This blog post by GROW campaign manager Vicky Rateau is cross posted from Good.

Married young and a mother at 17, Etta Brahim Senussi tries to enjoy the simple pleasures her children bring to her life in parched Andrabad in northern Chad—even as trouble looms. “When my kids are having fun, when they’re not hungry, when they jump left, right, and center, that’s the most pleasure I get,” she said.

But with rain in short supply, Etta worries for the future. Across the Sahel region of West Africa, where Etta lives, 18 million people are at risk of hunger. Low rainfall and water levels, poor harvests, lack of pasture, and high food prices are all contributing to a food crisis. This phenomenon is far from new. In fact, this particular crisis is more challenging because people in Etta’s community are still recovering from the last food crisis, which hit just two years ago and affected 10 million people across the region.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what the word crisis even means. In a “normal” year in the Sahel about 300,000 children—the population of Pittsburgh—die as a result of malnutrition. Lack of investment in small farmers in the region, unfair trade policies, political instability, and an increasingly unpredictable climate leave communities highly vulnerable to even minor weather disruptions. This crisis is a symptom of the broader challenges facing our global food system.

Many of these challenges stem from the $300 billion behemoth U.S. Farm Bill written by Congress every five years. The Farm Bill shapes our food system and affects practically everything grown and eaten here in the United States, but it also has global ramifications. Farm Bill policies can help put food on Etta’s plate or leave her family hungry.

In this year’s Farm Bill there is a crucial opportunity to reform how the United States handles international food aid programs. Simple reforms would enable aid agencies to reach millions more people when crises like the one emerging in the Sahel occur and they would not cost taxpayers a dime. In fact, reform could save taxpayers up to $500 million per year.

Wasteful regulations, written into law to protect special interests, prevent food aid from being purchased locally and regionally, even when it is a more affordable and effective way to save lives. Purchasing food aid this way can meet immediate needs while helping to build long-term sustainable local food systems in communities like Etta’s so they will not need aid in the future. Simple reforms to remove the restrictions could help reach up to 17 million more people with life-saving aid, at no additional cost. Frankly, it’s a no-brainer.

For Etta and the nearly one billion people who go hungry around the world, the food system—manipulated by big agribusiness and special interests—simply doesn’t function. As with any policy, big moneyed backers are fighting to maintain their interests in the Farm Bill. The voices of people like Etta who feel the brunt of our policies, but have little recourse to change them, are barely heard.

Changing food aid rules will not fix our Farm Bill overnight. But achieving the big, structural changes our food system desperately needs will require active and engaged citizens who are willing to stand up for what’s right. Reforming food aid is a good place to start.

Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.

As Louisiana literally sinks into the Gulf of Mexico—wetlands disappearing at the rate of a football field per hour or so—it becomes imperative and even urgent to find ways to stop coastal land loss. Five years ago, Congress recognized the need for action, and approved the Louisiana Coastal Area Program (LCA), which authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to plan and construct several large scale ecosystem restoration projects.

A scene from Southern Louisiana. Valerie Downes/Oxfam America.

It’s one thing to come up with a plan (and a website); it’s another to come up with the money to fund the projects and make them happen. Since approving the program in 2007, Congress has yet to fund the construction of the projects. While time ticks on, the challenge only grows: land loss accelerates, projects get much more expensive and people are put at greater risk of being displaced. The longer the wait, the thornier (and more expensive) it gets to take effective action.

Last week, the White House made a bold move in insisting that the House Appropriations Committee send money toward the LCA, or it would veto the entire Energy and Water Appropriations Bill; as the Energy and Water Subcommittee relented on their threat to cut these funds, the result is a modest but significant beginning of new construction aimed at restoration.

In the past two budget cycles, President Obama has made requests for the Army Corps of Engineers to fund LCA restoration construction. Last year, the Energy and Water Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee reduced the requested $16.2 to $1 million (the federal budget outlay was roughly $3.8 trillion). In the end, it was zeroed out altogether.

This year, the President requested $16.8 million; then watched as the House Energy and Water Subcommittee struck it out of their proposed bill. The funds fell victim to a misguided debate where subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) claimed, despite significant evidence to the contrary, that ecosystem restoration projects did not create jobs, like other navigation or flood protection projects constructed by the Army Corps.

This time around, however, the White House took the bold step of threatening a veto if the appropriations bill did not include some funding for the LCA. In a statement released two weeks ago, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) called on the House to restore funding for several priority Army Corps of Engineers projects. Shortly after, Reps. Steve Scalise, R-LA and Cedric Richmond, D-LA, proposed an amendment to restore $10 million for the program; the move was passed 216-177 on June 1.

While $10 million is a modest sum compared to the $50 billion in projected projects planned in the state of Louisiana to thwart land loss, Congressional support for breaking ground on new construction is critical. Once the construction starts, it will be easier to get funding in future cycles to complete these projects.

Ironically, these types of ecosystem restoration projects have benefits on many levels, including creating abundant jobs that pay well and can employ local residents. Patrick Barnes, President of BFA Environmental Consulting and founder of a job training nonprofit organization, cites the benefits to the local economy. “These projects will generate all types of jobs: from data collection to manual labor to engineering and more. A lot of it is physical labor and field inspection, and we can train for these types of skills.”

Investing in these projects would benefit the local and national economy; reduce risk (this is hurricane season after all); help the unemployed and underemployed; and protect and restore the environment and wildlife. (Beyond Recovery, a joint report from Oxfam and the Center for American Progress explores the benefits of restoration projects.)

As the White House puts it: “Investing in these areas is critical to the Nation’s economic growth, security, and global competitiveness. The Administration also strongly objects to the inclusion of ideological and political provisions that are beyond the scope of funding legislation.”

The White House deserves credit for being willing to stick its proverbial neck out for coastal Louisiana—not exactly within the President’s political base—and risk delaying a big bill like this in an election year, in order to protect vulnerable communities along the coast.

And yet again, Reps. Scalise and Richmond are showing Congress that big challenges (like losing landmass the size of Rhode Island) can be tackled with sensible bipartisan solutions to, quite literally, put money where our mouth has been—in this case since 2007.

Sometimes a quote says more, much more, than the person saying it intended. Today an article in POLITICO looks into how potential reforms to international food aid programs in the US farm bill could impact the shipping industry.

In defending the wasteful and inefficient practice of mandating that virtually all US food aid is grown by preferred growers and then shipped by preferred shippers from the US to countries-in-need, Clint Eisenhauer, vice president for governmental relations for Maersk, a Danish-based shipping company, said, “but if you could grow the grain in Somalia, people wouldn’t be starving.”

Well, yes. Exactly. Let’s leave aside for a second the irony of an executive of a Danish shipping company lecturing anyone on why Congress should double down on regulations supposedly set up to promote American interests. The real issue is that Eisenhauer’s quote displays a fundamental misunderstanding of why people end up struggling to find enough food in the first place. In many food emergencies, food availability is not the challenge. The challenge is that people are too poor to afford to buy it, or they are displaced by conflict or crises. There is ample food available, often very close to where the hungry people are, but because of economic, political or other shocks, many people just cannot access or afford enough of it to support their families.

But more important than those basic facts is that even in many of the countries that most often require emergency assistance, countries like Sudan, Niger, Ethiopia, and yes Somalia, there is vast, untapped potential to grow food.  Lots and lots of food that could sustainably support the livelihoods of millions of people.  Suggesting that it is impossible to grow food in these countries is not just offensive, it’s factually wrong. Transforming how aid is delivered so that more can be invested in building self-sufficiency and resilience is exactly what we should be doing with our scarce foreign aid dollars.

Oxfam has long argued that US cotton subsidies damage lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers in developing countries at a high cost to American taxpayers(see also this study). Unfortunately, subsidies for US cotton producers included in the Senate Farm Bill proposal continues this trend rather than reverses it.

In 2002, Brazil, joined by Chad, Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, and Senegal  (C4+1), brought actions against US cotton subsidies in the WTO. These nations claimed that as a result of cotton programs in the United States, especially programs that paid American cotton farmers to increase production as market prices went down, the market was rigged against producers in other nations that counted on an unbiased market. In 2009, Brazil won a case in the WTO equivalent of trial against US cotton subsidies. As a result, the US government—taxpayers—now make annual payments to subsidize the Brazilian cotton industry at a level of almost $150M per year. The payments are intended to be made until US cotton subsidies are removed.

Fanta Diarra next to her cotton crop in Mali. Macina Film/Oxfam.

In 2011 and 2012, National Cotton Council worked with Congress to draft a cotton subsidy program for the industry that they claim will resolve the distortion that led to losing the WTO case in the first place. Their proposal is called the Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX). In general, STAX provides insurance against even modest losses of revenue resulting from poor harvests or low prices. With highly subsidized producer premiums, it is taxpayers who are on the hook.

Will this readjustment of the cotton program satisfy the complaints of Brazil and the West African cotton producers? Not according to Brazil: In a recent letter to Congress, Robert Azevedo, Brazil’s Representative to the WTO, wrote, “From the data we analyzed… the STAX proposal would likely result in the highest level of trade distortion of all the proposals examined by us. … In our view, no farm program can be WTO-compliant and cover ‘shallow losses’—thereby insulating farmers from market forces—to the extent foreseen in the aforementioned NCC proposal.”

Making matters worse, in a sleight of hand that may seem innocuous, the STAX program will fall under a section of the Farm Bill that will shield cotton from payment limitations, conservation compliance rules, and the individual producer transparency that is required for farmers growing corn, soybeans, or any of the other “program” crops supported through Farm Bill spending. Shielded from these requirements and safeguards, cotton producers basically get a free pass from the oversight and responsibility that comes with other subsidies.

At the House Agriculture field hearing held in Dodge City on April 20, Little River, KS farmer Kendall Hodgson said that he “would ask the Committee to be mindful of WTO compliance. We like to think of ourselves as a nation that follows the law. We stand to lose more by noncompliance than to gain. I understand the realities of the Brazilian threat of a WTO suit concerning our cotton program and our subsequent payments to Brazil to keep that suit from happening but this is something of a black eye for our farm programs that only invite criticism from our detractors.” Hodgson, a diversified farmer, reminded legislators that when cotton violates trade agreements, it jeopardizes markets for all producers.

The proposal put forth by the National Cotton Council—and adopted by the Senate Agriculture Committee—has no intention of correcting the wrongs created by earlier cotton programs. In fact, on top of shunning any kind of accountability to resource protection and to taxpayers, the current proposal makes no modification to the worst component of trade distortion: the marketing loan program. And farmers like Kendall Hodgson in Kansas, and cotton farmers in West Africa will continue to be at risk because the cotton industry refuses to play fair.

“His stomach lurched as he realized that tinny, tiny sound was coming from his own midriff. He could barely believe it. The recorder he had taped to his stomach, its wire lead and microphone stuck to his breastbone, had somehow switched into ‘play’ mode. The voices of the two men before him were now being relayed back, potentially exposing him as what he was: spy, sneak, mole . . . He scoured his two colleagues’ faces for signs of suspicion. If they had noticed what had happened, he could expect to be arrested that night, his office sealed, staff sent away, files seized, house raided . . .”

So begins Michela Wrong’s gripping book, It’s Our Turn to Eat, the story of John Githongo’s effort to uncover corruption inside the administration of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. The book tells the story of how Githongo risked his life and livelihood to help make his country more just and accountable to average Kenyans—and the challenge that entrenched corruption poses for development.

Caption: John Githongo participates in a policy workshop on country ownership in Washington, DC. Credit: Oxfam.

Githongo is a compelling figure and a true hero—the very type of person you would expect the United States to seek as a partner in fighting corruption and injustice in developing countries. But too often, the United States makes it hard for anti-corruption fighters to actually do their job. The problem is that Congress is still too often focused on avoiding corruption in developing countries, rather than actually working with others to do something about it. In this effort to avoid the risk of corruption, the US government has often bypassed local organizations and governments rather than working with them, missing opportunities to help local watchdogs root out corruption and strengthen democratic institutions, reducing waste, fraud, and abuse for the long-term.

Thankfully, USAID is seeking to fix this problem. A new reform called “Implementation and Procurement Reform,” or IPR, is designed to help countries deliver for their own people and help people hold their governments accountable. The agency plans to spend 30% of its funds through local actors, whether they’re local nonprofits, businesses, or governments, by 2015 (up from 11% in 2011). After assessing public financial management systems to manage for risks, USAID will boost its funding through host country systems to reach 25 country governments directly; they will cut out the middleman by hiring 576 local nonprofits directly instead of spending through contractors.

USAID officials say they are moving cautiously but deliberately to change their practices.  But Congress is still nervous; recently, several Members wrote to USAID asking for more information about these reforms. Githongo and his peers are more enthusiastic; this week, Githongo and fifteen other anti-corruption and human rights activists sent an open letter to Congress, expressing support for USAID’s reforms. They write:

“USAID is strengthening its ability to partner with us by eliminating large, inflexible contracts and by working more directly with local governments, businesses, and civil society organizations like ours. These are crucial requirements for fighting corruption and defending human rights . . . Bypassing local organizations and governments defeats the purpose of aid, which is to help countries help themselves.”

It might seem strange that anti-corruption activists would support direct funding of this sort flowing to their countries. But they support it precisely because they know that Washington can’t solve developing countries problems for them. As Githongo says:

“Ownership is ni sisi. It is up to us. It is us who own our problems. And it is us who will come up with the solutions.”

You can add your own voice to that of these anti-corruption heroes. Send a note to your Member of Congress asking them to stand with anti-corruption activists around the world.

After months of negotiation and a failed attempt to write new rules for agriculture into the Super Committee debt deal last Fall, the Senate Committee on Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry took the first step towards reauthorizing a new Farm Bill last week by passing a Farm Bill out of committee. Most of the energy and attention in the bill has been focused on commodity policy and new provisions for crop insurance, both issues Oxfam has written about in the past and continues to monitor in the current deliberations. After all, this is where the real money is and where US agriculture interests really dig in their heels.

Far less scrutiny has been placed on the section of the Farm Bill containing provisions for food aid programs. Over the last several months, Oxfam has sought to shine a light on these issues as a core component of the US response to global hunger.  We’ve argued that the current program is badly outdated and in need of repair.

So, after round one of what is sure to be a bruising, multi-round fight on food and farm policy for the next five years, whither food aid reform? Here’s a quick run-down of what’s included in the food aid provisions of the Farm Bill:

1. Local and regional purchase (LRP): Buying food closer to the source of need seems like a no-brainer since independent analysis has already shown that in many cases it is faster and cheaper than purchase and shipment from the US. Oxfam supported the integration of LRP into the core food aid programs. Instead, the Committee chose to reauthorize a stand-alone program (basically making the existing pilot program permanent) with funding up to $40 million per year. This cap is too low, especially considering that over the life of the current Farm Bill, spending on food aid has averaged $2.3 billion annually. But keeping LRP in the bill is a step in the right direction.

2. More cash: Currently, NGOs implementing development programs using food aid (think, for example, of integrated nutrition programs with a food distribution component) can request up to 13 percent of their program costs in cash. But the needs of these programs often far exceed that 13 percent threshold, leaving aid groups struggling to find the cash they need to run their programs. The upper limit is now set at 35 percent. This isn’t high enough to satisfy need, but is a big step forward nonetheless.

3. Selling less food aid?: To get around the problem of not having enough cash to run programs, NGOs routinely sell food aid, a wasteful practice especially given how expensive it is to ship it  on US-flag vessels (a requirement of current legislation). Selling food aid in developing countries usually generates less funding than it cost to buy the food in the first place. The rate of return on these sales, known as “cost recovery rate,” has been documented at 58 percent for USDA and 76 percent for USAID. What this means in practice is tens of millions of dollars are lost that could otherwise be used to reach millions of people, 2.1 million people per year by one recent estimate. In the proposal adopted last week, this practice gets some discipline: “monetization” cost recovery will be required to meet or exceed 70 percent of the cost of purchase and shipment from the U.S. The architecture of this provision is solid, but the 70 percent floor set for cost recovery is too low. If we’re serious about reducing waste in the US food aid program, the rate of return on food aid sales should be 80 percent at a minimum.  This would be a true compromise as many, including Oxfam, have advocated for eliminating the practice of monetization altogether. Strong monitoring of market impacts of monetization to make sure this activity is not harming local agriculture markets is also missing from the legislation and should be incorporated.

4. Non-emergency food aid:One of the trickier issues in the bill turned out to be the earmark for NGOs to use food aid in development programs. In the last Farm Bill, a special carve-out was created to ensure that non-emergency programs get a portion of the food aid budget.  The problem is this earmarking ties USAID’s hands in times of crisis, making it difficult for them to meet urgent needs and spend money as effectively and efficiently as possible. The Senate Farm Bill proposal now provides for the earmark to fall within a band of between 15 and 30 percent of the total food aid budget, with a floor of no less than $275 million. This gives USAID more flexibility in determining how much of a limited aid budget should go to meeting emergency needs and how much to provide for non-emergency activities. This is a reasonable compromise between the position of many aid groups—including Oxfam—calling for maximum flexibility, and those groups calling for a hard earmark of $450 million (groups, by the way, who have been strangely silent on reforms needed to make food aid less wasteful).

5. And some welcome surprises: Two other issues of note in the Farm Bill are:

• A call to focus on improving nutritional quality; and

• A proposed pilot program for food resilience.

Both provisions carry the name of the late Representative Donald Payne, an advocate of Africa and development and sponsor of legislation to make US food aid more nutritious. Current Senate legislation picks up where the last farm bill left off in terms of promoting a greater focus on nutritional quality of food aid and incorporates provisions from Payne’s legislation. Additionally, the Donald Payne Horn of Africa Resilience Program would, if enacted, provide up to $10 million annually to link short and long-term responses to food insecurity in the Horn of Africa to reduce vulnerability and increase household and community coping capacities.

The reforms proposed by Chairwoman Stabenow (D-MI) and Ranking Member Roberts (R-KS) represent a solid basis for rethinking US food aid. The proposal represents an evolution, not a revolution, in the program, but a welcome move toward greater accountability of foreign aid resources.

The Agriculture Committee’s opening gambit paves the way for deliberation by the full Senate as well as the House Agriculture Committee, which has recently embarked on Farm Bill hearings. House Chairman Lucas (R-OK) has already made clear he has a different opinion about what US agriculture needs. And the House Committee’s recent proposal, cutting $33 billion over 10 years out of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), puts it on record attacking the nation’s largest domestic food assistance program. The question is which direction are they heading with international food assistance?

Post Script

Last week, Oxfam America’s “Food Games” video premiered during the ad breaks on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” as part of our push to get food aid reform on the Senate agenda. The video, an irreverent (some say creepy) look at how Washington plays with food aid, has also garnered more than 46,000 views on YouTube. Everyone from Mashable to Marion Nestle to Djimon Hounsou and the ONE Campaign has taken a peek, helping to promote Oxfam’s call to fix food aid so that up to 17 million more people can eat during times of crisis.

As my colleague, Gawain, blogged about at the launch, “Food Games” has been a departure for us…a “gamble,” as he puts it. Tell us what you think.

Faith and fishing: two central parts of Louisiana’s vibrant coastal culture. Every April, going back generations, you can see them intersect in a celebration of bayou life at the annual Blessing of the Fleet in Chauvin, LA. Families welcome the opening of the year’s first shrimp season by coming together to pray for family and friends who depend on the seafood industry and for a healthy ecosystem that yields a bountiful catch.

“We pray for the safety and welfare of all fishermen,” said Fr. Frederic Brunet, pastor of St. Joseph Catholic church who has presided over the event for many years. “Bless the shrimp and crabs and help us to catch a lot of them.”

Fr. Frederic Brunet of St. Joseph Catholic Church at the annual Blessing of the Fleet. Photo by Bayou Grace.

This year saw the second blessing since the BP Oil Spill shut down the Gulf fishing industry in 2010. Since then, many shrimpers have reported problems: poor catches and startling irregularities (such as shrimp with no eyes). Fishers working in commercial oyster beds say the harvests are down as much as fifty percent. Many people believe these changes are related to the spill. While scientists question what may be causing these issues (research into the impact of the spill on fisheries is still ongoing), the fears, and the difficulties, remain.

For many years, communities of faith have provided a safety net to fisher families impacted by bad seasons or disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the BP spill. They have also seen firsthand the vital connection between the health of natural resources and the life of the community. When Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, the key nursery of seafood across the Gulf, suffer from erosion and pollution, the whole community suffers.

Bayou Grace Community Services in Chauvin (an Oxfam partner) was founded as a disaster relief group, first operating out of a local church, after the 2005 hurricanes. The group later refocused on the biggest issue facing the future of their community: coastal land loss.

“This is an area that has lost 1,900 square miles of coastal land, more man-made land loss than anywhere in the world. How do we change that? It will take national will, the will for a national investment, and a decision that this place is worth saving,” said Rebecca Templeton, director of Bayou Grace, which debuted a photo series highlighting why it is worth saving the coast at this year’s Blessing of the Fleet.

Other Oxfam partners—like Zion Travelers Cooperative Center in Phoenix, LA, led by Rev. Tyronne Edwards, BISCO in Thibodeaux, LA led by Sharon Gauthe and Mary Queen of Vietnam CDC in New Orleans East led by Diem Nguyen—share similar stories of founding within faith institutions and evolving missions to protect communities and livelihoods along the coast in the face of multiple economic and environmental threats.

This week, these community leaders joined together to send a letter to leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives urging support for the RESTORE the Gulf Coast Act. This bill would invest fines from the BP oil spill into restoring natural resources along the Gulf, and helping create local jobs on restoration projects; the goal is to put fishers harmed by poor catches back to work restoring these resources to protect their communities and help ensure future generations can continue fishing and living along the coast. Rebecca, Sharon, Rev. Edwards, and Diem united their voices with over 140 faith leaders, including national figures like Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Mitch Hescox of Evangelical Environmental Network, and Rabbi David Saperstein, Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism. As we noted earlier, The U.S. Senate passed the RESTORE Act as a part of their long-term transportation bill in March.

“We urge you to do what is best for the Gulf Coast—and for all Americans—by working to guarantee that the RESTORE the Gulf Coast Act is signed into law by the President, ensuring a response to the oil spill which is effective, and just, meets the needs of those suffering today while laying a foundation for long-term restoration and renewal,” the leaders say in the letter.

In a breaking development, the Rules Committee in the US House of Representatives today will consider a US House version of the transportation bill (H.R. 4248), which includes the RESTORE Act. The full House could vote on the bill as early as Wednesday, leading to a conference committee, with both chambers passing transportation bills which include the RESTORE Act.

Passing this legislation in the House will be a critical step towards helping to restore coastal communities and support the livelihoods in the aftermath of our nation’s largest oil spill and the long-term devastation of coastal land loss along the Gulf.

Everybody loves to pick on foreign aid. After all, unlike oil companies or defense contractors, poor people in developing countries don’t have high powered lobbyists making their case. But for that very reason, foreign aid offers some pretty slim pickings for budget cutters.

Last week, the Chair of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, unveiled his budget for Fiscal Year 2013. Ryan’s budget cuts less from foreign aid than last years’ budget; in fact, the Ryan budget plan wouldn’t even balance the budget until after 2040. Yet it would still cut 15% from what the Obama administration said is needed to meet foreign affairs needs.

Many of these cuts would come from long-term investments in fighting poverty—the kinds of investments America needs to make now if we want to help countries solve their own problems and save us money down the road. Not only that, but these sorts of cuts pull the rug out from under people who want to work with the United States as partners to solve problems we care about, like poverty, violence, hunger, disease, and corruption.

But even more damning than the penny-wise and pound-foolish nature of the cuts is the fact that they barely put a ding in the budget deficit. Check out the chart below: it shows that Ryan’s foreign affairs cuts would reduce the budget deficit by exactly 0.2%. In fact, if Congress eliminated the entire foreign affairs budget, they would have to do it more than thirty-two times in order to get anywhere near tacking the deficit. As Dr. Mike Tierney of The College of William & Mary says, “Cutting foreign aid to address the budget crisis is like getting your hair cut in an effort to lose weight.”

Small potatoes for Washington deficit math—yet devastating for poor people in the field who are grappling with poverty and injustice. Oxfam doesn’t take US government money, but we want the money US government invest in fighting poverty to do the most good. But the cuts Ryan proposes undermine those very programs designed to help poor people help themselves. How ironic that the advocate of the “opportunity society” has written a budget that focuses our small investments on feeding programs rather than investments to fight poverty.

But Ryan has already had trouble getting this budget even out of his committee; chances are, it’s going to be hard to get Members of Congress to endorse a budget blueprint that hurts poor people, hurts American interests, and doesn’t balance the budget until 2040. Ask your Representative to oppose these cuts and ensure that we balance our budget, our values, and our interest in helping make the world safer, fairer and less poor.

At the tail end of one of the most dramatic spring heat waves in US history, businesses from across sectors addressed a bipartisan audience on Capitol Hill to discuss escalating risks to their global supply chain resulting from shifting climate patterns and severe weather events. The forum comes at a time when more companies are identifying climate change as a risk that needs to be managed and an opportunity for new market investment.

Greg Douglas, Director of Business Development for Earth Networks, a company specializing in weather and environmental observation (they’re best known for their “WeatherBug” app), highlighted the need for data and information to help local industries around the world anticipate and respond to changing weather patterns. Governments are turning to companies like Earth Networks to provide the systems necessary to collect and disseminate new weather and climate observation information and to help support disaster risk management in communities.

Earth Networks recently joined the Partnership for Resilience and Environmental Preparedness (PREP) a group of companies that have joined together to promote practices and economic growth that help both vulnerable communities and business adapt to the impacts of climate change, and to promote public policies that facilitate efforts to prepare for and respond to the consequences of a changing climate. The companies currently engaged in PREP include: Calvert Investments, Earth Networks, Entergy, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Levi Strauss & Co, Starbucks, and Swiss Re.

The forum was cosponsored by BICEP—Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy. BICEP is an advocacy coalition of businesses committed to working with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation.

Anna Walker, Senior Manager of Worldwide Government Affairs at Levi Strauss & Co. and Claude Fontheim, CEO of Fontheim International LLC, representing Limited Brands, highlighted the impacts of extreme weather events and climate change on cotton supply chains. Both retailers rely heavily on cotton to produce clothing like blue jeans and lingerie and are concerned about price volatility in the global cotton market, volatility which is at least partially driven by extreme weather events in vulnerable cotton producing regions. Some of the countries, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, where companies like Levi Strauss and Limited Brands manufacture their products, are also “hotspots for climate migration” and other climate-related impacts such as flooding and disease.

These companies are not just waiting around for government support to take action, although they are calling for strengthened public investment in climate resilience. Levi Strauss, for example, has launched the new Water< Less collection in 2011, which reduces the water used in the product finishing process for jeans from an average of 42 liters per pair to as little as 1.5 liters for some products. PREP is also developing guidance for companies on risk management throughout the corporate value chain. This guidance will be the first of its kind to advise companies from multiple industries on how to manage climate risks in a way that simultaneously builds community preparedness.

Bennett Freeman, Senior vice President of Sustainability and Research Policy at Calvert Investments, concluded the event by noting the risk to investors regarding the costs of physical damage associated with climate change, estimates at around $4 trillion by 2030 according to a recent Mercer analysis, and the potential benefit to investments in technologies and services that improve climate resilience.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the RESTORE Act possibly coming for a vote in the Senate. Good news! Yesterday the Senate voted for its strong bipartisan approval of an amendment to dedicate 80 percent of the civil fines from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster to restoring Gulf communities, ecosystems and the economy. The amendment to the Senate transportation bill, introduced by Senators Mary Landrieu, Bill Nelson, and Richard Shelby was based on the RESTORE the Gulf Coast States Act, sponsored by the three members and six other Gulf State Senators. Out of 76 votes in favor of RESTORE, 23 were Republican and 53 were Democrat.

Oxfam has been advocating for workforce development and training funds within the RESTORE Act as a way to decrease the social vulnerability of impacted communities living on the coast. We worked with faith groups and with private sector companies to let Senators know why RESTORE has such great potential for creating much needed jobs. Oxfam supporters have been weighing in all week with calls to their Senators which really helped push the bill forward.

Now, the House will need to vote on a similar measure. If they do, they will be supporting Gulf coast communities and the many people there that rely on a healthy environment for both their lives and their livelihoods like fishing and tourism.