The state’s agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller, is celebrating his first 6 months in office by listing off a number of aggressive and somewhat controversial initiatives his office will be taking. Texas Public Radio’s Ryan Poppe has more on the story.
Sid Miller is known for making controversial and colorful comments.
“There’s three things we don’t tolerate at the TDA, we don’t tolerate horse thieves, cattle rustlers and cheats, we’ll come get ya," Miller said.
One of Miller’s first official orders after taking office was reversing the healthy school lunchroom initiative that banned sugary drinks and fried foods from school cafeterias.
“Schools will have the choice to install deep fryers," Miller said. "Now instead of thawing out frozen fried foods, they will have the option of having it fresh. Because the problem we have is not serving healthy foods, we’re serving healthy foods, but instead of healthy children we have healthy trash cans.”
But since, most of the state’s larger school districts have not taken to Miller’s idea.
Miller also says his office will spend the next year, clearing a backlog of complaints and consumer violations related to gas stations, grocery stores, and pawn shops tampering with their scales.
“In the six months before I took office, they hadn’t prosecuted one single case against a violator, in fact there were hundreds of cases that were simply dismissed," Miller said. "Let this be a warming, if you rip off Texas consumers, we will come get you.”
Miller says he will also focus on making sure that farmers, especially rice farmers, have access to much-needed water for their crops by working with regional water authorities and the state water development board.
