HR 875 Would Essentially Outlaw Family Farms in the United States

Sean has written about a new bill that would threaten family farms as well as maybe even you if you grow food in your backyard.

http://shepardpolitics.blogspot.com/2009/03/hr-875-would-essentially-out...

by Sean Shepard

I get a lot of e-mails each day and one today (hi Cheryl!) pointed my attention
to HR 875, a bill introduced into the 111th Congress. SO, I went and did
something that members of Congress rarely do and actually read the bill.More
accurately, I glanced through it which is still more than they ever do. It was
introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT 3rd) and, as of this writing, has around
36 co-sponsors including my Congressman, Andre Carson (D-IN 7th). It immediately
strikes me as being terribly bad legislation.

Under a heading described as protecting the public health and ensuring the
safety of food it creates a "Food Safety Administration" within Health and Human
Services. Oddly, it doesn't just add regulations to the FDA (Food and Drug
Administration) which is also under HHS. And don't we have the USDA as well? The
bill applies to all manner of "Food Establishments" and "Food Production
Facilities" (note the following excerpt).

(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means
any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined
animal-feeding operation.

The bill would appear to even cover some fishing boats and potentially your
downtown hot dog street vendors. "Transportion" of food also could be covered.
In fact, the bill probably would also apply to your family garden since no
exemption is apparent.

What it essentially does is place a tremendous regulatory burden on all of these
organizations and individuals by requiring them to have "food safety plans",
consider all relevant hazards [note: I wish Congress would consider all
"relevant hazards" or unintended consequences of everything THEY did], testing,
sample keeping and to maintain all kinds of records. The bill also allows the
government to dictate all manner of standards related to fertilizer use,
nutrients, packaging, temperature controls and other items.

This massive bloat in government regulation (and taxpayer expense to support it)
would add additional cost and headache to every farm, some fishing boats,
slaughterhouse, processing plant, CO-OP and anyone else associated with growing,
storing, transporting or processing food. The bill authorizes fines of up to
$1,000,000 (one million) dollars for "each act" and for "each day" of a
violation.

We'll skip over the concern over how important food production and distribution,
largely recession proof, could be if our economy continues to decline and
inflation takes hold and just address this on the apparent lunacy that it is. As
those familiar with history know, large dominant corporations often will use
government to demand industry regulations that force the small competitor out of
business or introduce barriers to entry that prevent new companies from starting
up to compete. In the early part of the 20th century a tremendous amount of
regulation was written by the industries themselves to be enacted into law.

In this case, I think this bill could do tremendous harm to family farms or
independent food operators. Only massive companies have the ability to meet
these regulations and imagine the legal expenses that could be incurred to
defend oneself? Never forget, the government has near unlimited resources where
you might have to cough up $200 to $500 an hour for a good attorney to defend
yourself, your farm, boat, truck, restaurant, orchard, vineyard or hot dog
stand. And what about the increased cost of food associated with the cost of
compliance, it's not unreasonable to think that many places would have to hire
staff or outside assistance just to comply with the law.

We have an excellent history in the United States of safe food, but as Obama's
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel suggested recently, "You should never want a serious
crisis to go to waste." He spoke those words relative to looking for
opportunities to do things that people would not otherwise accept without some
crisis. We should be very careful not to let the very rare instance of something
like the recent peanut problem be used as such a "crisis". There is no impetus
to point the bureaucrats of government and the guns they control, their ability
to not only deprive someone of life or freedom but to destroy whole families,
careers and reputations, at everyone in the country who might be involved in
ensuring we have stuff to eat.

We're doing just fine without this legislation.

UPDATE: Friday, March 6 - 10:50 PM EST