URGENT: Fraudulent "Food Safety Bill" Vote TONIGHT

[tangent4ronpaul]

Quote of the Day: "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." - H.L. Mencken

Tonight the Senate will vote on S.510, the fraudulent and dangerous "food safety bill."You can learn the details in our previous Dispatch.

We must ACT QUICKLY to swamp your Senators with our letters and phone calls, telling them to defeat the bill.

* You can send your letter using DownsizeDC.org's Educate the Powerful System

* Your Senators' phone numbers are posted with their contact information when you are logged in

Here's a sample letter you may borrow from or copy . . .

S.510 shreds our rights and makes our food LESS safe. It gives the FDA power . . .

* To make arbitrary laws in violation of the Constitution's Separation of Powers
* And to search private property without a court-issued warrant

I do, however, support the Tester-Hagan amendments. Without them . . .

* The compliance costs of S.510 will wipe out family farms and small businesses - even though they were not to blame for recent outbreaks
* Which means Big Ag will control more of our food
* Which in turn means LESS public accountability and MORE systemic risk

While you should support Tester-Hagan, the fact is that we don't need S.510 at all. Producers who want to keep customers and avoid lawsuits have enough incentive to ensure safe food.

Support Tester-Hagan, but defeat the final bill. Work to repeal burdensome regulations and create a real free market in America.

END LETTER

You can send your letter using DownsizeDC.org's Educate the Powerful System.

Please call your Senators as well.

And spread the word to your friends and social networks ASAP. Here is a handy url to give them: http://tinyurl.com/23klpxs

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.

James Wilson
Assistant Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org

[Noob]

sample letter




The Food Safety Modernization Act, S. 510, represents a massive expansion of government regulation of the food industry, even though there is no authorization in the Constitution for this. My right to produce, distribute, and consume the foods of my choice is part of my right to life and liberty under the Constitution.

I reject the imposition of an extensive and all-controlling regulatory food bureaucracy.

1) The major food-borne illness outbreaks and recalls have all been caused by the large, industrial food system. Small, local food producers have not contributed to the highly publicized outbreaks. Yet S. 510 subjects the small, local food system to the same, broad federal regulatory oversight that would apply to the industrial food system.

2) Increased regulations and record-keeping obligations could destroy small businesses that bring food to local communities. In particular, the reliance on hazard analysis and risk-based preventative controls, a concept similar to "HACCP", will harm small food producers. HACCP has already proven to be an overwhelming burden for a significant number of small, regional meat processors across the country. Applying a HACCP-type system to small, local foods processors could drive them out of business, reducing consumers' options to buy fresh, local foods.

3) FDA does not belong on the farm. S. 510 calls for FDA regulation of how farms grow and harvest produce. Given the agency's track record, it is likely that the regulations will discriminate against small, organic, and diversified farms. The House version of the bill directs FDA to consider the impact of its rulemaking on small-scale and diversified farms, but there are no enforceable limits or protections for small diversified and organic farms from inappropriate and burdensome federal rules.

4) Food safety and security both come from a diversified, vibrant local food system. Local foods give consumers the choice to buy from producers they know, creating a transparent, accountable food system without federal government oversight. State and local laws, which are often size-specific rather than one-size-fits-all, are more than enough for local food producers.

5) S 510 will eliminate the only productive sector of our economy - small farms and local food - through regulating the farmers in direct to consumer markets. The Tester amendment still puts the onus of additional paperwork, record keeping and scrutiny onto direct marketers, and the exemptions are insufficient to encourage young farmers to move into the field.

6) The FDA has plenty of authority. They fail to do the job they are already charged with doing. Don't give them a promotion and a pay raise when they don't do their job! Tell them to inspect the imports and the plants they have the authority to inspect and stay out of farming.

7) The rules and regulations the FDA will promulgate with the additional authority of S510 will harm our ability to get food that we want to eat. Instead of giving them more authority to regulate farmers, tell the FDA to require truthful labeling and disclose any and all genetically modified products on labels. This would create a safer food supply and not harm the small family farmer.

8) S 510 will create even larger governmental bureaucracy and the estimated costs don't include costs to individuals who actually produce food.


Reject S. 510 to keep the food industry free from an unconstitutional and over-regulated bureaucracy.



VOTE NO ON S.510. The Coburn/Tester amendments do NOT satisfy our concerns. This bill is NOT a 'noncontroversial' bill that the Senate can push through during the Lame Duck session!

THIS BILL AND ITS COMPANIONS SHOULD BE DEBATED BY THE NEW CONGRESS! WE DO NOT WANT MORE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY!

SO NOT SUPPORT S.3767 which would reintroduce the criminal penalties that were not included in HR.2749 or S.510. Do not include provisions from the discredited S.3002. These bills would destroy our access to dietary supplements and local food supplies!

Your constituents and others all around the US, in our determination to protect the right of every American to clean, healthy, clearly labeled, unadulterated food, have brought strenuous objection to degrading our food supply and implementing the well-presented, but very dangerous Codex HARMonziation which the corrupt and dangerous FDA, USDA and other industry-led agencies are so eager to present to us as faits accompli.

Instead, we look to you to preserve our right to clean food, labeled to indicate pesticides, adulterants, GMOs and other dangerous ingredients and to make sure that S. 510, the mis-named "Food SAFETY Bill" is defeated through either inaction or a successful Nay vote and any similar bill is, likewise, defeated.

Among the dangers facing our food and our freedom is the FDA's determination to destroy our access to high potency nutrients although guaranteed by the 1994 Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA). Amendments and bills to do so, along with the FDA's illegal Codex activities constantly threaten this freedom of choice. I look to you as my elected legislator to protect this right along with all other food and health freedom related ones.

I will be monitoring your activities on these issues closely. Thank you in advance for your work in the service of health and freedom. I take these issues very seriously and will vote on the basis of their support by my legislators and other elected officials.

STOP THE MONOPOLY BILL! STOP FORCED INDUSTRIALIZATION OF OUR LOCAL FOOD SUPPLIES! STOP THE BIG AGRI BIZ POWER GRAB!"