We've posted about this before (here and here) when it was still in the middle distance, but now it's a disaster just over the horizon. It's the National Uniformity for Food Act (S.3128) (aka The Food Industry Protection Act), poised to become law if it passes the US Senate. It is a blunderbuss aimed at California's Proposition 65 which requires warnings for food ingredients that may cause cancer or birth defects. If it passes it will take down that state law and another 220 or so other state and local safety and labeling laws as collateral damage. The food industry won't mourn those little safeguards either. They are related to the terrorist Proposition 65 and deserve to die. The food industry has a right to protect itself.
Many governors, including California's Republican head honcho Arnold Schwarzenegger, oppose it as an overly broad encroachment on state and local prerogatives. But the House already passed a similar measure in March and if the Senate follows suit, you'll have to order your tuna fish with the mercury on the side. If you remember to ask, that is, because there won't be any warning labels that your quick service comes with quicksilver.
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It is a blunderbuss aimed at California's Proposition 65 which requires warnings for food ingredients that may cause cancer or birth defects. If it passes it will take down that state law and another 220 or so other state and local safety and labeling laws as collateral damage.
And from whence does this emanate?
From a party which endlessly trumpets its supposed support for "states' rights".
Which are sacrosanct, save when they conflict with *corporate* rights. At which point said states' rights may be expeditiously discarded.
I am a Californian, and much of Prop 65 is silly, warning in dire tones of risks which in many cases are moot, while ignoring substantial dangers from other unenumerated sources. But to simply tip the entire thing into the trash bin is a dangerous overamplification of federal power to silence dissenting views.
Coming up next: new federal guidelines to ban discussion of radiological matters other than via approved industry terminology, e.g., "sunshine units".
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marquer: I agree with you about Prop 65. You are warned about so many things people tune out. It has been the target of the Food Industry since Day One, however, and now they get a bonus of taking down everything else.