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A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Neither the folks who advocate abstinence-only education nor those who support comprehensive sex education were pleased when a re-authorization of abstinence-only funding through Title V was not a part of the compromise Children’s Health Insurance Program bill. It seems Congress could only respond by sticking to the status quo.
As Wendy Norris of Colorado Confidential reports, last night both houses of Congress approved the program’s second emergency 90-day extension.
Title V, Section 510 is one of three federal funding streams for abstinence-only sex education. It is paid to state departments of health that, in turn, re-grant the money to organizations throughout the state. The other two streams — Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) and Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA) — are granted directly to organization and bypass state control.
Until recently, Title V was the only funding for abstinence-only education in Iowa, providing roughly $318,000 per year in matching funds to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. Earlier this month the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (Family Youth Services Bureau) announced a $600,000 non-matching grant to Bethany Christian Services of Northwest Iowa. The grant to Bethany will be used to pay for a project entitled “Keyed-In to Abstinence.”
There are strict guidelines associated with monies from Title V, Section 510 — guidelines that many believe should be changed to ensure medically accurate information is provided. The U.S. House, following the first three-month extension of the Title V abstinence-only program, approved changing the language within the guidelines so that they would be less strict. This change, along with a program reauthorization under the new guidelines, was attached to the House version of the Children’s Health Insurance Program bill. The reauthorization and enhanced guidelines, however, were not included in the recent compromise bill. Even if it were, however, that bill remains under threat of presidential veto.
Many who support abstinence-only sex education, such as televangelist Pat Robertson, have been calling on constituents to demand that Congress not only continue to fund Title V, Section 510, but to keep the strict guidelines that do not require medically accurate or science-based content.
“Is this another legacy of the Democratically controlled Congress?” asked Robertson during a Sept. 20 broadcast. “Let’s have more sex in the schools. Are they saying our kids are like little animals and they are going to go breed like bunnies so we might as well give them condoms? I think that’s the message, but that isn’t the message that we need to send.
“Sexuality is a sacred thing. It is the creation of human life, made in the image of God. It’s a very important thing. It isn’t just something where you hook up with this one and then you hook up with that one. But, that’s the message. It is on college campuses. It is in these schools, and the educators are buying into it. If you want to fix some of this you’ll stop the teachers from pushing that thing that was going on — I think it was a program called SIECUS by Mary Calderone and it must have been 30 or more years ago that was free sex and the whole thing. That’s Planned Parenthood’s plan — to have kids have as many babies as they can, then we can start sterilizing them.”
Opponents of abstinence-only education have also had strong words, most of which have been directed at Congress.
“First, Congress funds the abstinence-only programs,” said Advocates for Youth President James Wagoner. “Then, they commission a study that showed the ineffectiveness of the programs. Then, they ignore the findings of the study. And, now, they continue to fund the programs. Their actions defy logic and common sense.”
The stakes are high because the guidelines that govern Title V, Section 510 also govern the other two federal funding streams. Had the Title V stream been allowed to expire, the guidelines would have remained in place for the remaining to streams. Had the changes suggested by the House of Representatives been signed into law, all three streams would have come under the mandate of providing medically and scientific accurate curricula and added requirement of proof that the programs being taught reduce pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS rates.
Advocates for abstinence-only education have vowed they will continue to fight for nothing less than abstinence-until-marriage education without a comprehensive component. Advocates for science-based sex education have also vowed to continue to fight for what they believe is necessary and potentially life-saving information for America”s youth. Since the emergency extension only takes the program through Dec. 31, there’s little doubt Congress and the public will be hearing more in the weeks to come.
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