Fw: Good News--Food Safety Bill Suddenly on Life Support!

[Guest guest]

this may explain why this went back to the house and now on HOLD!From: Alliance for Natural Health USA <c+aahf@...>Subject: Good News--Food Safety Bill Suddenly on Life Support!epifany97523@...Date: Wednesday, December 1, 2010, 9:43 AM

Alliance for Natural Health USA

A message from the Alliance for Natural Health USA

Dear Michele,

The Senate’s controversial FDA Food Safety Modernization

Act (S. 510) now appears to be dead in

the water!

As we reported to you

yesterday, the Senate passed its version of the Food Safety bill by a

margin of 73 to 25, and sent it on to the House of Representatives for

approval. Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) had previously agreed to

accept the Senate’s bill in place of the House’s version, already approved, so

this approval was expected to be pro-forma.

But

it turns out that Section 107 of the Senate bill contains a revenue-raising

(i.e., taxing) provision. And such a provision is unconstitutional: “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in

the House of Representatives,†according to Article I, Section 7, of the

Constitution. Because the Senate violated the funding origination clause, the House

has implemented a procedure known as “blue slipping†to block the bill, keeping

it out of consideration and sending it back to the Senate.

The

only possible “quick fix†would be a unanimous consent agreement in the Senate

to strike that revenue-raising provision from the bill—but Sen. Tom Coburn

(R-OK) has already stated that he will oppose, so unanimity will be impossible.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now faced with some tough choices: spend a

huge amount of time all over again to deal with this (which is unlikely in a Lame

Duck Congress, especially considering how controversial the bill is); or do

nothing, and allow the bill to die at the end of this Congress. This will mean

a new Food Safety Bill will be introduced next year—but next year’s Congress

will be very different from the current one, so we expect that the bill will

look very different, and could be much more favorable to the natural health

community.

As always, we will keep you

posted on any new developments.

Sincerely,The Alliance for Natural Health USA

Follow ANH-USA on Twitter & Facebook

The Alliance for Natural Health USA1350 Connecticut Ave NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20036Ph: 800.230.2762www.anh-usa.org

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