In Iowa, Vilsack touts local food, regulation

DES MOINES, Iowa — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack returned to Iowa on Tuesday to promote locally grown food and urge that states be given a key role in tighter regulation of the financial services industry.

Vilsack, the state’s governor for eight years, spoke Tuesday morning at a food security conference, saying his agency supported local food production that keeps consumers closer to the food supply.

He noted big increases in the number of farmers markets nationwide and said expansion of the food industry could help the U.S. economy by increasing spending and creating jobs.

“Locally grown food is a $5 billion business and growing,” Vilsack said. “There’s tremendous power in these ideas.”

Later in the morning, Vilsack joined Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat, at a news conference to promote congressional legislation aimed at tightening regulation of the financial services industry.

President Barack Obama has pressed for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, putting all regulators of financial services under a single agency. Vilsack and Miller backed such legislation but warned against any effort to block states from having a role in enforcing it.

“From October to December of 2008, American families lost $5.1 trillion in wealth, and today they are still paying the price for weak regulation and financial instability,” said Vilsack.

Miller said some larger banks are pressing Congress to ban states from taking an enforcement role.

“This is the most important consumer protection legislative issue of our day,” Miller said. “Preserving a proper role for the states is crucial if consumers are going to be protected from a repeat of the banking and mortgage abuses we’ve seen in recent years.”

Vilsack said the Agriculture Department is involved in the debate because it is one of the largest lenders in the marketplace, with a vested interest in oversight of the financial services sector.

“We owe it to the American people to ensure consumer protection regulations are written fairly and enforced vigorously,” said Vilsack. “The Consumer Financial Protection Agency will ensure that future mistakes by a few do not cause harm to so many.”