Ninety-nine Members of Congress have written the Obama administration to protest proposed federal guidelines that would pressure food companies into changing their recipes or else suspending their advertisements on television shows watched by children.
A raft of freshmen Republicans signed a letter to the Secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, and the Federal Trade Commission, criticizing the Interagency Working Group that proposed the guidelines for failing to complete the necessary studies and for making “an attempt to regulate absent Congressional action.”
The legislators complained that the proposed guidelines, discussed previously by The Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso, “represent an alarming overreach” by the IWG. The Republicans’ correspondence also pointed out that the guidelines would prevent even perfectly healthy foods from being marketed to children, and they criticized the IWG as “irresponsible” for releasing “a set of industry guidelines that ignores inherent contradictions in federal policy.”
Although less forceful than their Republican colleagues, thirty-four Democratic legislators addressed the same agencies and also the Center for Disease Control. Not so vehement as the Republican freshmen, the Democrats still worried that the IWG proposal “could initiate dramatic changes to the manufacturing, marketing, and sales of many products currently in the marketplace without adequately considering the practical consequences.”
Here is the Democratic letter: Democrat Legislators’ Letter IWG Letter<script type=”text/javascript”><![CDATA[(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();]]></script></p><p> Here is the Republican letter: </p><p> <a title=”View Freshmen Republican Letter Final on Scribd” href=”http://www.scribd.com/doc/61152819/Freshmen-Republican-Letter-Final” style=”margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;”>Freshmen Republican Letter Final</a><iframe class=”scribd_iframe_embed” src=”http://www.scribd.com/embeds/61152819/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-17b6ap0eyx6oa9b7mofs” data-auto-height=”true” data-aspect-ratio=”0.772727272727273″ scrolling=”no” id=”doc_52816″ width=”100%” height=”600″ frameborder=”0″/><script type=”text/javascript”><![CDATA[(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();]]></script></p>
