permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The Food Safety bill is law-- what then?
Date:   Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:19:37 -0500
From:   Leigh Hauter <bullrunfarm@hughes.net>

> Also, you will still have to comply with state requirements which were 
enough to
> head us off "processing" here.
> The bill is one thing, the rules that it generates are another entirely. 
Keep an
> eye on the watchdog reports coming along in a few months.

This is exactly right. This bill was careful not to over-rule state laws. If 
your state makes it hard (or easy) to do
something that's your state's issue. This bill was careful not to pick a 
fight with the states about their individual
food safety and farm regulations (if they have any).

The second part is a good point too. Congressional bills by necessity are 
rather vague. The bill now goes to the agency
to interpret and write regulations to put it in effect. This is where 
grassroots movements often lose fights.

This law will now go to the FDA which will then start writing regulations and 
rules as well as hire the inspectors (and
write the rules telling them what to do) to put the bill into effect. this is 
also a time when lobbyist are active
putting pressure on the agency to interpret the bill in their favor.

We need to do the same thing. We need to decide what we think the different 
aspects of this bill should mean. (look at
the different opinions about the tester amendment, instead of throwing up our 
hands and saying 'the sky is falling' we
should be looking at it as we would like it to be interpreted and figuring 
out a way to put pressure on the FDA to
interpret it in that way. (the first place is probably finding out which 
groups are working on this issue that support
our interests) You can put money on the likelihood that the big farm and 
grocery interests (their many trade
associations and lobbying firms) are going to be doing the same thing.

What is really amazing, the way I see it, is for a group as clueless (sorry 
-- how about 'focused on different aspects
of our business') as we are we have gotten so much of our interests protected 
in this bill. This isn't usually the case.
What it says to me is there is a lot of grassroots support out there that 
likes what we are doing and don't want laws
that make it harder for us to do it. Let's make sure that the good aspects of 
this law don't get overturned behind
closed doors.


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