Word: usda
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...USDA head took $849 "business" trip -- to Super Bowl...
...accepting travel and gifts from Tyson Foods Inc, the largest U.S. poultry processor and a firm with close ties to Clinton. Within two weeks, the Washington Post reports, Attorney Janet Reno will move on plans to request an independent counsel, who may widen the probe to include top USDA aides. Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers reports the president has "absolute confidence" in Espy, who denies any wrongdoing...
...whole, but Tyson dominates the council since dues are paid according to company size. To get action on the Puerto Rican problem, a Tyson executive called George Watts, president of the Broiler Council, who in turn called Espy's chief of staff and the acting Assistant Agriculture Secretary. Since USDA rules don't require the importer's name on consumer-size packages, Watts urged the department to assert the primacy of federal law. Just nine days after Clinton's Inauguration, when the Administration had barely appointed enough staffers to run the department, a career USDA lawyer drafted a letter...
With whom, though? The talks took a strange turn, in which the chicken industry became the mouthpiece of the U.S. government. While USDA officials had the responsibility to bargain with Puerto Rico, as the earlier court order contemplated, the Broiler Council took over instead. USDA staffers in San Juan say their bosses in Washington told them to back off. "Face it," says a career USDA official who has dealt with the poultry industry for two decades. "On something like this we're not going to accept anything the Broiler Council doesn't want and they're not going to accept...
...USDA Approved...