Chattanooga Newspaper Slams Congress Move to Outlaw State Food Safety Labels

February 28, 2006
Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)

Congress vs. food safety
Editorial

When grocery shoppers look at where many of their fresh foods originate,
they typically find a range of international sources: seafood from fish
farms and foreign trawlers around the world, fruit from South American
countries, vegetables from countries in Latin America, cheeses from Europe.
While this has become routine, it may surprise many shoppers to know that it
is state governments, and not the federal government, that typically ensure
the safety of most commonly imported foods, along with the safety of many
foods, including milk, from their own states and others around the country.

Given the primacy of states for fixing and enforcing food safety and
labeling rules, it¹s 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 pending plan in the House to abrogate the traditional states¹ role
is curious on at least two counts. One is that 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
states¹ 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.

Want to know if your food contains cancer agents? If there¹s harmful
bacteria in your shellfish? If toxins are sprayed on your apples or lettuce?
If your bag of Georgia pecans are rancid or insect-infested or have been
checked for mold? Or simply if your catfish is from a Mississippi or a
Vietnamese fish farm?

Too bad. Under the House¹s proposed National Uniformity for Food Act,
state governments, which now handle such inspections, warnings and emergency
actions, would no longer have authority to provide such information if it
exceeded what the federal government gathers and provides. And if the
federal government has neither the direction or staff to take the state¹s
place, well, that¹s too bad, as well. That information just won¹t be
available.

The latter is likely. The FDA previously has not developed the capacity
to oversee the inspection and regulation of many foods and their
distribution through grocery stores and restaurants because such work
traditionally has been seen as the states¹ prerogative. The FDA and states
have worked jointly to develop many food safety standards, but states have
carried the burden of creating labeling and inspection programs, and in many
cases that of identifying risks not subject to federal inspections. States
also presently employ thousands of workers to fulfill those functions.

The proposed law that would undermine that traditional division of
labor seems to have been propelled by food industry companies that want to
escape current and pending state regulation. California¹s pending referendum
on Proposition 65, for example, would require warning labels on any foods
that contain unsafe levels of carcinogens. Food safety advocates in other
states want action to ban the use of treating and packaging red meats with
carbon dioxide to keep them from turning brown.

Big food industries generally object to such state rules. The National
Fisheries Institute, the Pecan Shellers Association and the International
Dairy Foods Association, for example, are among those that have aligned to
support the legislation and its pre-emption of state control.

Republican congressmen, unfortunately, seem more than willing
benefactors to food businesses. Though they have not held one hearing on the
National Uniformity for Food Act, most have signed on as co-sponsors, and
the bill is scheduled for a floor vote on Thursday. If they care a whit what
ordinary, tax-paying constituents think about their rights for health and
safety information about the food we eat, they will cancel that vote and
hold hearings on the need for state authority.