Fighting For Trade, Red Cross Fined and Disaster Counties Named

Fighting For Trade, Red Cross Fined and Disaster Counties Named. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. The House Ways & Means Committee held a hearing to discuss a number of Chinese trade issues and ranking Republican Congressman Doc Hastings presented written testimony. HASTINGS: In my statement I talk more about expanding trade and adopting the pending free trade agreements and also talked about the Mexican tariffs. Hastings says he has not see any movement on the Mexico tariff issue and is just repeated told..."we're working on it." The American Red Cross was fined $16 million for sloppy screening of donated blood, the latest in a series of violations that have cost the group millions of dollars. The FDA says the group failed to take precautions to assure the safety of blood donations. Despite those oversights, they say the U.S. blood supply appears to be safe. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated Chelan, Douglas and Okanogan counties in the state of Washington as natural disaster areas because of losses due to record low temperatures and freezing conditions that occurred from Oct. 10th to 13th, 2009. All qualified farm operators in the designated areas are now eligible for low interest emergency loans from USDA's Farm Service Agency , provided eligibility requirements are met. Now here's today's Washington Grange Report. (GRANGE) That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.