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Almost half of all coal burned in the world is burned in China

by gerdi Posted on January 29, 2013

Almost half of all coal burned in the world is burned in China

Speaking of air pollution in China, here’s a disconcerting graph from the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

EIA

The EIA explains:

Coal consumption in China grew more than 9% in 2011, continuing its upward trend for the 12th consecutive year, according to newly released international data. China’s coal use grew by 325 million tons in 2011, accounting for 87% of the 374 million ton global increase in coal use.

China now uses 47 percent of the world’s coal. It’s an almost unfathomable figure.

The EIA also created this animation of Asian coal growth between 1980 and 2010.

In 2011, China’s per-person carbon footprint neared Europe’s, but was still far behind that of the U.S. As the country consumes more coal, that figure will rise — meaning an exponential increase in carbon dioxide, soot, and other toxic pollutants in the air and atmosphere.

One last bit of bad news, from Financial Times energy reporter Ed Crooks:

We’ll update with some good news if possible. Someday.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Beijing’s recurring air pollution grounds flights, puts kids in the hospital

by 2KeaheySchoeffler461 Posted on January 29, 2013

Beijing’s recurring air pollution grounds flights, puts kids in the hospital

Imagine you’re an airline pilot. Which of the cities below looks like the more appealing one for landing a large jet?

To the left, an image of Beijing’s air taken last week when the pollution monitor on top of the U.S. Embassy measured a fairly low level of particulate pollution (29 parts per million per volume). To the right? The air yesterday, at a level of 462. If you chose the image at left, congratulations. Airlines in Beijing agree with your assessment.

From Huffington Post:

Thick, off-the-scale smog shrouded eastern China for the second time in about two weeks Tuesday, forcing airlines to cancel flights because of poor visibility and prompting Beijing to temporarily shut factories and curtail fleets of government cars. …

The U.S. Embassy reported an hourly peak level of PM2.5 — tiny particulate matter that can penetrate deep into the lungs — at 526 micrograms per cubic meter, or “beyond index,” and more than 20 times higher than World Health Organization safety levels over a 24-hour period. …

Visibility was less than 100 meters (100 yards) in some areas of eastern China, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. More than 100 flights were canceled in the eastern city of Zhengzhou, 33 in Beijing, 20 in Qingdao and 13 in Jinan.

The severe pollution has been a problem on and off for weeks. We first wrote about it two weeks ago yesterday, noting that the city was enacting restrictions on factory emissions and driving in an effort to curb the problem. But we also noted that the problem isn’t Beijing’s alone; much of the soot and haze is created in nearby cities and the countryside, drifting into the capital and settling over the city. It’s a regional problem.

With acute repercussions. Again from the Associated Press:

Patients seeking treatment for respiratory ailments rose by about 30 percent over the past month at the Jiangong Hospital in downtown Beijing, Emergency Department chief Cui Qifeng said.

“People tend to catch colds or suffer from lung infections during the days with heavily polluted air,” he said.

CNN notes that 9,000 children visited a Beijing pediatric hospital with respiratory problems this month. These effects are immediately demonstrable. More insidious? A recent study suggested that soot pollution results in more than 3.2 million deaths a year globally.

In a few days, the problem will recede. (It hasn’t yet; as I write this levels are still listed as “hazardous.”) The question then becomes how urgent the problem remains for Chinese leaders — and for how long Beijing residents will feel the health effects.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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2012 was a record year for worldwide crop insurance claims

by 7MelansonHayden940 Posted on January 25, 2013

2012 was a record year for worldwide crop insurance claims

National Climate Assessment

We get so caught up in the economic damage wrought by Sandy that we forget the damage done by last year’s other major environmental crisis in America: the drought. Last year’s record dryness spurred a massive increase in crop insurance claims here — but extreme weather events dropped crop yields in other countries as well. The end result was the most expensive year in history for insurers.

From Bloomberg:

Global crop insurance claims were the highest ever last year after drought cut yields in the U.S., historically the biggest grower of corn and soybeans.

Claims worldwide were worth about $23 billion in 2012, with $15 billion going to growers in the U.S., said Karl Murr, who heads the agriculture unit at Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurance company. About 85 percent of farmland is insured in the U.S., compared with 20 percent globally. …

As of Jan. 21, U.S. farmers had collected about $12.35 billion in insurance claims since the marketing year began, surpassing the $10.84 billion at the same time a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency.

Patrick Emerson

Dry lakebed near Stull, Kan.

That $15 billion is actually slightly less than was projected a few weeks ago, but still massive. Other countries experienced similar weather-related crop disasters, pushing the global bill into record territory.

Dry weather also damaged crops in the past season in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Argentina and Brazil, while Poland suffered from a cold snap and the U.K. had its second-wettest year on record. Flooded fields probably cost British farmers about $2.1 billion (1.3 billion pounds) in damage, much of which wasn’t insured, Murr said.

The drought in the U.S. continues. Yesterday, Reuters reported that the drought-stricken area in Kansas expanded over the last week. The entire state is experiencing severe drought conditions.

USDA

Kansas is generally the top U.S. wheat-growing state, but the new crop planted last fall has been struggling with a lack of soil moisture. Without rain and/or heavy snow before spring, millions of acres of wheat could be ruined.

But a new climatology report issued Thursday showed no signs of improvement for Kansas, or neighboring farm states. …

Kansas typically makes up nearly 20 percent of the total U.S. wheat production with a production value that hovers around $1 billion.

But many farmers worry this year that a severe shortage of soil moisture will decimate production.

If that happens, insurers — namely, the Department of Agriculture — will again need to step in to provide economic support to farmers. And this drought, the worst in almost 80 years, is only the beginning of what the Plains states can expect over the next century as the country gets hotter.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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European agency declares popular pesticide too dangerous for bees

by iscciaglewstrone123 Posted on January 17, 2013

European agency declares popular pesticide too dangerous for bees

By Susie Cagle

Are you sick of hearing about colony collapse? Hey, me too! But I’m guessing the bees are even more fed up at this point.

For the first time, Europe’s food safety agency this week officially labeled the world’s most popular insecticide, imidacloprid, as so dangerous as to be unacceptable for use on crops pollinated by bees, though the body lacks the power to ban the chemical. The report also called into question two other types of neonicotinoid pesticides. All three sound super-evil.

From The Guardian:

[Imidacloprid’s] manufacturer, Bayer, claimed the report, released on Wednesday, did not alter existing risk assessments and warned against “over-interpretation of the precautionary principle”.

The report comes just months after the UK government dismissed a fast-growing body of evidence of harm to bees as insufficient to justify banning the chemicals. …

Scientists at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), together with experts from across Europe, concluded on Wednesday that for imidacloprid “only uses on crops not attractive to honeybees were considered acceptable” because of exposure through nectar and pollen. Such crops include oil seed rape, corn and sunflowers. EFSA was asked to consider the acute and chronic effects on bee larvae, bee behaviour and the colony as a whole, and the risks posed by sub-lethal doses. But it found a widespread lack of information in many areas and had stated previously that current “simplistic” regulations contained “major weaknesses”.

Bayer and other chemical giants published their own report this week, claiming that banning neonicotinoids would cost farmers hundreds of millions. But neonicotinoid manufacturers will still have to give the European Commission a response to the EFSA report by the end of this month, and the Commission could actually possibly maybe ban the pesticides.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture have expressed concern over the chemicals in the past, but pretty much stopped there — at concern. And then approval. And then widespread spraying on just about everything we and the bees eat!

The EFSA isn’t a regulatory board, just an advisory one, so the E.U. doesn’t have to listen to its warnings. But bee health seems to be EFSA’s jam, and it’s not likely to back down. Last summer, the organization put together this video on all the threats to our tiny, stingy, pollinatey pals. It’s as cute as it is horrifying.

The more we learn about exactly what’s killing all the bees, the more the problem seems fixable, at least in theory. If the E.U. really goes to war with big chemical companies over tiny bees, it could be a game-changer. Meanwhile, the U.S. will be over here, still spraying with abandon.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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As the House votes on Sandy aid, dudgeon and hypocrisy are in full effect

by kowalski099 Posted on January 15, 2013

As the House votes on Sandy aid, dudgeon and hypocrisy are in full effect

Do you remember superstorm Sandy? Big storm that happened last year. Wiped out a bunch of houses; knocked out the transportation system in the nation’s largest city for a week. If you do remember it, you’ll be glad to hear that word of the disaster has finally reached Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital.

SandyRelief

Today (already!) the House of Representatives will leap into action on providing aid to affected communities. We outlined how the vote was expected to go last week. Fox News provides an update:

The base $17 billion bill by the House Appropriations Committee is aimed at immediate Sandy recovery needs, including $5.4 billion for New York and New Jersey transit systems and $5.4 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief aid fund.

Northeast lawmakers will have a chance to add to that bill with an amendment by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., for an additional $33.7 billion, including $10.9 billion for public transportation projects. …

“We have more than enough votes, I’m confident of that,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., claiming strong support from Democrats and Republicans from the Northeast and other states for both the base $17 billion bill and the amendment for the additional $33.7 billion.

Well, we’ll see about that. I haven’t whipped the Congress, but I’ve seen enough of this House GOP to know that they won’t spend a dime on New York liberals without throwing some sort of tantrum.

Credit where it’s due, however. When the House passed the first part of a relief package, some $9.7 billion to support an almost-broke FEMA, a number of Republican lawmakers opposed the measure. One has changed his mind. From Talking Points Memo:

A little more than a week ago, Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS) was one of only 67 Republicans to vote against a bill to provide $9.7 billion in relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy that easily passed the House of Representatives. In a letter sent Monday to those very GOP members, Palazzo called on them to reverse their votes and help pass a larger Sandy aid measure that will be considered by the House this week.

Palazzo was the focus of online outrage, given his advocacy for aid to his home district after Hurricane Sandy. What changed his mind? The same thing that convinced people in New York to accept climate change.

[A] tour last week through Sandy-affected areas in the Northeast prompted a change of heart in Palazzo, who also delivered a floor speech Monday in support of a reform bill that would expedite the process by which the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can distribute disaster aid.

Here, Palazzo speaks from the floor about his change of heart.

If you see this as a good sign, that opposition has fallen to 66 votes, be warned. The House will almost certainly approve the $17 billion proposed today. But the fight over that $33.7 billion could be ferocious. That $33 billion includes funding that would also provide initial support for the region to prepare for another significant storm — one key reason that the House bailed on providing aid in the first place.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) outlines the argument. Again from Talking Points Memo:

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) on Tuesday explained why he intends to vote against a larger Hurricane Sandy relief package that will be taken up by the House of Representatives, arguing that the debt was “much, much smaller” when disaster aid was provided by the federal government in the past.

Appearing on CNN’s “Starting Point,” Mulvaney said he believes that providing disaster relief is “a proper and appropriate function of the government,” but his qualms with the Sandy relief bill stem from its lack of spending offsets. Mulvaney was one of 67 members, all Republicans, who voted against the initial $9.7 billion Sandy aid legislation that passed the House on Jan. 4.

To translate: Mulvaney wants to help! Seriously, he does! But when the government has helped before, the debt wasn’t so big. So instead of providing a tiny fraction of the federal budget to help people in need, we can only afford a very tiny fraction of it. Unless there are “offsets,” which is South Carolinian for “cuts to social services.”

Mulvaney’s best line, though, was this: “We simply cannot continue to do what we’ve done in the past. That’s how we arrived where we are.”

He did not mean this ironically. Mulvaney argues that we haven’t taken preventative action aimed at curtailing our problems, so he will not support efforts to take preventative action to curtail our problems.

Every decision made on Capitol Hill is political, of course, and there’s no reason to assume that this one wouldn’t be. But the slow, grudging process of bringing this bill to the floor, the moralizing and false outrage it has prompted, have been a black mark on the House of Representatives. Happily for the members, the body is already so smudged that one more mark is barely even visible.

Update: In a statement during the debate, Rep. Mulvaney says we didn’t need to worry about how to pay for the aid Congress appropriated after Hurricane Hugo (which hit his state) because debt was only $3 trillion. It’s not clear how much debt triggers his arbitrary distinction.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Shell’s Arctic drilling flunks even the lax air pollution standards it weakened

by RubinkJoseph Posted on January 14, 2013

Shell’s Arctic drilling flunks even the lax air pollution standards it weakened

In its semi-inexplicable eagerness to get Shell the permits it needed to try to drill in the Arctic last year, the government made an important and ironic concession: The company would be allowed relaxed air pollution standards. The quote the company gave in its effort to be allowed to exceed pollution limits was pretty classic, pointing out that it “demonstrated compliance with a vast majority of limits.”

But, anyway, Shell managed to not even meet the more lax pollution standards it insisted on. From the Houston Chronicle:

The Environmental Protection Agency issued two notices of violation [last] week alleging Shell ran afoul of the Clean Air Act permits governing its Kulluk drilling unit used in the Beaufort Sea and the drillship Noble Discoverer, as well as its support vessels, in the Chukchi Sea.

According to the agency, Shell’s self-reporting of emissions revealed both drilling vessels released excess nitrogen oxide, leading the EPA to conclude that Shell had “multiple permit violations for each ship” during the 2012 drilling.

The emissions go beyond ones the EPA agreed to grandfather in a waiver Shell sought before it began drilling last year. Shell had asked permission to emit an unlimited amount of ammonia and more nitrogen oxide than originally permitted from the main generator engines on the Discoverer.

The thing I like most about that paragraph is that not only did Shell not meet pollution standards, and not only did it not meet pollution standards that it specifically begged be lowered, but it did not meet those standards on two vessels both of which it lost control of at some point during the year. I mean, really, if you can’t even manage to keep the things properly anchored, a skill that was mastered by humans sometime before the birth of Christ, I’m not surprised that you can’t figure out how to keep the things from polluting.

Shell’s Curtis Smith responded as one would expect. “We continue to work with the agency to establish conditions that can be realistically achieved,” he argued. Some examples the company might find acceptable:

Shell is prevented from spilling more than a billion gallons of diesel fuel in the ocean.
Shell may not pollute more nitrogen oxide than a normal small-sized nation of half a billion people would create over the course of a decade.
Shell is allowed up to ten (10) vessels escaping from their moorings in any one (1) week period, but no more.
If Shell does actually somehow manage to drill into an oil pocket and manages to start extracting crude, it is not allowed to spill more oil than would produce a 1-to-1 ratio of oil to water in any ocean.
If Shell does manage to start extracting, it cannot be taxed on that oil because jobs.

Source

EPA faults Shell over Arctic emissions, Houston Chronicle

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Beijing air pollution goes off the charts as electricity use climbs

by BayalaHillesland628 Posted on January 14, 2013

Beijing air pollution goes off the charts as electricity use climbs

Allow me to translate the information above. According to the air pollution sensor atop the U.S. embassy in Beijing, the amount of particulate matter (soot) in the air on Saturday at 8 p.m. local time was indescribably bad. At 886 micrograms per cubic meter, the level was “Beyond Index,” past the end of a scale that goes from “Unhealthy” to “Very Unhealthy” to “Hazardous.” Then: “Beyond Index.”

Once, the system got creative. From the New York Times:

One Friday more than two years ago, an air-quality monitoring device atop the United States Embassy in Beijing recorded data so horrifying that someone in the embassy called the level of pollution “Crazy Bad” in an infamous Twitter post. That day the Air Quality Index, which uses standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, had crept above 500, which was supposed to be the top of the scale. …

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, levels between 301 and 500 are “Hazardous,” meaning people should avoid all outdoor activity. The World Health Organization has standards that judge a score above 500 to be more than 20 times the level of particulate matter in the air deemed safe.

In online conversations, Beijing residents tried to make sense of the latest readings.

“This is a historic record for Beijing,” Zhao Jing, a prominent Internet commentator who uses the pen name Michael Anti, wrote on Twitter. “I’ve closed the doors and windows; the air purifiers are all running automatically at full power.”

Other Beijing residents online described the air as “postapocalyptic,” “terrifying” and “beyond belief.”

One broadcaster provided a visual representation of the pollution. He is not sitting in front of a yellow backdrop.

The BBC has a gallery of similarly murky images.

In an attempt to ameliorate the problem, the city has cracked down on causes of soot pollution. From the Los Angeles Times:

A prolonged spell of air pollution across a large area of China has led to the cancellation of flights and sporting activities and the closure of highways, factories and construction sites. …

As an emergency measure, the Beijing Environmental Protection Ministry announced Sunday that factories and construction sites had agreed to reduce or stop work entirely until the air cleared up. …

“The air pollution is unprecedented. This is the first time in China’s history we have seen it this bad,’’ said Zhao Zhangyuan of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences.

The health effects have been immediate. From Bloomberg:

Hospitals were inundated with patients complaining of heart and respiratory ailments and the website of the capital’s environmental monitoring center crashed. Hyundai Motor Co.’s venture in Beijing suspended production for a day to help ease the pollution, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Official measurements of PM2.5, fine airborne particulates that pose the largest health risks, rose as high as 993 micrograms per cubic meter in Beijing on Jan. 12, compared with World Health Organization guidelines of no more than 25. It was as high as 500 at 6 a.m. today. Long-term exposure to fine particulates raises the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases as well as lung cancer, according to the WHO. …

Exposure to PM2.5 helped cause a combined 8,572 premature deaths in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xi’an in 2012, and led to economic losses of $1.08 billion, according to estimates given in a study by Greenpeace and Peking University’s School of Public Health published Dec. 18. The burning of coal is the main source of pollution, accounting for 19 percent, while vehicle emissions contribute 6 percent, the report said.

The link between coal power and pollution is clear to some Chinese residents, despite official news agencies downplaying the choking air as “fog.” Last year, one Chinese village protested a planned coal power plant in their area, worried about the health effects.

But isolated protests haven’t slowed coal power. Earlier today, Chinese stock indices spiked on good economic news — including an increase in electricity consumption. From Business Insider:

Business Insider

[O]n the real economy side of things, there was a very nice reading in Chinese electricity consumption, which correlates nicely to GDP. Per Nomura (which made the chart below) electricity consumption in “secondary industries” grew over 7% yearover-year, which is a strong sign.

The word “nice” in the paragraph above should be understood to refer to economic benefits, not health ones. The description you choose might be different. We recommend: “Crazy Bad.”

NASA

The massive swath of pollution on Saturday covered Beijing (blue circle) and extended south and east.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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House Republican politicking is obviously more fun than supporting Sandy victims

by biglermyrta910 Posted on January 11, 2013

House Republican politicking is obviously more fun than supporting Sandy victims

According to House Speaker John Boehner’s master plan, the House will next week consider the other $51 billion in Sandy relief funding that it punted on earlier this month.

House Republicans will absolutely not approve all of it. The question is how much they’ll sign off on. With a coda for pessimists: if any.

drpavloff

Advertising distribution mechanism Politico.com outlines how the vote is expected to go.

First, the House plans to call up a bill by Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) that totals $27 billion in relief. Then, it will immediately amend the bill to deduct the $9.7 billion in flood relief passed before Congress recessed — bringing the bill’s total to $17 billion.

Amendments will be allowed — including spending reduction amendments — and then the House will vote on passage of the Rogers amendment. This would set up $17 billion to be sent to the Senate.

But then leadership will allow Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) to offer an amendment that offers an additional $33 billion. Republicans think this can pass as well.

But efforts by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who abstained from voting for John Boehner for speaker, could change the equation.

The South Carolinian has already offered multiple amendments seeking spending offsets, which if made in order could seriously complicate the pledge of Majority Leader Eric Cantor to move the legislation quickly.

Smart precedent by a representative of a state whose most tourist-friendly city lies right on the Atlantic Ocean.

House Republicans are particularly concerned about measures in the package that don’t go directly to providing aid to the affected and displaced. Among those measures are ones meant to ameliorate future storms: to improve prediction ability, to bolster federal facilities, to encourage smarter reconstruction in affected areas. Given that Republican members of the House are far more interested in symbolic penny-pinching (particularly when it can screw over East Coast libruls), much of that will likely end up on the House floor. So to speak.

It’s been noted with some regularity that an aid package of $60 billion was authorized by Congress 10 days after Hurricane Katrina. Superstorm Sandy was 75 days ago. Meaning that private relief services have dried to a trickle while public ones are increasingly strained. For example, housing aid, as reported by the Huffington Post:

Nearly 1,000 Long Island households displaced by superstorm Sandy are waiting to find out whether their federal funding for hotel rooms will be extended beyond Sunday.

That’s the current “checkout date” for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s transitional sheltering assistance program, a spokesman for the agency said. However, the spokesman, John Mills, said Thursday that a decision about whether to extend the program could be made by the end of the day Friday.

Roughly 970 Long Island households — individuals or entire families — are staying in hotel rooms funded by the program, Mills said. Statewide, the program currently funds hotel rooms for about 2,360 households, he said.

There are two bright spots in this story. The first is that the “checkout” date has already been extended twice. The second is that FEMA is the only federal agency to have received aid from the Sandy bill the House passed last week — but just enough to keep it solvent.

Nonetheless, the checkout-date dilemma highlights the larger problem. The Sandy hourglass is down to its last few grains. More and more of the families that have spent nearly 11 weeks patching their lives back together will be unable to do so without help. Support is needed. Has been needed. And with each day that passes, we are 24 hours closer to another hurricane season for which the East Coast is only more vulnerable than before.

Update: FEMA extended the residency deadline until January 26.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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New food safety rules are not making us feel all that nauseated

by Myrna Posted on January 9, 2013

New food safety rules are not making us feel all that nauseated

By Susie Cagle

A bout of food poisoning is a memorable and vomitous experience. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 48 million Americans each year are sickened by bad food and 3,000 of them die. In the case of food-borne illness outbreaks, like the one we saw this fall in peanuts, it can take weeks and even months to track down the culprit. We’d love for causes to be clear, but of course it’s not that easy.

NIAID

Please stay out of my peanut butter, salmonella.

The Columbia Journalism Review has a long feature on why it’s so hard for scientists and reporters to identify the sources of food-borne illnessess.

The epidemiology of foodborne disease is complicated; there are numerous barriers to definitively linking sick people in multiple states to the same pathogen and a common food product. One of the biggest hurdles is that foodborne illnesses are severely underreported. For every case of Salmonella that is reported, the CDC estimates that some 29 are not. …

Detecting and solving foodborne-illness outbreaks relies heavily on the capacity and expertise of state and local health departments, which have been hit hard by budget cuts and are often tracking multiple outbreaks or small clusters of disease at once. …

Even when dealing with confirmed illnesses, it’s difficult to definitively link them to a food product. Health officials use food-history questionnaires to help identify foods that sick people have in common, but it’s not easy to recall what you had for lunch three days ago, down to the ingredient. Cracking the cases can take some time.

It’s not just our bad food memories at play here, of course — industrial farming practices have done wonders to mix our spinach with our pig feces.

But now the Food and Drug Administration is proposing big, new food-safety rules, especially in some key farming states where our food has gotten pretty gross in recent years. The Los Angeles Times reports that the new rules are aimed at transforming the FDA “into an agency that prevents contamination, not one that merely investigates outbreaks”:

The rules, drafted with an eye toward strict standards in California and some other states, enable the implementation of the landmark Food Safety Modernization Act that President Obama signed two years ago in response to a string of deadly outbreaks of illness from contaminated spinach, eggs, peanut butter and imported produce.

The first proposed rule would require domestic and overseas producers of food sold in the U.S. to craft a plan to prevent and deal with contamination of their products. The plans would be open to federal audits. The second rule would address contamination of fruit and vegetables during harvesting. …

The third rule, which has yet to be issued, would establish how food importers would verify that the products they bring in meet U.S. standards. …

The FDA said developing the complex new rules took time as it consulted “consumers, government, industry, researchers and many others,” and “studied, among many other sources, the California leafy greens marketing agreement.” Additional rules will “follow soon,” the agency said.

USA Today reports that “[f]ood safety advocates and the food industry, who have been waiting for the rules with mounting frustration, are thrilled.”

But the frustrated waiting isn’t over yet: There will be a four-month period for public comment before the rules are finalized, and then at least 26 months before farms have to comply. That sounds like a glass of ginger ale for a food industry sick with E. coli.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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