State and Local Labeling Rights
As food companies try to resist new labeling initiatives at the federal level, they also try to use the federal government to prohibit individual states from adding labeling requirements of their own. Central to this debate in recent years are California’s Proposition 65, a 1986 law which requires businesses to provide warnings when they expose consumers to known reproductive toxins, and the National Uniformity for Food Act, a bill designed to override Prop 65.
The National Uniformity for Food Act was a bill backed by the Grocery Manufacturer’s of America, forbidding individual states from passing food-labeling requirements. Their stated goal was to make the laws more “fair” to food companies who could potentially have to create 50 different labels to follow the laws of the 50 different states. Of course, food companies could simplify such a dilemma by including all required information for every state on every label (e.g. if North Dakota requires X and South Dakota requires Y, the food company could print both X and Y on all labels and thus distribute to both North and South Dakota with no inconvenience). Their unstated goal, providing less information to consumers that may cast their products in an unfavorable light, would be accomplished by overriding Prop 65 and other current and future state laws like it.
The troubling part of overriding Prop 65 is two-fold: first, it would remove consumers’ ability to avoid foods containing toxins by reading their labels, and second, the National Uniformity for Food Act (or any similar future measure) impedes states’ rights. In 2006, the House overwhelmingly passed the National Uniformity for Food Act (HR 4167), but the Senate failed to vote on it. Recipe for America opposes the National Uniformity for Food Act or any other legislation that prohibits states and localities from passing their own food labeling requirements. For now, we can breathe easy – but keep an eye in the news for future legislation on this topic. No doubt the “other side” hasn’t given up!
More information
AP: House Moves to Strip Food Warning Labels (article)DailyKos: If You Eat, You Should Care About This (blog entry)
Deseret News: Shurtleff Opposes Food-Safety Bill (article)
