Urgent: Another So-Called Food Safety Bill That Must Be Stopped At All Costs‏

[and-justice-for-all]

via email from http://www.peaceteam.net
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The Gestapo Food Act, H.R. 2749, Must Be Stopped

Here we have yet another phony food safety bill, which does NOTHING
but grant the FDA massive new police powers without actual policy
oversight. And it would do NOTHING to solve the actual problem, the
stinking cesspools which call themselves "modern" factory farms, the
SOLE source of whatever filth there is in our food supply. We don't
need burdensome new tracing regimes to drive small farmers out of
business, we already know exactly where the problem is.

H.R. 2749 would give some FDA administrator (read self-serving
corporate lobbyist) the power to dictate what farming practices must
and must not be used nationwide (read enforced GMOs, growth hormones,
and weird chemicals in our food). How can Congress make sane policy
without identifying the specific problem and its source before
empowering 10 year criminal sentences and $100,000 fines? It can't.
But only if we stop them from doing it, by speaking out now.

Stop HR 2749 Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum996.php

This hideously ill-conceived bill (unless you are a chemical food
conglomerate) is so terminally vague about what its PURPOSE is, it
can only do massive harm and no good whatsoever. Aren't bills in
Congress supposed to start with some kind of preamble, something
like, "This is the problem we have identified, and this is what has
to be done to fix it and WHY." No such forethought in HR 2749, just
unlimited and unaccountable new police state powers, while President
Obama continues to appoint the WORST possible nominees for just about
every administrative position.

It's time to wake up folks. It's just one corporate power grab hand
over fist out there. Not ONE major bill has Congress passed yet since
the last election that did ANYTHING to confront the actual real
problem. Credit card so-called reform was some kind of sick joke on
the American people, rejecting the only provision that actually
mattered, constraining usurous interest rates. Has anybody seen any
BIG savings on their credit card bills yet? Did we have to ask?

And they TRYING to do the same thing with health care reform, to do
nothing to disturb the existing corporate medical industry gravy
train. It is ONLY because of the alerts we have done on this already
that single payer is actually getting a hearing. What kind of lunacy
is it when the plan supported by a majority of the American people is
not even allowed in the room? It's the lunacy that happens when more
of us do not speak out more often. And we'll have another alert on
that later in the week.

Stop HR 2749 Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum996.php

But for today, please speak out against HR 2749. Tell Congress to
directly regulate factory farms and them ONLY. That's all that has to
be done. And anything else they do that does NOT do that by
definition will only make the problem worse, by punishing those who
are NOT huge, filthy, factory farms.

And when you submit the action page you will have an opportunity from
the return page to request a free gift with your donation of any
amount to help help support out progressive activist work. Not only
are the very popular "CONVICT DICK & W" caps available there, we are
making available AGAIN, both the Impeachment Play dvds from the
production in San Francisco last summer, and also the special Dennis
Kucinich pocket constitutions, commemorative of his heroic
presidential candidacy in 2008.

Or you can request any of those items directly from this page

Progressive Activist Gift Page:
http://www.peaceteam.net/all_gifts.php

And yes, you can also respond to this action through the new Twitter
gateway. Just send the following Twitter reply, and add any personal
comment you like.

@cxs #p996

And if you want a step by step explanation of how to set up the
Twitter thing here is the link for that.

Twitter Activism Step-By-Step: http://tcxs.net/step_by_step.php

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm

[truedelphi]

1. HAven't they done enough already?

Gr-RR!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. Screw you, food safety!

[SpartanDem]

3. What a bunch of left wing bullshit scarmongering

After years of an underfunded and overstretched agency and countless food safety lapses—including record recalls of contaminated spinach, peppers and peanut butter—the Act goes a long way by requiring high risk facilities to be inspected at least every 6-18 months (currently facilities are inspected once a decade on average); providing FDA with mandatory recall authority, which the agency currently lacks; and requiring electronic traceability systems that are able to track identified contaminated food back to its source.

Ami Gadhia, policy counsel for Consumers Union, said the bill gives FDA the authority it needs to help keep unsafe foods off store shelves and out of consumers’ homes. “We’re pleased that the bill is moving forward,” Gadhia said. “We would have preferred that the current bill contain a higher registration fee to provide more funding for FDA oversight, but we’re hopeful that the full committee will approve the bill soon without watering down the strong protections it provides consumers.”

Consumers Union is also asking lawmakers to consider making the bill stronger by adding a provision to require testing and reporting for contaminants to the FDA, the critical need for which was highlighted by the recent case of Peanut Corporation of America, which, in 12 different instances, found salmonella in its peanut butter and continued to ship deadly peanut products without being required to report known contamination.

With the fee issue now negotiated, hold on for a bumpy week of wrangling. As Tom Laskawy noted over at Grist, Big Meat has expressed their displeasure with the bill, especially with the potential for FDA regulation over meat and poultry, both of which are currently regulated by USDA. The American Meat Institute has also expressed concerned with the inspection schedule and the empowerment of FDA to mandate a recall and impose civil penalties

http://civileats.com/2009/06/11/food-safety-bill-moves-forward/


Yup sounds really horrible to me.

[Recursion]

4. Every single small and organic farmer and rancher I know loathes this bill

It's an attempt to choke off non-industrial food networks.