Contact Your Senators TODAY to defend local control over food safety!

Congressional Switchboard:  #202-224-3121

Tell them to oppose the “National Uniformity for Food Act,” when it comes before the Senate.

On March 2nd the House passed H.R. 4167, the “National Uniformity for Food Act,” which would basically overturn any state or local food safety laws that are not "identical" to federal law.  Hundreds of laws and regulations that are tougher than federal rules are now at risk, including those governing the safety of milk and shellfish. With massive federal budget cutbacks, local and state officials are now responsible for 80% of the nation's food safety enforcement. These officials regularly improve training, sanitation and labeling standards to address new food borne diseases and other dangers to our food supply whether natural or man made. This preemption legislation, if it passes the Senate and is signed by Pres. Bush. would put a straitjacket on local food safety efforts and severely compromise the principle of food sovereignty in the U.S.

Shelf space at supermarkets is one of the most valuable and therefore contested forms of real estate square footage in the world. That's one reason why food processers, united in the US as the Grocery Manufacturers Association, sponsor anti-democratic bills like the one that passed 283-139 in the US House to override state and local food-label laws.

It seems like whenever citizens and consumers express desires that go against the will of supermarkets and agribusiness, they respond with calls for "science-based" regulation, as if a) the GMA suddenly represents Science, and b) citizenry and consumers are the last to know what is good for them.

Their ultimate goal? Uniformity for food. Sounds awful. Who comes up with this stuff?