On Thursday, the House plans to vote on H.R. 4167, the "National Uniformity for Food Act," which would require uniform food-labeling regulations in all 50 states. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Sounds efficient, doesn't it? But what if you're a state like California, which since 1986 has required warning labels for products containing chemicals which cause cancer or birth defects? Or Michigan, which requires warning labels about allergic reactions to sulfites in bulk food? Or Rhode Island, which wants shellfish that has been frozen to be labeled as such? And how stringent do you think this federal government will be about, say, genetically-engineered organisms, when they have demonstrated by their actions that they only care about money?
Naturally (so to speak) the big food manufacturers claim that varying state standards are too onerous. I must have missed the AP report where the cost of label ink shot up so high that it put CEOs in the poorhouse. Or the one where companies had to hire ten million monks with quill pens just to make ten different labels instead of one. Labeling standards do not in and of themselves prohibit manufacturers from putting certain things in food; labeling standards announce what's in the food, and then allow consumers to make decisions about what they put in their bodies. Just so happens that food manufacturers tend not to put things in their food that show up on California's list, but that's their choice. How is it "onerous" to make big food manufactures ashamed of themselves for shooting up their products with Frankencrap? Big food manufacturers also know that organic foods are becoming more popular (which is why they also lobbied to gut federal organic labeling standards); no doubt they feel persecuted because of this peculiar desire for a better life on the part of the American populace. I'm surprised Congress didn't call this the "National Food Fairness Act of 2006."
This bill is, unfortunately, going to pass the House, because it has 225 co-sponsors (where 218 votes is a majority). It would still be worthwhile to administer a beatdown here, or here. Might as well let them know we're watching.
UPDATE. The Union for Concerned Scientists also has an emailing tool against this bill. Remember, don't use all three; it muddies the data.