The Regulatory Accountability Act HR 5 threatens existing and new laws that ensure safe food, regulate pesticides, and even protect children from toxic toys.
The Regulatory Accountability Act HR 5 threatens existing and new laws that ensure safe food, regulate pesticides, and even protect children from toxic toys.  |
Hi Supporter,
Vital food safety protections are seriously endangered by a new bill in Congress —The Regulatory Accountability Act (HR 5)—better termed the “Unsafe Food Act.”
The Regulatory Accountability Act1 has already passed the House and is now headed to the Senate. HR 5 is a dangerous bill that would effectively prevent the passage of food safety and other regulations that protect the public health by intentionally creating a roadblock of time-consuming, unnecessary, and unprecedented obstacles to the agency rule-making process.
Tell your Senators to oppose this “Unsafe Food Act” and protect public health >>
Foodborne illness is an epidemic in our country: According to the Centers for Disease Control, every year 47.8 million people (one in six Americans) are sickened as a result of foodborne illness. Tragically, three thousand die annually and nearly 128,000 are hospitalized. Among all age groups, children under five are most likely to become ill, most likely to be hospitalized, and most likely to die. Those that recover often suffer severe long‑term effects, such as kidney failure, chronic arthritis, and brain and nerve damage.
To address the foodborne illness epidemic, in 2011 Congress passed—and thanks to CFS litigation2, actually implemented—the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) substantially improved oversight. It transformed the FDA’s approach, from merely responding to outbreaks to preventing them, by requiring FDA to establish science-based standards for safe food production to minimize the risk of serious illnesses or death. And, it provided FDA with new enforcement, inspection and recall powers.
If the The Regulatory Accountability Act passes, agencies like the FDA entrusted with protecting the American public’s health will be hamstrung. Tell the Senate to reject this dangerous bill >>
The Regulatory Accountability Act HR 5 would create new, unwieldy, and time-consuming additions to the rule-making processes, and new burdens of proof for agencies, and force agencies to consider factors that go beyond protecting public health, safety, or the environment, placing financial considerations on companies above all else. It would take authority away from the expert scientific agencies and give it to the politicized White House. Essentially, the bill would empower those who oppose any regulation to effectively stop any efforts to adopt important new health and safety standards like the FSMA.
This bill is designed to make it as difficult as possible for federal agencies to implement existing or new laws that protect clean air and water, ensure a safe food supply, require food labeling, regulate pesticides, address climate change, and even protect children from toxic toys. Instead of protecting public health and welfare, The Regulatory Accountability Act HR 5 fast-tracks the repeal of rules while paralyzing the creation of new ones.
This bill must be stopped – please contact your Senators today >>
Thanks for everything you do,
The Center for Food Safety team
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1. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5
2. http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/2919/victory-your-food-will-be-safer-thanks-to-center-for-food-safety-lawsuit
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