NEW YORK – In a Bloomberg op-ed, U.S. Representatives Cathy McMorris
Rodgers (R-WA) and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) call for regulatory relief and policy
reforms that will help create jobs, reduce the deficit and promote economic
growth. Menu labeling, they write, “represents one example of a regulation that
threatens to impose significant costs on consumers and small businesses without
delivering meaningful value to the public.”
As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to
finalize its new menu-labeling rules, mandated by the health-care law,
legislators such as McMorris Rodgers and Sanchez are pointing out this new
regulation would be expensive and ineffective, particularly for those affected:
restaurants, grocery stores and convenience stores.
The FDA’s approach to menu labeling “represents regulatory
overreach,” they write.
“As part of its rule-making process, the agency has proposed
that grocery and convenience stores be subject to menu labeling, even though
those businesses aren’t mentioned in the underlying law approved by Congress.
Furthermore, they already label more than 95 percent of the food items they
sell. These businesses, which operate on narrow margins in a highly competitive
industry, will have two choices: either spend on keeping in-store signs up to
date or limit the variety of foods they offer, replacing fresh-cut fruit or
salads with prepackaged items that can be easily labeled. Despite efforts to
find workable alternatives, the FDA seems intent on entangling this sector of
the economy in a bureaucratic solution in search of a real-world problem."
Implementing the new menu-labeling rules would cost grocery
stores an estimated $1 billion in the first year, according to the Food
Marketing Institute, and the Obama administration’s Office of Management and
Budget estimates the menu-labeling regulation “to be the third-most-onerous
regulation proposed in 2010, requiring more than 14.5 million hours of
compliance,” they write.
NACS
supports, that seeks to ensure that the menu-labeling regulations will not
impose an undue burden on business: the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act
of 2013 (H.R. 1249).
“This legislation would permit innovation and flexibility
and limit labeling mainly to restaurants, exempting supermarkets and
convenience stores that mostly packaged or unprepared food. Among a number of
important provisions, establishments that primarily serve customers through
remote ordering would be able to comply by posting calorie information online.
This would ensure that consumers get the necessary nutritional information at
lower costs to businesses,” they wrote.
“Aside from proving that bipartisanship isn’t dead, the
legislation would limit unnecessary bureaucratic intervention in the private
sector. Through such cooperation, Congress can advance crucial regulatory
relief as the economy continues to struggle.”