E-Mail This Article to a Friend CABINET SHAKE-UP Faith-based agriculture BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

Bush-administration officials are not considered particularly forward-thinking on matters of science and technology. Global warming remains a mere hypothesis in their book. They don’t care much for stem-cell research. They’re not quite ready to consider lead-poisoning research conclusive. They found the "morning-after" contraceptive pill a little too newfangled for FDA approval.

But at least one cabinet member has been all-systems-go on anything new out of the science lab: Ann Veneman, who announced on Monday that she’s resigning her post as secretary of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Her enthusiasm for the latest research, which borders on religious fervor, has well served her pocketbook and prestige. Veneman was once a director of Calgene, the company that introduced the Flavr Savr tomato, the first genetically engineered consumer product. The tomato came to market because Veneman herself had earlier lifted regulations on it, as deputy secretary of agriculture under George H.W. Bush. Veneman has also served on the International Policy Council on Agriculture, Food and Trade, an agribusiness trade group funded by Cargill, Nestlé, Kraft, and Archer Daniels Midland.

Four years ago, when Veneman took over the USDA, she cited agricultural research and development as a top priority. She didn’t have much to say about health, the environment, or small farmers. And, according to some watchdog groups, Veneman has behaved as expected: in July of this year the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative (AAI) released a report accusing the USDA of becoming "in effect, the Agribusiness Industry’s Department."

Veneman has been a true believer that scientific tinkering always leaves food safe for consumption, and under her watch, the USDA advanced that position considerably. For example, most other countries have kept the use of food irradiation to kill pathogens in meat in the testing stage, but the USDA felt so good about it that it okayed the use of irradiated beef in school lunches last year. Then earlier this year, the department decided that pumping antibiotics and pesticides into animals and crops shouldn’t stand in the way of calling them "organic" products. Veneman reversed that change only after organic growers screamed, says Organic Trade Association spokesperson Holly Givens.

Above all, Veneman is convinced of the safety and value of genetically modified (GM) food. She created an Advisory Committee on Biotechnology, which "has brought all of USDA’s regulation of biotechnology into a streamlined one-stop shop," as the department puts it on its Web site — and then stacked the committee with all pro-biotech members, according to the AAI report. She effusively praised and lavishly subsidized GM crops, even as the European Union banned them; indeed, even Monsanto abandoned its GM wheat products earlier this year.

On other matters, however, Veneman has taken even more of a "faith-based" approach. For example, the USDA resisted efforts to impose testing for mad-cow disease, and country-of-origin beef labeling, among other regulations. Her faith was sadly misplaced: the first US case of mad cow was discovered last December, and many countries still refuse to import US beef. Similarly, in 2002 the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service ignored internal tests showing that ConAgra beef tested positive for E. coli. ConAgra later had to recall its beef.

But Veneman’s faith has been strongest in her approach to the environment, which is a significant part of the USDA’s charge, largely through the National Forest Service. According to Mike Leahy, natural-resources counsel for Defenders of Wildlife, Veneman has looked the other way while the National Forest Service worked on relaxing environmental protections. Then this September, it dumped the 20-year-old requirement for maintaining wildlife populations on national forest lands. "We’ve already seen forests stop monitoring species" as a result, Leahy says.

Veneman’s replacement had not been named as of this writing, but progressives aren’t expecting any big change. Veneman, after all, was just one of a dozen high-ranking USDA appointees with strong ties to industry, according to the AAI report. Undoubtedly, the department will go on believing in whatever science serves agribusiness, and having faith that everyone and everything else will be okay.