CARSON CITY - While new federal rules will require restaurants with 20 or more locations to post calorie counts on their menus and menu boards, a Nevada lawmaker is seeking to extend the rules to Nevada restaurants with 10 or more locations, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

Assemblywoman Lucy Flores said her goal is to get people to make healthier purchasing decisions, with her Assembly Bill 126 "a smart and effective way to produce good public health policy." Her bill would codify new federal regulations while lowering the threshold for reporting to 10 restaurants in the same chain operating with Nevada.

Flores has found support by the American Heart Association and American Cancer Society, who testified in support because of the obesity epidemic and for the long-term benefits of eating healthier foods. However, several groups have opposed the bill as being an unnecessary duplication of federal rules.

Warren Hardy, a lobbyist representing the Nevada Restaurant Association, said the federal rules provide adequate protection for the state in this area, adding the association participated in developing the federal rules partly to avoid situations in which states would enact their own rules.

Lea Tauchen, representing the Retail Association of Nevada, opposed applying the rules to chains of 10 restaurants or more in Nevada because of the effect on grocery store delis and bakeries, who have as many as 500 to 1,000 items that would need to be nutritionally analyzed at a cost ranging from $500 to $1,000 per item.

"The consumer would ultimately suffer by the increased price and in the reduction in the selection of products available to them," she said.

A spokesperson for the Nevada Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association, said about eight convenience store chains have more than 10 but fewer than 20 locations in Nevada and so would be required to comply under the bill for hot foods prepared in the store.

NACS has advocated that, on the federal level, any menu-labeling regulations must account for differences between the convenience store business model and a chain restaurant business model. The NACS position is that an entity should be covered only if revenues from restaurant-type food sales exceed 50% of the store??s overall sales. In evaluating this ratio, pre-packaged food should be excluded from the "restaurant-type food" revenues and fuel sales should be included in the store??s overall sales.