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There are a number of food-related bills in Congress, which I report on occasionally. Most of them are introduced only to die a slow, quiet death in committee. It's encouraging to see action taken on any of them, as it shows that a bill may actually move forward. So here's what's happened lately:
S. 510 - The Food Safety Modernization Act: This bill is a mixed bag, as it gives us more food safety at the potential expense of small and sustainable producers. Progress has been made toward the requests of the sustainable ag community and people differ over whether they feel that the food safety needs justify supporting the flawed bill's passage, or whether they want to see the bill killed entirely. I expect this bill to ultimately pass Congress and the only question is how good (or bad) it will be for sustainable producers in the end. The bill just passed committee, which means the next stop is the Senate floor. Its already passed the House, and it just picked up a new co-sponsor, Sen. Bingaman in the Senate.
H.R. 1084 - The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act: This bill will require commercials to play at the same volume as the TV program they appear during. It just passed out of committee, which means its next stop is the House floor.
S. 850 - Shark Conservation Act - This fantastic bill would close up loopholes to prevent shark finning. The companion bill already passed the House in March, and the Senate version just passed this week. It also picked up new co-sponsors, Senators Snowe, Vitter, Rockefeller, and Bayh. I've pasted some information about the bill from Pew Environment Group below, and you can send an email to your Senator asking them to support the bill here.
H.R. 1523 - Ban Poisonous Additives (BPA) Act: This bill will ban BPA from food containers. It just picked up new co-sponsors, Rep. Louise Slaughter and Rep. Barney Frank. That brings it up to 60 co-sponsors in the House. The Senate version, S. 593, just picked up the support of Sen. Shaheen, bringing it up to a whopping total of 5 co-sponsors.
S. 619 - The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act: This bill says that if a class of antibiotics is important in human medicine, you can't use it on livestock that aren't sick (nontherapeutic use). You can still treat sick animals. This bill just picked up a new co-sponsor, Sen. Akaka.
H.R. 4022 - The Gulf Oyster Protection Act: This has to do with the recent flap over the FDA trying to regulate raw oysters due to food safety concerns. The bill has new co-sponsors Rep. Meek (D-FL) and Rep. Putnam (R-FL).
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