WASHINGTON (AP) - The Agriculture Department has decided not to take action against a former agency official who blocked investigations into predatory pricing in the nation's $120 billion livestock trade.
Gross mismanagement, not criminal conduct, by JoAnn Waterfield is to blame for several years of obstruction, department Inspector General Phyllis Fong told the Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday.
"I'm not sure what further action could be taken," said Fong, who released an audit on the problems in January. "What we found I guess we would best characterize as tremendous mismanagement."
There was "no indication of criminal conduct," Fong added.
The department is making big changes in response to the report, said James E. Link, the new administrator of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration.
"We have already begun making the fundamental changes in the culture of the organization," Link told senators, describing a series of steps he has taken.
Employees were frustrated with management and felt they couldn't do their jobs, Link has said. He's created a private Web site for employees to confide in him.
Senators were wary of his pledges. Different government investigators have been calling for changes at GIPSA since 1997.
"I hope you'll understand if I'm a little skeptical," Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, the panel's senior Democrat, told Link. "We've heard promises before. USDA has a long history ... of never following through."
The latest audit said Waterfield stopped complaints from being filed or prosecuted. She pressured employees to create an appearance of strong enforcement by logging day-to-day activity - sending letters or making phone calls - as investigations, according to the audit.
Waterfield, who quit abruptly before the audit was released, did not return a call from The Associated Press. She spent about 14 years at the Agriculture Department, the last five as deputy administrator for the Packers and Stockyards Program, part of GIPSA.
That program oversees a $120 billion industry and is supposed to investigate practices that inhibit competition, unfairness and deception in the livestock, meatpacking and poultry trade.
Lawmakers asked if Waterfield's superiors knew about the obstruction. The inspector general said they did not. "We have no evidence there was tremendous involvement of the ranks above her in any kind of sense," Fong said.
Harkin, who requested the audit, asked why department lawyers failed to notice or alert higher-ups that competition investigations were not being referred to them.
Mary Hobbie, the department's assistant general counsel on trade practices, pointed out that other types of cases, financial and trade investigations, have been pursued.
But it is competition, not finances or trade practices, that concerns Congress most. Many lawmakers are alarmed about the level of consolidation among meatpackers.
"If our local ranchers can only market to huge meatpackers who appear to be coordinating prices with each other, there's definitely something wrong," said Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo.
Four companies control more than 80 percent of the market, said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.
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Gross mismanagement, not criminal conduct, by JoAnn Waterfield is to blame for several years of obstruction, department Inspector General Phyllis Fong told the Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday.
"I'm not sure what further action could be taken," said Fong, who released an audit on the problems in January. "What we found I guess we would best characterize as tremendous mismanagement."
There was "no indication of criminal conduct," Fong added.
The department is making big changes in response to the report, said James E. Link, the new administrator of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration.
"We have already begun making the fundamental changes in the culture of the organization," Link told senators, describing a series of steps he has taken.
Employees were frustrated with management and felt they couldn't do their jobs, Link has said. He's created a private Web site for employees to confide in him.
Senators were wary of his pledges. Different government investigators have been calling for changes at GIPSA since 1997.
"I hope you'll understand if I'm a little skeptical," Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, the panel's senior Democrat, told Link. "We've heard promises before. USDA has a long history ... of never following through."
The latest audit said Waterfield stopped complaints from being filed or prosecuted. She pressured employees to create an appearance of strong enforcement by logging day-to-day activity - sending letters or making phone calls - as investigations, according to the audit.
Waterfield, who quit abruptly before the audit was released, did not return a call from The Associated Press. She spent about 14 years at the Agriculture Department, the last five as deputy administrator for the Packers and Stockyards Program, part of GIPSA.
That program oversees a $120 billion industry and is supposed to investigate practices that inhibit competition, unfairness and deception in the livestock, meatpacking and poultry trade.
Lawmakers asked if Waterfield's superiors knew about the obstruction. The inspector general said they did not. "We have no evidence there was tremendous involvement of the ranks above her in any kind of sense," Fong said.
Harkin, who requested the audit, asked why department lawyers failed to notice or alert higher-ups that competition investigations were not being referred to them.
Mary Hobbie, the department's assistant general counsel on trade practices, pointed out that other types of cases, financial and trade investigations, have been pursued.
But it is competition, not finances or trade practices, that concerns Congress most. Many lawmakers are alarmed about the level of consolidation among meatpackers.
"If our local ranchers can only market to huge meatpackers who appear to be coordinating prices with each other, there's definitely something wrong," said Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo.
Four companies control more than 80 percent of the market, said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.
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