USDA Appoints "Independent Investigator"
For Employees' Lobbying Campaign
Against Black Farmers
Anika Gupta, reporting in Government Executive:
The head of an Agriculture Department agency said Wednesday that she was prepared to take "appropriate action" against any employee who is found to have used government equipment to lobby against pending legislation."Obviously, we take this very seriously," said Teresa Lasseter, administrator of the Farm Service Agency, in reference to an e-mail circulated last Thursday within the agency urging recipients to contact their senators to express their opposition to a provision in the House version of the Farm Bill that would reopen thousands of discrimination claims by black farmers. Those found to have been involved with the e-mail could face severe civil and criminal penalties.
Lasseter said she has appointed an independent investigator to the case. "I have a lot of confidence in [him]," she said. "He was trained by the inspector general, and he's not close to the employees."
The National Black Farmers Association and EWG have called for a truly independent investigation by USDA's Office of Inspector General. We also referred the matter to the Department of Justice since in our view a criminal statute may have been violated.
Comments
The investigation also needs to look into the other Farm Service Agency employee association -NASCOE the National Association of State and County FSA Employees. They've been lobbying on government time, using government office space and equipment for well over 40 years, primarily in support of subsidy programs. Go to their website www.NASCOE.org and see how they influence the farm bill, on government time. They use this URL to send canned letters to Congress from government computers:
http://capwiz.com/nascoe/issues/alert/?alertid=10125181&PROCESS=Take+Action
Posted by: Dilly | August 9, 2007 9:18 PM
NASCOE was chartered in 1959 to provide a nationwide, nonprofit, nongovernmental association through which employess of the county FSA offices could render better service to American Agriculture by having a national medium for the exchange of ideas and inforamation and to facilitate a closer working relationship between the department and its employees.
NASCOE does not lobby for or against any given farm program. We feel what ever programs congress puts in law, FSA should be the administrative agency to deliver these programs to the farmers and ranchers of this great country. We also work with congress to ensure our members recieve the same benefits that all federal employees enjoy.
NASCOE is very careful in the use of government equipment and time and we encourage our members to do Association buisness on their own time at home and not in the office. All Officers, Executive Committee Members and Standing Committee Members are full time FSA employees who perform NASCOE duties on unofficial time. Travel and business expenses are paid from membership dues.
NASCOE does use a website (CAPWIZ) to help send our message to congress. If you look at the website you will see we are not lobbying for or against programs - rather we are saying FSA should be the administrative agency. We also have identified ways that USDA can and could become more efficient which should be in a big interest of everyone. Anytime we can save tax payer money - everyone wins!
Daniel L. Root
NASCOE President
MR. ROOT: Thank you for this information about NASCOE. But your final statement is not necessarily true with respect to black farmers and the Pigford settlement. The campaign by FSA employees, using government equipment, to remove the Pigford-related language in the House bill is justified in the illegal email, in part, as an effort to "save" billions of taxpayers' dollars. But if black farmers who truly have been discriminated against, and could prove their case in settlement proceedings, end up losing their chance because of illegal lobbying by FSA employees, then many people will indeed "lose" when claim money is "saved". The only thing the House language does is give black farmers a fair chance to prove their case on its merits. There are no guarantees that settlements will be paid without proof of discrimination.--COOK
Posted by: Daniel Root | August 21, 2007 8:24 AM
I live in Taylor County, Texas and was very irritated to see several people on the list that received subsidies and are quite frankly millionaires. I don't know a whole lot, but I know that isn't right!
Posted by: Heather Collins | August 21, 2007 12:02 PM
Mr. Cook;
The FSA employee group that did the email campaign against the Pigford settlement was not NASCOE. NASCOE was in no way associated with this campaign. There are three different FSA employee associations that represent the different segments of field employees. NASCOE represents the group of employees who are considered County Office Employees (the old ASCS employees) who administer the legacy Farm Programs (DCP, CRP, Facility Loans, LDP’s, Commodity Loans, etc…).
My statement about saving money has no reflection on the Pigford case or the black farmers who may have been discriminated against. NASCOE works with the department and congress to identify ways we can become more efficient and provide better service to "all" the farmers and ranchers of this great country. Farmers and ranchers are the people who make this country turn and with out them we will soon fail as a country.
My first response was only meant to try and clear our name and let everyone know we use extreme caution when performing our official business. We make every attempt to encourage our members to not use official Government equipment or do it on Government time.
Thank you for allowing me to post these comments!
Daniel L. Root
NASCOE President
DANIEL: And thank you for posting and clarifying things. I'm only going by the groups that were listed in the original email that circulated amongst FSA employees, which mentioned several groups. So thank you for adding your comments to this debate.
--COOK
Posted by: Daniel Root | August 30, 2007 9:11 AM