"Mr. Speaker, this bill will undermine all current a future state laws that are designed to warn the public about food safety risks. For example, this bill will pre-empt California’s Proposition 65 which require companies to inform consumers of the presence of chemicals that cause cancer or birth defects in their products.

In the absence of federal action to protect consumers from arsenic in bottled water, mercury in fish, and lead in chocolate and other candies, California has taken the lead in ensuring that consumers know about chemicals in food that can be hazardous to their health.   Because California is such a large market, the benefits of California’s Proposition 65 are felt as far away as Massachusetts.  Companies aren’t going to produce one line of products for the California market and another line for our market.  As a result, they reduce or eliminate substances from the food supply that cause cancer or birth defects, and therefore would trigger the California disclosure requirements.

State and local agencies perform more than 80 percent of food safety work and state food-safety officials say that this bill would paralyze the states’ ability to respond to terrorist threats to the food supply and the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), say this bill will “handcuff the first responders who deal with food safety issues every day.”

We have not had a single hearing on this bill and we were not allowed to offer any amendments to this bill. Before we pass a bill of this scope that undermines state food safety laws and could put consumers at risk, we should at the very least hear from the people who this will impact and provide the states with an opportunity to testify on how this bill will affect their ability to warn the public about food safety risks and acts of bioterrorism.

Pre-empting the California law and other state laws that are designed protect the public health, will simply make it easier for companies to use chemicals in their products that can harm us and our children without even telling us about it.

I urge my colleagues to vote no on this rule."