In a speech to the New York Economic Club, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said, “I will eliminate all needless and job-killing regulations” in federal government. A fact sheet distributed by the campaign listed “specific regulations to be eliminated,” including the “FDA Food Police,” reported The Hill newspaper.
Trump’s speech cited the Waters of the United States rule, under challenge in court, as among “some of our most intrusive regulations.” Known as WOTUS, the EPA rule defines the upstream reach of clean water laws. Farm and home-builder groups say WOTUS would include prairie “potholes” and creeks far from navigable waters.
The Hill said the Trump campaign removed the fact sheet from its website. A revised version, without the food deregulation proposal, was posted later in the day, said Talking Points Memo, adding, “The Trump campaign has not responded to TPM’s inquiry as to whether Trump stood by his original proposal to deregulate the food industry.
The Hill and Talking Points Memo quoted the original fact sheet as saying: “The FDA Food Police, which dictate how the federal government expects farmers to produce fruits and vegetables and even dictates [sic] the nutritional content of dog food. The rules govern the soil farmers use, farm and food production hygiene, food packaging, food temperatures and even what animals may roam which fields and when. It also greatly increased inspections of food ‘facilities,’ and levies new taxes to pay for this inspection overkill.”
The impetus for much of the criticism was the recently completed overhaul of FDA’s food safety system that requires food processors to write plans on how to prevent food contamination and then to put the plans to work. Previously, the government got involved only after there was an outbreak of foodborne illness.
“Ensuring the safety of the food that we eat is about as basic a function of government as you can get,” said food safety lawyer David Plunkett of the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest. “We shouldn’t consider turning back to the dark days of no standards and largely uninspected food.”
While FDA has oversight for most of the U.S. food supply, USDA is in charge of meat and egg safety.
The government began regulation of food in the early 20th century after exposes of squalid conditions in packing plants and dangerous ingredients in food.
Trump outlined his economic plan in the New York speech, said NBC’s Decision 2016, “promising that his plans to lower taxes by $4.4 trillion over a decade and cut regulations would lead to booming growth, create millions of jobs and even cut into the nation’s budget deficit.”
“As president, Trump said he would cut the number of regulations imposed by the federal government, including some that are designed to combat climate change and protect the food Americans eat. The celebrity businessman said that “excessive regulation” costs Americans nearly $2 trillion a year,” said NBC.