The federal food regulators hate America, part the third

The first, the second. (With feds this infuriating, we may just have to turn this into a regular feature. But I'm careful about what I wish for. Because it might just happen, which isn't actually what I want.)

Anyway: A federal appeals court is allowing the USDA to prevent a small beef producer from testing its animals for mad cow disease, because larger companies--you know, the ones that could actually afford to do more thorough testing--don't want to be forced to do it, too.

FORCED, you say? How would this force the big guys to do the same? Well, it's market pressure that would push them to do so. (Because why buy the possibly mad cow when you can get the definitely sane one for a fair price?) And, as Dean Baker reminds us, big business doesn't actually support free markets over government intervention, and neither does the Bush administration. It's a question of whom the markets are benefiting, and on whose behalf the government is intervening.