Having twice served as Colorado’s director of natural resources, first in the [Gov. Dick] Lamm administration and again since 2007, I know he will do an outstanding job as undersecretary. President Obama’s nomination of yet another talented Colorado leader speaks volumes about our place on the national stage.”

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State Sen. Jim Isgar at the Capitol. Isgar is stepping down to take a Department of Agriculture post. (Photo/jimisgar.org)

Term-limited state Sen. Jim Isgar won appointment as the U.S. Department of Agriculture state director of rural development, Mile High Politics first reported Tuesday morning. The Hesperus Democrat, whose Senate District 6 covers eight counties in the southwest corner of Colorado, plans to step down in about three weeks, he told Jeremy Pelzer, creating the need for a vacancy committee to fill the final year of his term.

“After many years working for Colorado, I’m excited at the opportunity to continue that work at the U.S. Department of Agriculture,” Isgar said in a statement. “As a resident of a rural area these issues touch me very deeply. I’m happy that I will be able to continue to work for Colorado, rebuild and revitalize our rural economy, and improve the lives of every American every day. I want to maintain the vitality of rural America– that’s where the strength of this country has always been and that’s where our strength will continue to be.”

Known around the Capitol as the Legislature’s foremost authority on water issues, Isgar chairs the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee and the Permanent Legislative Water Review Committee. He works as a rancher.

Isgar has made no secret of his desire for a federal job. During the legislative session, he told the Durango Herald he had applied for a job with the Obama administration and was rumored to be seeking the USDA regional director spot.

It will be the fourth vacancy in the 35-member state Senate since the 2008 election. Republican Steve Johnson stepped down after winning election as a Larimer County commissioner, followed by the mid-term departures of state Sen. Jennifer Veiga and Senate President Peter Groff, both Denver Democrats. Two House members have resigned and had their seats filled by vacancy committees this year.

State Rep. Ellen Roberts, a Durango Republican, announced earlier this month she plans to run for Isgar’s seat next year. The district vacancy committee will appoint a Democrat, who will have a leg up running for what would have been an open seat.

The USDA state rural development office has its headquarters in Lakewood and has six offices spread across the state, in Alamosa, Cortez, Craig, Delta, Las Animas and Wray. The office distributes federal grants and administers programs throughout rural Colorado. Nationwide, the office has runs more than $114 billion in loans and loan guarantees, according to a USDA release.

Recently installed Senate President Brandon Shaffer, a Longmont Democrat, sang Isgar’s praises in a statement.

“I’m so proud of Senator Isgar and his new position in the Department of Agriculture,” Shaffer said. “With the loss of Senator Isgar we are losing a great mind, a wonderful representative of the people, and an expert in many areas of state government, including water issues. While we are happy for his new endeavors, he will be greatly missed in the Senate.”

Isgar was appointed to the SD 6 seat in 2001 when incumbent Jim Dyer, also a Democrat, resigned to take a seat on the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. Isgar won re-election to his second full, four-year term in 2006 with 60 percent of the vote.

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Still, state officials will take what they can get, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture doled out four grants of $250,000 each to fund a biomass boiler heating system at a prison in Florence; wood pellet production for wood heating stoves at a mill in Kremmling; biomass co-firing of a coal-fired power plant in Colorado Springs; and a biomass collection center and biomass heating system at the Boulder County Parks Department.

All four facilities will use or process trees cut down during wildfire mitigation projects dealing with the state’s massive mountain pine bark beetle epidemic that has left millions of acres of Colorado forests rust-red and on the way to becoming gray and lifeless.

Several Colorado towns, including Vail and Avon, are considering pursuing centralized biopower plants that would gasify chipped wood to produce hot water and electricity, and a Littleton-based firm is among the world leaders in producing portable biopower machines, although it’s sold none of the systems in-state. The Governor’s Energy Office is currently considering state grants for such projects.

Conservationists were quick to praise Vilsack and the Obama administration’s one-year “time out” to establish a long-term policy for managing roadless areas. Most favor a return to the 2001 Clinton administration Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

That highly protective bit of rulemaking was quickly set aside by the Bush administration in favor of allowing states to petition the Forest Service for their own customized roadless rules. Only Idaho and Colorado did so, with Gov. Bill Ritter moving forward in order to protect against the federal rule being scrapped altogether.

Ritter, though, asked for and received a slowdown on the implementation of the Colorado roadless rule until the federal rule, which was the subject of conflicting federal court rulings, could be sorted out.

At stake are more than 100 oil and gas leases on federal lands issued after the Bush administration scrapped the Clinton rule. State conservationists also say the Colorado rule allows more road-building exceptions for logging operations and ski-area expansions than the Clinton rule.

Colorado Wild, the Wilderness Workshop, Colorado Trout Unlimited and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership were among 10 groups that fired off a letter to Vilsack late last week in hopes of stalling the process at least until new leadership is in place at the U.S. Forest Service – leadership that would presumably be more in tune with Obama administration conservation goals.

Colorado is one of only two states that opted to petition the Forest Service for its own roadless rule, which limits road building and development on more than 4.4 million acres of the state’s largely roadless national forest land.

Idaho, the only other state to go the Bush administration petition route, implemented a rule late last year that more closely paralleled a 2001 Clinton administration roadless rule.

State and national conservationists want to see a Colorado rule more in line with the 2001 rule because they say the new Colorado rule has too many exceptions for everything from logging to oil and gas development to ski-area expansion.

The Ag department’s Inspector General knocked the broadband program for being too slow to dole out money, approving projects near major urban cities and loaning money to areas already served while three largely rural western states, Idaho, Montana and New Mexico, have received no money at all.

We remain concerned with RUS’ current direction of the broadband program, particularly as they receive greater funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. RUS’ broadband program may not meet the Recovery Act’s objective of awarding funds to projects that provide service to the most rural residents that do not have access to broadband service.

As NewWest notes, the USDA is slated to receive an additional $2.5 billion in broadband loans to expand coverage areas under the federal economic stimulus act.

Of the $267 million loaned to broadband companies to promote economic growth and high-speed Internet availability in rural Colorado, 82 percent of the 546 small communities in the service areas already had two or more broadband plans to choose from.

The Inspector General’s audit also found that the program has made $1.35 billion in loans since 2001, or just 24 percent of the $5.7 billion allocated by Congress over the last eight fiscal years with more funding on the way.

In response to the critique, the RUS argued that it has not taken a more fleet-footed approach in addressing the auditor’s 2005 report corrective action recommendations because of holdups in passing the 2008 Farm Bill that could have demanded new revisions to the proposed loan guidelines.

Buck passing. How quaint.

Those remarks could serve as an interesting predictor of Vilsack’s approach to food, farming and energy as President-elect Barack Obama’s newly nominated U.S. agriculture secretary.

From our Nov. 18, 2006, story, Presidential contender lights up over ‘trick question’, reporting from CU Law’s inaugural Energy and Environmental Security Initiative lecture series:

On balancing his Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) “free trade” stance with foreign oil independence

After fielding an angry outburst by an audience member who supports nuclear energy, Vilsack went on the defensive when questioned how the recently announced Democratic presidential candidate squares his responsibilities as chair of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), an unapologetic free-trade group, with his earlier remarks about reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

“Hey folks, that’s a trick question!” Vilsack exclaimed.

On renewable energy and trade policy

He spoke about moral imperatives and three-point plans to increase production and usage of renewable energy sources. Throughout the speech, he liberally sprinkled criticisms of India and China’s foreign policy and international trade goals which are integrated into their rapidly growing energy needs.

However, when questioned about his seemingly conflicting statements supporting both global free trade and stiff import tariffs on renewable energy sources, such as sugar cane-based ethanol from Brazil, Vilsack launched into an oddly defensive not-quite-so-presidential diatribe about labor and agriculture subsidies.

“We need to have a conversation about free trade and our social compact with workers,” he said as he tried to soften his original hard-line statements about energy as a national security concern by pointing out our current trade with oil-producing nations that are politically opposed to the U.S.

First, he blamed the Bush administration for not enforcing trade agreements and its unwillingness to “get harsh with our banker” in China about its own energy and military trade with other nations (read: Iran and Venezuela) that undercut U.S. interests.

Unemployment assistance

Vilsack then took off in a pre-programmed DLC pro-business direction — recommending a wholesale change in helping displaced workers by creating a wage-insurance program to replace standard unemployment benefits.

As he described it, manufacturing workers typically experience 80 weeks of job loss which far exceeds most states’ unemployment insurance terms. Rather than the current safety-net program, Vilsack proposed a cash subsidy to make up the difference between the previously earned wage and the new most likely lower wage over a period of time as workers transition from union-protected high-wage factory jobs to those more often in the service sector without benefits. He also broadly suggested that future agriculture subsidies be tied to conservation benchmarks rather than crop production but stopped short of offering specifics.

Vilsack has since tempered his enthusiasm for corn-based ethanol calling it a “transitional fuel,” according to a profile by The Iowa Independent.