August 27th, 2009, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today in a letter to farm bureau chiefs nationwide called for them to actively oppose the nomination of Cass Sunstein to be the White House’s “Regulatory Czar” in order to prevent a “litigation nightmare.”
“What concerns me and I am sure will concern you is Mr. Sunstein’s extreme positions on animal rights,” Wilson wrote in his letter to the agricultural sector. “If put into law or regulation, these radical stands will destroy agriculture and threaten America’s ability to feed itself much less do any exporting of agricultural products.”
“A vote for Sunstein is a vote against agriculture,” Wilson said in a statement. “If Cass Sunstein had his way, the entire cattle industry could be plunged into a litigation nightmare for years to come.”
On April 20, 2009, Barack Obama nominated Cass Sunstein to be Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget. This post is also known as the “Regulatory Czar,” since all major regulatory actions by the federal government are subject to review by this office.
Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked a unanimous consent resolution to approve Sunstein without any roll call that had been attempted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Now, it will require 60 votes to invoke cloture on the nominee.
Sunstein favors granting legal rights to animals. In 2002 he wrote in “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,” “We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are persons, or that they are not property.”
Sunstein also supported “further regulation” against hunting, animal testing and farming. “We should focus attention not only on the ‘enforcement gap,’ but on the areas where current law offers little or no protection. In short, the law should impose further regulation on hunting, scientific experiments, entertainment, and (above all) farming to ensure against unnecessary animal suffering.”
“This is just the beginning,” Wilson said in a statement. “Cass Sunstein is a litigation menace, and putting him as the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs would give him a position to inflict patently absurd regulations through the entire federal bureaucracy.”
“That means his bizarre worldview would most certainly find its way into countless thousands of regulations,” Wilson added.
“Animal testing, which everyone knows is a critical practice to testing the safety—for humans—of everything from drugs to make up to space exploration has saved countless millions of human lives, but Sunstein would do away with it entirely,” Wilson said.
Wilson also called upon the U.S. Senate to block his nomination, “Every senator voting for Sunstein must necessarily associate him or herself with his extremist designs.”
“Every American who wants to have the right to choose what to eat and purchase at the grocery store or at the farm stand should be greatly alarmed by Barack Obama’s radical appointment of Cass Sunstein,” Wilson concluded.
Attachments:
Bill Wilson Letter to Farm Bureaus Nationwide, August 27th, 2009
Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.
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