FW: Food Safety Bill Update

[Guest guest]

This is an important bill, if you live in the US, please take a moment to take

action on this.

Thank you,

ACTION TO TAKE This Thanksgiving week, please take a moment to call or email

your Senators to tell them to hold firm on KEEPING the

Tester-Hagan amendment part of the bill.

You can call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or go to www.senate.gov

<http://www.senate.gov/> to find their website (if the

phone lines are busy, the best way to reach them is through the Contact Page on

their website)

Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 2:14 PM

Subject: Food Safety Bill Update

To all:

Re: Senate Bill S.510, The Food Safety Bill

Because of public pressure, several of the most draconian and oppressive

components of the legislation have been deleted. But the

remaining legislation remains a nightmare of excessive regulation and cost. The

impetus of the bill is trade groups representing

large-scale industrial agriculture, who are hoping the regulations and expense

for those trying to comply with the law will put

small organic farmers out of business. The FDA already has full authority to

insure food safety; the recent outbreaks of food borne

illness represent failure on the FDA's part, not a need for even more

legislation.

The law was intended also to attack supplement manufacturers under the guise of

food safety, with criminal penalties of ten years

for a company that didn't file paperwork properly. We have been told that the

more onerous regulations have been deleted, but it is

still critical that you contact your Senators and express your opposition to

this bill which will be up for full Senate vote next

Monday. Below is a memo from the Weston Price Foundation about the bill. As

you scroll down you will find a link to the Senate to

help you contact your Senators.

UPDATE ON FOOD SAFETY LEGISLATION Agribusiness shows its true colors!

Last week, the Senate voted 74-25 to move to consideration of S.510, the Food

Safety Modernization Act. After thirty hours of

debate and behind-the-scenes negotiations, the Senators released a final

Managers Amendment that includes a compromise version of

the Tester-Hagan amendment. Thank you to all our members who have called and

written over the last several months to help protect

local foods!

But even though an agreement was reached on the Tester-Hagan amendment last

week, the issue is still not over. The final vote on

the bill has been delayed until Monday, November 29, due to disagreements over

amendments relating to the health care bill and a ban

on earmarks. And, in the meantime, Agribusiness has shown its true colors.

For over a year, the big Agribusiness trade organizations have supported passage

of S.510. From Agribusinesss perspective, the bill

was a win-win: they could absorb the costs of the regulations because of their

size; theyd gain good PR for supposedly improving

food safety practices; and the competition created by local food producers,

which is rapidly growing, would be crushed by the

regulatory burdens.

This was only speculation until now. But when the Senators agreed to include

the Tester-Hagan amendment in the bill, to exempt

small-scale direct-marketing producers from some of the most burdensome

provisions, twenty Agribusiness trade organizations fired

off a letter stating that they would now oppose the bill.

The letter from the Agribusiness groups states: y incorporating the Tester

amendment in the bill, consumers will be left

vulnerable to the gaping holes and uneven application of the law created by

these exemptions. In addition, it sets an unfortunate

precedent for future action on food safety policy by Congress that science and

risk-based standards can be ignored.

http://www.unitedfresh.org/assets/files/Letter%20on%20Passage%20of%20S%20%20510%\

20and%20Tester%20Amendment.pdf

What science and risk? No one has produced any data or evidence of any

widespread problems caused by local producers and marketed

directly to consumers. All of the major foodborne illness outbreaks have been

caused by products that went through the long supply

chains of Agribusiness. Agribusinesss real concern about the Tester-Hagan

amendment isnt food safety, but the precedent set by

having Congress recognize that small, direct-marketing producers are different,

and should be regulated differently than large

Agribusinesses.

Agribusiness is trying to convince the Senators to pull the Tester-Hagan

amendment back out. While the amendment is currently part

of the Managers Package the amended version of the bill agreed to by six

bipartisan sponsors nothing is certain until the actual

vote.

ACTION TO TAKE This Thanksgiving week, please take a moment to call or email

your Senators to tell them to hold firm on KEEPING the

Tester-Hagan amendment part of the bill.

You can call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or go to www.senate.gov

<http://www.senate.gov/> to find their website (if the

phone lines are busy, the best way to reach them is through the Contact Page on

their website)

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Senator Durbin (D-IL) is the sponsor of this bill.

Write these senators today and tell them to revoke their support of

Senate Bill 510! <http://www.contactingthecongress.org/>

Senate Bill 510 Will Make It Illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell

Homegrown Food

History

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton introduced HACCP (Hazardous Analysis

Critical Control Points) purportedly to deal with contamination in the meat

industry. Clinton's HACCP delighted the offending

corporate (WorldTrade Organization " WTO " ) meat packers since it allowed them to

inspect themselves, eliminated thousands of local

food processors (with no history of contamination), and centralized meat into

their control. Monsanto promoted HACCP.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton, urged a powerful centralized food safety

agency as part of her campaign for president. Her advisor was Mark

Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller*, a giant PR firm representing

Monsanto. Clinton lost, but Clinton friends such as DeLauro, whose

husband's firm lists Monsanto as a progressive client and

globalization as an area of expertise, introduced early versions of S 510.

S 510 fails on moral, social, economic, political, constitutional, and

human survival grounds.