| A couple of brief updates on current menu labeling legislation, following up on my last post here on the issue...
HB 2726 passed the Oregon House by a vote of 44 - 14 on Friday, and will now head on into the Oregon Senate where it will also likely pass. The vote numbers don't actually tell the whole story though, as at least one of the opponents of the bill was against it for not being strong enough, and for overriding local regulations -
In a lively 36-minute debate on the bill, Rep. Nick Kahl, D-Portland, said he was opposing the bill because it bars local laws on menu labeling, thereby pre-empting and effectively delaying Multnomah County's recent requirements.
The law, if passed and signed, would take effect Jan. 1, 2011. Which may actually be rendered moot, as I wrote about here a couple days ago, if the weak industry-supported LEAN Act currently in the Congress manages to become law. LEAN would preempt any and all existing or future local, state and county regulations.
I also received a correction this morning on something I wrote about LEAN in that diary - LEAN would not even require calorie counts to be printed on menu boards; rather, it would simply require restaurants to provide the information anywhere convenient to them. Which is basically the system we have now, and which doesn't work - posters containing nutritional information hidden near the bathrooms in fonts that require a magnifying glass to read, or on tray liners received after you order the food, etc...
I still don't understand when it became acceptable to allow restaurants to refuse to let us know what's in our food. Let's make sure Congress doesn't give them a pass on this. |
