Federal Crop Insurance Board Gets 4 New Directors

February 22, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently named four new members of the Federal Crop Insurance Corp. (FCIC) board of directors. The new appointees are James Bardenhagen, Iris Saenz, John F. Finston, and Kenneth Ray Sneed. They joined the FCIC board in February.

James Bardenhagen, of Bardenhagen Farms, is a specialty crop farmer growing apples, cherries, grapes, potatoes, hay, and small grains in Suttons Bay, Mich. He has been a participant in the crop insurance program for approximately 13 years and was a Michigan State University Extension Director in Leelanau County for 20 years.

Iris V. Sáenz, a native of Premont, Texas, is a crop insurance agent and the owner of South Texas Insurance Services in McAllen, Texas. She has sold and serviced crop insurance policies for more than 25 years. She is also owner of MonteDuro Land and Cattle Company, a Beefmaster cow-calf operation and land management company.

John F. Finston is a deputy commissioner for the California Department of Insurance, an insurance regulator, and an attorney in San Francisco, Calif. Before joining the California Department of Insurance he was in private practice focusing on insurance, reinsurance, and insurance regulation for more than 30 years.

Kenneth Ray Sneed of Sneed Farms Inc. is a third generation farmer growing soybeans, cotton, corn, and wheat in partnership with his brothers in Drummonds, Tenn. for 35 years. He has 18 years of experience with the crop insurance program.

The Federal Crop Insurance Corp. was created by the Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000 and is responsible for maintaining and creating new programs for risk management and risk mitigation in agriculture.

 

 

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Tennessee Wins Federal Grant for Food Safety Center

January 25, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Tennessee is one of five states to receive a federal grant to establish an Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence.

The center will be located at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and operated in cooperation with the state Health Department.

According to the department, the new center will allow Tennessee to improve food safety and its response to outbreaks of foodborne illness.

The effort is funded by a $200,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health Commissioner John Dreyzehner said in a statement that the award recognizes the good work the state is doing to protect public health. That includes outbreak investigations and more than 70,000 annual inspections of food service facilities.

Each year, roughly 48 million Americans get sick from foodborne illnesses and 3,000 die.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: Southeast NewsTopics: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, foodborne illnesses, Tennessee food safety, Tennessee Health Commissioner John DreyzehnerHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Starr Indemnity Approved to Participate in Federal Crop Insurance Program

February 13, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Starr Indemnity & Liability Co. has received approval from the Risk Management Agency of the United States Department of Agriculture to participate as an Approved Insurance Provider in the federal multi-peril crop insurance program for 2013.

Starr Indemnity & Liability Company will be working with International Ag Insurance Solutions, LLC, the managing general agency for the program.

Starr is an insurance and investment organization with a presence on five continents; through its operating insurance companies, Starr provides property, casualty, and accident & health insurance products as well as a range of specialty coverages including aviation, marine, energy and excess casualty insurance.

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Federal Watchdog Issues Report on Gas Pipeline Safety

January 25, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

Federal regulators must account for response times in the data they collect from transmission operators on natural gas pipeline incidents, a congressional watchdog agency said this week.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which oversees natural gas, oil and hazardous liquids pipelines in the U.S., doesn’t require operators to fill out certain time-related fields when reporting incidents. Operators also have indicated they interpret the data fields in different ways.

“Reliable data would improve PHMSA’s ability to measure incident response and assist the agency in exploring the feasibility of developing a performance-based approach for improving operator response to pipeline incidents,” the report said.

The report comes a month after a 20-inch line owned by Columbia Gas Transmission ruptured in West Virginia, triggering a massive fire. The Dec. 11 inferno destroyed four homes and charred a section of Interstate 77 near Sissonville, about 15 miles north of Charleston. No one was seriously injured.

Federal investigators say it took Columbia Gas Transmission, a subsidiary of Texas-based NiSource Gas Transmission & Storage, more than an hour to manually shut off the gas that fueled the fire, which sent flames as high as nearby hilltops.

And in September 2010, gas continued to escape for nearly 90 minutes after a ruptured pipeline exploded in a suburb of San Francisco. The explosion, which was blamed on an inferior pipeline weld, killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes. Investigators said the damage would have been less severe had automatic valves been in place.

The National Transportation Safety Board has long advocated requiring automated valves that could shut off gas in such situations within minutes. Currently, manual valves are required at intervals

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Florida Looks to Restructure Its Hurricane Fund; Federal Option Proposed

January 18, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Florida lawmakers are poised to consider restructuring the state-run property reinsurance facility by possibly lowering its mandatory annual capacity by billions due to concerns that one major storm could exhaust its resources and leave insurers without further coverage.

The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund is statutorily responsible for providing property insurers up to $17.5 billion in coverage for a single storm season and another $11 billion for losses from a second storm.

Cat Fund Executive Director Jack Nicholson said the Cat Fund currently has $8.5 billion in cash and an estimated bonding capacity of $7 billion for a total of $15.5 billion. However, that still leaves it short by $1.5 billion to meet its first storm obligations and potentially on the hook for another $11 billion.

Nicholson said that is why he would like lawmakers to consider restructuring the fund so that its financial stability improves and it can help bring more stability to the state’s insurance market.

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Florida Appeals Denial of Federal Disaster Aid for Isaac Damage

September 21, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is appealing the federal government’s decision to deny additional aid for damage caused by Hurricane Isaac last month. Scott is also asking for more aid than originally requested.

On Sept. 19, the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied Scott’s request that President Barack Obama issue a disaster declaration.

Florida’s initial request of $26.8 million was for public assistance for Bay, Collier, Escambia, Monroe, Okaloosa, Palm Beach and Santa Rosa counties.

In its appeal Florida is also also including Broward, Franklin and Martin counties, where estimated damage is now nearly $10 million.

This brings the total statewide initial damage figure for the 10 counties to $36.7 million.

“We agree with the request of Florida U.S. Senator Bill Nelson and Florida U.S. Congressman Alcee Hastings who also sent a letter to the President on September 12, 2012 expressing their support for the major disaster declaration,” Scott wrote in his appeal to FEMA.

 

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Federal Funds Available for Vermont for May 29 Storm, Flash Flooding

June 26, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said the state’s request for a federal disaster declaration following damage caused by heavy rains, winds and flash flooding from May 29 has been approved by President Barack Obama.

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Aon Hewitt Appoints Federal Client Manager in Washington, D.C.

May 14, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

Aon Hewitt, the global human resource consulting business of Aon plc, appointed Robert Buggs as federal client manager, supporting federal practice work in human capital and employee engagement.


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Federal Aviation Safety Regulators Ignore Whistleblowers: Watchdog

May 10, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

The Federal Aviation Administration has repeatedly dragged its feet in responding to whistleblower complaints about safety problems and stronger oversight of air safety is needed, a government watchdog said.

Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner, whose job is to protect from retaliation government employees who expose mismanagement or wrongdoing, detailed seven FAA whistleblower cases in letters to the White House and Congress. The cases, Lerner said, “paint a picture of an agency with insufficient responsiveness given its critical public safety mission.”

Some of the cases are years old, but Lerner said air traffic controllers and other FAA whistleblowers continued to point out safety problems after making their initial allegations because the agency failed to take promised actions to correct the problems. Other cases are more recent.

For example, Lerner said an investigation has confirmed most of the complaints made last year by Evan Seeley, a controller formerly assigned to one of the world’s busiest air traffic control centers on Long Island, N.Y. Among the allegations that were substantiated were that controllers slept in the control room at night, left shifts early, used personal electronic devices while on duty, used improper air traffic control procedures and engaged in work stoppages to gain overtime pay.

While the FAA has taken action to correct those problems, Lerner said another controller has recently made nearly identical allegations about a different air traffic control facility which she didn’t identify.

The FAA has one of the highest rates of whistleblower filings per employee of any government agency, Lerner said.

The counsel’s office has received 178 whistleblower disclosures from FAA employees since 2007, 89 of which related to aviation safety. Forty-four cases were referred to the Transportation Department for investigation, and all but five were substantiated.

 

 

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Seeking to Combat Insurance Fraud, Louisiana Joins Federal Network

May 7, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Louisiana has agreed to share information with a federal network designed to cut down on insurance fraud.

The Advocate reported that the agreement is between the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Louisiana Department of Insurance.

State Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon says the problem of fraudulent claims is about the same in all 50 states. Insurance industry studies have suggested that 10 percent or more of property-casualty claims are fraudulent

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Minot, North Dakota, Mayor Says More Federal Flood Money Needed

April 5, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Federal flood recovery aid is not enough to meet the needs of Minot and Burlington, N.D., as they recover from record Souris River flooding last year, officials in those cities say.

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Federal Help Sought To Avert Flooding At NM Pueblo

May 8, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation are asking the federal government for help to prevent possible flooding at Santa Clara Pueblo.

Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan say the northern New Mexico Indian community is as risk as a result of last summer’s Las Conchas fire.

The historic blaze left the mountains above the community with little vegetation to hold back any rain or runoff.

The delegation members have sent a letter to the Interior Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. They’re asking the agencies to renew their efforts to protect the pueblo.

They say in the last 15 years, wildfires have burned more than 80 percent of the pueblo’s forest, resulting in the loss of natural resources, habitat and sacred sites.

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Federal Disaster Assistance Denied for Oklahoma

April 23, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Gov. Mary Fallin’s office says her request for federal assistance to individuals and businesses affected by a tornado that killed six in Woodward has been denied.

A news release said that Fallin will now ask the U.S. Small Business Administration for a disaster declaration for Woodward County.

The early morning tornado on April 15 left three girls 10 and younger and three men dead.

Preliminary damage assessments found the storm affected 224 homes and businesses in the county. Of those, 73 were destroyed, 22 had major damage and 21 had minor damage.

An SBA disaster declaration would provide for low interest disaster loans for renters, homeowners and business owners to repair or replace property damaged by the severe weather if it is not covered by insurance or other assistance programs.

 

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: Texas / South Central NewsTopics: assistance, Disaster (Flood,Coastal,EQ,W-Fire,etc.), fallin, tornado, woodwardHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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