DynamicBalance
12-08-2010, 07:31 PM
https://www.westonaprice.org/action-alerts/2010-alerts/2059-food-safety-bill-fight-continues.html
Last week, the Senate passed S510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, with the Tester-Hagan amendment. Almost immediately, members of the House of Representatives raised objections that S510 includes provisions for “user fees,” which they argued were “revenue raising provisions” that violated the Constitutional requirement that all tax provisions originate in the House.
No one in the Senate apparently noticed this problem, yet unnamed House members supposedly spotted it within hours. Other bills that have originated in the Senate have included user fees and passed without objection. There may be Constitutional problems with the provisions, but it also may be a maneuver to stall the bill in order to make changes.
With the clock ticking on the lame duck session, the procedural objections might finally kill this bill. But don’t count on it! The SAME day that the procedural objections were announced, Agribusiness lobby groups sent letters urging House members to conference S510 with HR 2749 (the House version), for the single specific purpose of stripping out the Tester-Hagan amendment. Until the procedural objections were raised, the House leadership had pledged to bring S510 to a vote without conferencing the bills. It’s suspicious that the Agribusiness groups were prepared to immediately take advantage of the delay to try to remove the protections of the Tester-Hagan amendment.
To quote from Agribusiness, one letter was signed by “produce industry groups, which represent the majority of fresh fruits and vegetables sold in the United States,” while the second letter was sent by organizations that “represent the vast majority of growers, producers, shippers, distributors, processors, packers, and wholesalers.” In other words, these lobby groups represent the industrial food system that has been the source of the problems. Yet they are working to convince House members to impose the same regulations on local farmers’ market producers as on their huge corporate operations.
To be clear, we don’t think S.510 is a good bill even with the Tester-Hagan amendment. It increases FDA’s power, which will undoubtedly lead to even more battles between FDA and local food producers and consumers. FDA has abused the powers it already has, and that will almost certainly continue, with or without this bill. But as bad as the bill is now, it would be even worse without the amendment.
Agribusiness’s real concern about the Tester-Hagan amendment isn’t food safety, but the precedent set by having Congress recognize that small, direct-marketing producers are different, and should be regulated differently, from the large Agribusinesses.
NOTE: To learn about the provisions of the Tester-Hagan amendment, read the actual amendment, and learn how you can take action, click on the link at the top of the page. Please contact your representative about this! We can't let the FDA tell our farmers how to farm!
Last week, the Senate passed S510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, with the Tester-Hagan amendment. Almost immediately, members of the House of Representatives raised objections that S510 includes provisions for “user fees,” which they argued were “revenue raising provisions” that violated the Constitutional requirement that all tax provisions originate in the House.
No one in the Senate apparently noticed this problem, yet unnamed House members supposedly spotted it within hours. Other bills that have originated in the Senate have included user fees and passed without objection. There may be Constitutional problems with the provisions, but it also may be a maneuver to stall the bill in order to make changes.
With the clock ticking on the lame duck session, the procedural objections might finally kill this bill. But don’t count on it! The SAME day that the procedural objections were announced, Agribusiness lobby groups sent letters urging House members to conference S510 with HR 2749 (the House version), for the single specific purpose of stripping out the Tester-Hagan amendment. Until the procedural objections were raised, the House leadership had pledged to bring S510 to a vote without conferencing the bills. It’s suspicious that the Agribusiness groups were prepared to immediately take advantage of the delay to try to remove the protections of the Tester-Hagan amendment.
To quote from Agribusiness, one letter was signed by “produce industry groups, which represent the majority of fresh fruits and vegetables sold in the United States,” while the second letter was sent by organizations that “represent the vast majority of growers, producers, shippers, distributors, processors, packers, and wholesalers.” In other words, these lobby groups represent the industrial food system that has been the source of the problems. Yet they are working to convince House members to impose the same regulations on local farmers’ market producers as on their huge corporate operations.
To be clear, we don’t think S.510 is a good bill even with the Tester-Hagan amendment. It increases FDA’s power, which will undoubtedly lead to even more battles between FDA and local food producers and consumers. FDA has abused the powers it already has, and that will almost certainly continue, with or without this bill. But as bad as the bill is now, it would be even worse without the amendment.
Agribusiness’s real concern about the Tester-Hagan amendment isn’t food safety, but the precedent set by having Congress recognize that small, direct-marketing producers are different, and should be regulated differently, from the large Agribusinesses.
NOTE: To learn about the provisions of the Tester-Hagan amendment, read the actual amendment, and learn how you can take action, click on the link at the top of the page. Please contact your representative about this! We can't let the FDA tell our farmers how to farm!