Farmers and Cattlemen Need to Stand Against Sunstein

by ALG News: When the Senate returns to business next month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already announced that one of the first orders of business will be to try to ram through the nomination of Cass Sunstein for the nation's "Regulatory Czar." Earlier this month, Senate Republicans had blocked a unanimous consent resolution to approve Sunstein. And with good reason.

But for their efforts, Sunstein would have been confirmed without any roll call. Now, it will require 60 votes to invoke cloture on the nominee. Sunstein was nominated in April to be Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget. It has been dubbed the "Regulatory Czar" since all major regulatory actions by the federal government are subject to review by this office.

In short, it is an extremely powerful position. Which is why yesterday Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson sent a letter to farm bureau chiefs nationwide warning them of the nomination of the radical Sunstein. “What concerns me and I am sure will concern you,” wrote Wilson, “is Mr. Sunstein’s extreme positions on animal rights. If put into law or regulation, these radical stands will destroy agriculture and threaten America’s ability to feed itself much less do any exporting of agricultural products.”

The trouble is that Sunstein favors granting legal rights to animals. In 2002 he wrote in “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,” “We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are persons, or that they are not property.” Sunstein also supported “further regulation” against hunting, animal testing and farming. “We should focus attention not only on the ‘enforcement gap,’ but on the areas where current law offers little or no protection. In short, the law should impose further regulation on hunting, scientific experiments, entertainment, and (above all) farming to ensure against unnecessary animal suffering.”

In Sunstein’s dangerously detached worldview, money-hungry trial lawyers could sue on behalf of every Polled Hereford in the land. And , everyone knows, they would. Clarabelle Cow could sue Ronald McDonald. Only the U.S. Senate can stop Sunstein. But they will only do so if the nation’s farmers and cattle ranchers stand against him. In short, a vote for Sunstein is a vote against agriculture, which could be drowned in years if not decades of litigation if Sunstein has his way.

Sunstein is a menace who even opposes animal testing, which as Wilson noted, “is a critical practice to testing the safety—for humans—of everything from drugs to make up to space exploration has saved countless millions of human lives.” And yet Sunstein would end it altogether. The American people have a right to choose what to eat, whether it be meat or produce. But if Sunstein’s extremist views find their way into federal regulations, that right could disappear in the blink of a bureaucrat’s eye. Barack Obama’s radical appointment is greatly alarming. It is up to the Senate to stand in the way, and for farmers and cattlemen nationwide to raise the outcry against him.

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