[HN Gopher] An $18M grant would have drastically reduced food wa...
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An $18M grant would have drastically reduced food waste. Then the
EPA cut it
Author : rntn
Score : 60 points
Date : 2025-05-11 16:22 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (grist.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (grist.org)
| nickff wrote:
| This seems like an interesting project, but it's entirely within
| one state; shouldn't the state be funding it? What makes this a
| good program for federal support?
| DangitBobby wrote:
| So to qualify for federal funding any experiment/project must
| occur in at least two states? I am skeptical you would reduce
| waste with that rule.
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| I think their point is not worth addressing on its merits. I
| downvoted them because while the article itself focuses on an
| $18M grant in RI, it also plainly states that this is part of
| $2B program that's aimed at all states, tribal lands, and
| territories. With a kagi search that took less time than the
| poster took to write the comment, I was able to further find
| a whole site dedicated to the grant along with fact sheets on
| same, here: https://www.communitychangeta.org/about-
| community-change-gra...
| nickff wrote:
| Thanks for posting the link, but it doesn't make the
| program any more federal. Packaging a bunch of independent,
| local programs together under one umbrella doesn't change
| the fact that they're local programs. This really seems
| like the sort of 'pork' program everyone was complaining
| about a few cycles ago, albeit with an environmentalist
| sheen.
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| The entire framework is federal, the money comes from the
| fed, and the implementation is via fed grants given to
| local programs to achieve a broader result. It's a very
| federal program.
| nickff wrote:
| It really seems to me that the only federal part is the
| allocation and distribution of funds. Put another way,
| what would a less federal program look like? Could you
| describe a program with less of a federal nexus, while
| still being federally funded?
| apical_dendrite wrote:
| That's how most federal programs work. Congress
| appropriates the money, a federal agency defines
| requirements, and then states, cities, or non-
| governmental entities apply for grants.
|
| For example, my city is trying to build a bridge. There's
| a particular federal program for this (which will
| probably get killed by Trump), so the city applied for
| funding and now it's their job to build the bridge.
| nickff wrote:
| I agree that many federal programs are made up of many
| local components, though transportation has often been
| viewed as affecting interstate trade and military
| logistics. Food waste in Rhode Island does not seem to
| have a federal nexus.
| rat87 wrote:
| Yes it does. Paying for a land delegating work to locals
| is one of the most common patterns for federal action.
|
| Pork is good. Pork helps grease the wheels of government,
| it helps things pass and helps facilitate compromise.
| ars wrote:
| To qualify for federal funding it should occur in ALL states,
| or be federal property (like interstates).
|
| If it's not worth funding locally, it's not worth funding
| federally.
| apical_dendrite wrote:
| Usually these programs DO occur in all states, it's just
| that instead of having one large national bureaucracy that
| uses the same approach everywhere, the federal government
| defines requirements and then local organizations and
| governments apply for grants.
|
| In fact, that's how the interstates work too - the state
| transportation agencies apply for highway funding from the
| federal government and then manage the projects.
| ars wrote:
| I wasn't really talking specifically about this program,
| just kind of in general.
|
| Although I'm not really sold on even the approach you
| describe - it seems like it's just a way to funnel taxes
| from local people -> federal -> back to local.
|
| Skip the middleman?
| sillystu04 wrote:
| This is why Lockheed Martin has some part of the F35 supply
| chain in nearly every US state.
| nickff wrote:
| The F-35 is used for _defending airspace_ , a doubly-
| federal duty. Spreading the spending so widely is a purely
| political gambit (I believe pioneered by NASA with the
| Space Shuttle).
| btown wrote:
| There was actually quite a heated debate on this during the New
| Deal in the 1930s, where federal regulations and federal public
| works projects were often scoped to have highly localized
| impacts.
|
| Wickard v. Filburn, for instance, upheld in 1942 that the
| federal government could use the Commerce Clause to regulate
| even a single farmer's output, on the basis that its impact on
| pricing, viewed in the aggregate, could affect interstate
| commerce: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111
|
| And in this Rhode Island situation, Congress did indeed
| authorize this exact type of highly-localized program:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7438
|
| If the federal government wants to use its resources to reduce
| food waste, _in service of_ a nationwide fiscal policy to allow
| household funds that would otherwise go towards food waste to
| re-enter the economy, that 's arguably largely within its
| purview. Because there's no national infrastructure or
| standards, action has to begin locally, if this is indeed the
| goal.
|
| This interstate commercial framing, in fact, was at the center
| of the first Trump administration's food waste initiatives,
| which laid the groundwork for this program:
| https://www.wastedive.com/news/trump-administration-unveils-...
|
| > "In one sense, this is a problem derived from America's
| incredible achievements in agriculture and technology," said
| [Trump's] EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler at an April 9 [2019]
| event, going on to recount a story about former Russian
| President Boris Yeltsin's surprise when he saw the bounty of a
| Texas grocery store in 1989. "Together, we can promote American
| prosperity and turn wasted food into solutions that can feed
| America's communities, fuel our economy and maximize our
| resources."
|
| Whether or not specific pilot programs like the one mentioned
| in OP are the optimal way to implement that goal, of course, is
| a different question entirely. But at least they were trying to
| start somewhere.
|
| (Not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
| nickff wrote:
| I'm not disputing the legality of the program, just the
| prudence of federalizing it.
| jfengel wrote:
| It will be interesting to see next April. The government has been
| slashed for very modest sums, even in aggregate. People's tax
| bills will be no lower, and there's a good chance that the
| deficit will be higher.
|
| I have no idea how much attention people actually pay to the
| final sum. It's never the same any two years in a row even if you
| made exactly the same salary. You just pay whatever number shows
| up on the bottom line (or deposit whatever check arrives).
| ars wrote:
| This title doesn't seem true. It would not have drastically
| reduced food waste, from the description in the article this
| program would have done nothing at all except add local jobs.
|
| This is an example of a program that _should_ be defunded.
|
| Buzzword bingo:
|
| * environmental justice * local jobs * compost * emissions *
| connecting people to food and soil * community garden
|
| One magical program does it all!
| russell_h wrote:
| I don't quite understand the goal of this project.
|
| It says they're preventing 15,000 tons of emissions, but there
| are all kinds of ways to prevent or offset greenhouse gas
| emissions for under $10/ton. So at a glance this project appears
| to be _allowing_ almost 2 million tons in preventible emissions
| in order to... pay people to bike around and collect food scraps?
| metalman wrote:
| I tried to undersand how someone with half a wheelbarow load of
| food scrap and leaves(picture in.article) talked there way into
| 20 million dollars to compost waste @$1681.8/ton, which is a lot
| lot more than the wholsale cost of a many kinds of NEW food, but
| then maybe thats why the plug got pulled.
| 0xfedcafe wrote:
| just one more grant!
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