01/28/09 Reversing Emissions & Checking for Products

Reversing Emissions & Checking for Products plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. States may soon be able to set stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars. This is after President Barack Obama told the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider California's request that would allow it to impose stricter limits on vehicle carbon dioxide emissions. Those emissions are blamed for contributing to global warming. This move by Mr. Obama is reversal of Bush Administration climate policies. The President said, - the federal government must work with, not against states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Obama added, - California has shown bold and bipartisan leadership through its effort to move to 21st century standards. Over a dozen states have followed its lead. Experts now are fairly sure about the source of the salmonella contaminated peanut butter, but are still trying to determine how it happened. The current recall of products containing peanut butter covers a very broad range of products, so how can we tell which products we may have in our pantries that might be a problem? Extension expert Karen Blakeslee urges consumers to check the FDA website. BLAKESLEE: The FDA has a very good list on their website of all their products that have been recalled and they also have a search function on there so if you question something that you have, you can search for that particular brand name or you can use the UPC code which is the number below the bar code or by a product description; so you can search for it just to see if what you have in your cabinet is a problem. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. The decision to remove the Great Lakes and Northern Rocky Mountains populations of gray wolf from the Endangered Species List is being met with mixed emotions among farmers, ranchers and environmental organizations. The individual states and tribes where the delisting is taking effect are to be responsible for managing the wolf population. A period of at least five years for monitoring will be necessary to ensure their sustainability. If this delisting is anything like the delisting in the spring of 2008 it will barely take that amount of time. Within six months of delisting the gray wolf in these areas ten percent of their population was killed by rampant hunting. As one rancher from Wyoming put it "People overreacted," I don't think the policy was intended as: 'Go out and see how many wolves you can kill." Farmers and ranchers need to have the ability through federal permits to be able to manage wolves that threaten their livestock. But the gray wolf should not be opened up as fair game for everyone. This will only lead once again to reckless and needless slaughter of the species. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.