• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Shurtleff Opposes Food-Safety Bill

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By Suzanne Struglinski Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON -- Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff joined eight other attorneys general Tuesday in opposing a food safety bill that the U.S. House of Representatives will take up today.

The National Uniformity for Food Act of 2005 has 225 co- sponsors, including Utah's three House members, but 39 attorneys general and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture have criticized the bill.

Citing conclusions drawn by a Congressional Budget Office analysis, the attorneys general say that if passed, the bill would pre-empt about 200 state food safety and labeling laws, as well as 40 state proposals still in the works.

Utah is one of 16 states that have laws regulating food additives that pose health risks. The state also has laws on milk and restaurant safety and regulations for safe honey production that could be affected by the bill.

"It's about truth and it's about federalism," Shurtleff said at a press conference of the National Associations of Attorneys General in Washington Tuesday. "To the federal government: Keep your hands out of our honey jar and let us do our jobs."

The Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which did an analysis of the bill, say the Utah laws and other states' rules for unsafe food and color additives are more protective of human health that what the Food and Drug Administration has in place. This would be lost if the bill passed in its current form, unless a state petitioned to keep its laws and rules in place, the report said.

Shurtleff said the federal bill's language is vague and its exact effects are unclear. He added that lawmakers do not know the full implications of the bill because it has not yet been subject to hearings or real debate.

But Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said having 50 different state food labeling and safety rules for companies to obey is unfair to those who want to distribute their products nationally. "It is not a practical solution," Matheson said, given "how our economy works."

It is also not fair to say the FDA could not come up with appropriate standards to satisfy what the law might change, he added.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, supports the bill because states will be able to petition the FDA to keep their own rules alive if they choose, said Scott Parker, Bishop's Chief of Staff. Matheson and Bishop are co-sponsors of the bill, as is Rep. Chris Cannon, R- Utah.

The Grocery Manufacturers of America also supports the bill, saying the measure would provide "consistent, science-based food safety standards and warning requirements."

"All consumers will be able to have confidence in the safety of the food supply and the information on food labels, regardless of where they live," said GMA president C. Manly Molpus.

Consumers deserve a single standard when it comes to food safety, according to the GMA. "This bill will allow states and the FDA to work collaboratively in establishing sounds good safety policies that benefit, not confuse, consumers," Molpus said.

Stuart Pape, a partner at Patton Boggs law firm and counsel to GMA on the national uniformity legislation, said it is "an instinctive reaction" of the attorneys general to criticize anything that would take away power from the states.

"I am not surprised in fact that the AGs opposed a law that pre- empts their own," Pape said.

Pape said the country needs consistency in food labeling because one state can label something as dangerous that another states does not, which can cause confusion.

He explained that if a state wanted to keep its own rules, it could petition the FDA and the law would allow rules to stay in place until the administration could make a ruling on it. He said the FDA had no reason to reject current state laws, and compromise on a uniform food law system is impossible.

"You either have uniformity or you don't," Pape said.

E-mail: sstruglinski@desnews.com

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

More News in this Category