Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:12:00 GMT
You'd think that, when it comes to healthy food for our kids, Washington at least could set aside its ideological wars and get something done.
You'd be wrong. Here's an example from right at home, courtesy of U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Wheaton.
Mr. Roskam was back in the Chicago area this week on what sounds like, and is, a reasonable mission: reducing unneeded federal rules and regulations that many firms say discourage them from focusing on their business and creating jobs.
Mr. Roskam and other Republican leaders obviously are on to something. The Obama White House of late has been busily rolling out plans to slash that red tape and reduce the number of new rules, and they are considering junking a bunch of the old ones.
The centerpiece of Mr. Roskam's visit this week was a joint press conference with C. J. Fraleigh, CEO of the North American division of Sara Lee Corp., the Downers Grove-based food giant.
New rules proposed by the Obama administration would so over-reaching that Sara Lee would be restricted in advertising a lean turkey sandwich on whole-wheat bread during the Super Bowl, Mr. Roskam said. The company is being nickeled and dimed by the bureaucracy.
A follow-up op-ed piece written by Mr. Roskam in the Sun-Times made the same point.
Sara Lee could soon face lower sales and higher costs and provide fewer jobs if the administration goes through with a particularly overreaching food regulation that would dramatically restrict their ability to advertise many food products — in the name of fighting childhood obesity, Mr. Roskam wrote.
A sponsorship deal for Ballpark Hot Dogs, the turkey sandwich ad, even pictures of athletes on Wheaties boxes, all would be eliminated because those under 18 make up a big share of audiences for such ads.
Added the congressman, The regulation of hot dog advertisements at baseball games won't create a single job.
Sounds awful, doesn't it? But the facts are, shall we say, a bit more complicated.
The regulation involved deals with how much sodium food products can contain if those products are pitched to kids. Congress a few years ago — at the suggestion of Kansas U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican — decided that youth obesity is a rising problem and directed the president to draft a proposal on how to deal with the matter.
Now, the experts disagree on how much sodium is bad for children. An industry trade group calls for 600 milligrams maximum per serving. Sara Lee's hot dogs and turkey products are in the 400-to-500-milligram range. The proposed regulation is 210 mgs. Obviously, there's some room for debate.
But the thing is, that regulation isn't a regulation. In fact, it's strictly voluntarily, something that Mr. Roskam knows but skims over to simplify his case.
To repeat. It's voluntary. The regulation would have no force of law.
Mr. Roskam, through an aide, insists that, once the proposed regulation is finalized — if it's finalized; it's only a proposal out for public comment now — Sara Lee will have to comply, because of market pressure and the like.
Somehow, I suspect he underestimates the company's ability to act in its own interest. Only last month, well after the proposed voluntary rules came out, the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, a program of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, proposed a voluntary 600-milligram standard per serving for sodium.
What really is going on is an effort to squelch debate.
Federal agencies — in this case, including units of the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control — shouldn't be allowed to give their views, even when Congress asked them to do so. We can trust to the big food companies to ignore their bottom line and act strictly in our kids' self-interest.
That, at least, seems to be Mr. Roskam's view.
That may explain why Mr. Roskam's solution to over-regulation is to require every federal rule of consequence to be approved first by a majority of the House and Senate.
Right. The same gang that barely kept America from defaulting on its debt will get a chance to go back and forth on every rule, as lobbyists all around whisper in their ears.
You want to know why Washington doesn't work? You'll never get a better example.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment