Health - Food Safety

Food Safety - H.R. 4167 - Editorials and Articles

Congress Moves to Bar States from Making Food Safer
USA Today
(March 27, 2006)
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives, with a bipartisan majority, passed a bill that would require uniform labeling of products ... Now, the issue moves to the Senate. Perhaps there, Republicans who control both chambers will remember that they used to be the party that championed states over Washington. This bill makes them look more like the party that sold out its principles and its constituents to pay off political favors.

Warning: This Bill Could Make You Sick
Al Meyerhoff and Carl Pope for The Los Angeles Times
(March 21, 2006)
This is not the first attempt to preempt Proposition 65 with a federal law. It has survived for 20 years principally because of the leadership of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, present and past attorneys general and the state's governors — of both parties. But the voice of one governor is conspicuously missing. In February, Waxman, together with Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs), wrote to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to oppose the "National Uniformity" bill. Thus far, the response from the governor's office has been silence. As the debate over food safety moves to the U.S. Senate, it's time for the governor to make sure this threat to California's sovereignty is terminated.

A Hard Bill to Swallow
Harold Meyerson for The Washington Post
(March 15, 2006)
The bill now goes to the Senate, where California's two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, have vowed to defeat it. But the message from the new, John Boehner-led reformed Republican House to American business couldn't be clearer: We're not going to let anything so vulgar as evidence, or our ostensible belief in states' rights, sway our judgment when the interests of our financial backers are at stake. Money still talks here; money screams.

Food Regs for Thought: New Bill Would Limit States on Labeling
Newsday
(March 8, 2006)
Raise your hand if you want to know less about what's in the food your family buys. Just as we thought: The nays have it. Nothing we buy, except perhaps for medication, needs closer scrutiny than our food. So why is the House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, the avowed champions of states' rights, proposing to supersede tough food-labeling laws that states have already passed? ... Over and over, on many environmental issues, the Bush administration has been way too friendly to the polluters and despoilers, rather than to citizen-consumers. So if we have to leave our food safety in the hands of an FDA that will dance to this White House's tune, we should all feel a tad nauseated. We can only hope that the Senate will make this stomachache go away.

Don't Undermine Food Safety
The Las Vegas Sun
(March 6, 2006)
Congress should heed the persuasive arguments made by the states' top law enforcement officials and stop this attempt to ram through this legislation without adequate hearings. We need to be moving ahead, not backward, in informing the American people what it is that they are actually eating.

Food Labeling Bill Opens Can of Worms
Albuquerque Journal
(March 6, 2006)
When far-off Congress jumps in to short-circuit this relationship between consumers and their state governments, does it reflect the will of the people or the preferences of industry lobbyists? Congress should can this legislation.

Food Safety
The Winston-Salem Journal
(March 6, 2006)
And if representatives in Washington pass this bad bill, they will be giving clear evidence that they are more responsive to the food and retail industries than to the ordinary people who just want some confidence that the food they are buying is safe to eat ... If Washington grabs more authority from the states, it must also accept a greater obligation to protect consumers.

Keep Food Safety Laws Strong
The Tennessean
(March 5, 2006)
The U.S. House is poised to wipe out state regulation of food safety, all in the name of uniformity ... The fact is that states have been more aggressive than the federal government on food safety. California, in particular, has forced manufacturers to reduce arsenic in bottled water and lead in calcium supplements ... Collectively, state safety efforts have forced higher standards on the food industry. Pre-empting those state laws in the name of uniformity would be a pill the public shouldn't have to swallow.

Food-Safety Labeling: Don't Delute Standards
The Kansas City Star
(March 3, 2006)
A good theoretical case can be made for national standards in food-safety labels. As consumers, we all pay more when the sellers of products must meet a variety of different state regulatory requirements. But if federal lawmakers want to trump state regulation on food safety, they should only do so if they are prepared to ensure that federal standards are adequate.

Food Safety First
The St. Petersburg Times
(March 2, 2006)
The food products Floridians buy are usually fresh and unadulterated by contaminants, and for that we can thank the state’s aggressive food-safety program. State regulators can and do act faster than their federal counterparts to protect the public from food-borne threats. So why is Congress intent on making state food-safety regulation subservient to the clunky federal bureaucracy? ... That’s a good question no one in Washington has answered. A bill that would weaken state food-safety efforts (HR 4167) has yet to have a public debate, yet it could pass the House as early as today. This is not a theoretical argument for consumers. In 1990, Florida held hearings on the dangers of the diet supplement ephedra (after a related death) and quickly removed products containing large quantities of ephedra from store shelves. Under the sway of special interests, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration spent many more years dithering before it finally acted on the ephedra threat. And after recent hurricanes knocked out electricity to large parts of Florida, it was state inspectors who removed tons of spoiled food from store shelves before it could be sold.

The Abusive New Federalism
The New York Times
(March 2, 2006)
A bipartisan majority behind this clearly dangerous bill is echoing the industry’s line that the goal is simply to end consumers’ confusion about varying state regulations that govern warning labels and protective inspections ... If consumers believe that, then we have some bottled water to sell them that no longer warns of arsenic levels, and a salmon fillet that drops the distinction between fish originating in the wild and fish from a farm ... Proponents of the bill in the food industry and Congress claim that their goal is being misunderstood. If so, they should pull the bill back and prove their case at open hearings that treat the public interest as something more than a nonentity.

Healthy Choices
The Detroit Free Press
(March 2, 2006)
Want sulfites with that? Michigan’s law requiring a prominent notice when sulfites are used in food preparation could fall by the wayside if Congress decides to put the Food and Drug Administration in charge of all food labels and other food-related standards nationwide. The bill as proposed mocks the idea that the federal government sets basic standards in areas such as health and safety, then lets states set tighter rules as they deem necessary.

Take Food Safety off the Table
The Newark Star Ledger
(March 2, 2006)
Business doesn’t like to make different labels, and it hates the idea that one state or another might bar, say, treating meat with carbon monoxide gas to keep it an attractive red longer. The industry says legislation limiting states' ability to deviate from the federal standard, up for a vote in the House of Representatives today, would assure uniformity. It claims consumers get “confused” when states have different standards. Baloney. This one-size-fits-all law could leave consumers nationwide with the lowest common denominator of protection, as one environmental group puts it.

End Food Fight
The Orlando Sentinel
(March 2, 2006)
[C]ritics argue the proposal would pre-empt states in other food-safety areas, including inspections. The impact might be less open to debate, but the House neglected to hold public hearings. Advocates point to the proposal’s bipartisan support in the House. But it also has bipartisan opposition among state lawmakers, attorneys general and health regulators. The state officials are right in this food fight. This proposal could deprive consumers of information they need and remove a potent incentive for the food industry to sell safer products.

Congress vs. Food Safety
The Chattanooga Times Free Press
(February 28, 2006)
(Not available online - excerpt below)
[I]t’s troubling that the Republican-controlled Congress is preparing this week to strip states of their food safety powers and to transfer that power to the Food and Drug Administration ... the plan likely will result in a huge void, much to the detriment of citizens, because the federal government has neither the staff nor the political will to assume the states’ role. That vast void suggests the second reason this power grab is troubling: the Republican House plan looks precisely like another egregious attempt to eliminate valuable state regulatory authority as another stealthy favor to big business.

States Right in Food Fight
Toledo Blade
(February 26, 2006)
Opponents contend that the real motive behind the proposal, being pushed by the food industry, is to dilute California food-labeling regulations, which were approved by voters in a ballot initiative back in 1986 and are more stringent than federal rules. This is a reasonable and not unduly alarmist conclusion. In nearly every instance pitting consumer protection against industry interests over the past five years, the Bush Administration has sided with industry.

Back to More Information on H.R. 4167