Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2017, the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act of 2015.
As many of you know, I have been a longstanding champion of menu labeling, and I have fought to secure its inclusion in the Affordable Care Act. In fact, I was the original author of the House menu labeling bill.
When the Congress passed standardized menu labeling in 2010, what was the goal? To arm Americans with the right-to-know information they need to make informed nutritional decisions for themselves and for their families.
The language was built on consensus and compromise and worked out between a wide variety of interests, including many industry partners. I can find you the quotes from the National Restaurant Association where we stood together to make the announcement to put calories up on menu boards where people could see them and make the decision about what they were going to purchase at the point of purchase.
Now certain sectors of the industry want to tear down the progress that we have made. This bill would weaken and repeal a crucial step to combat the obesity epidemic in the United States. This bill increases consumer confusion and allows restaurants to list deceptive portion sizes, listing an entree as multiple servings, even though these items are often consumed by one person.
For example, a restaurant could list the caloric content of one chicken wing, deciding that one chicken wing is a serving size. But people do not eat just one chicken wing. Under the proposed bill, a restaurant would not be obligated to inform a consumer that there are 12 chicken wings in an order, which can lead to consumers making misinformed decisions based on misleading information, consuming far more calories than they ever realized.
This bill would also deny consumers the right to nutritional information at that point of purchase, even if 49 percent of orders are placed from in-store menus. Food establishments, what they would like to do is to bury menu labeling online.
Multiple studies have shown that providing calorie menu information can help Americans make lower calorie choices. But they cannot do this if they do not have the information they need.
It also weakens enforcement, consumer protection, and it would completely remove an establishment's incentive to comply with menu labeling requirements.
It also removes the ability of individuals to hold retail establishments accountable for violations to the food labeling law.
Many public interest health organizations are concerned about the ability of citizens to take action on noncompliance to menu labeling standards. Given that the Food and Drug Administration is chronically underfunded, this would be a serious setback.
We live in a country where obesity is an epidemic. In March 2015, sales at restaurants and bars surpassed spending at grocery stores for the first time ever. On an average day, one out of three Americans eat at a fast food restaurant. Americans are eating nearly half of their meals and snacks outside the home. Nutritional information must be made readily available where the consumer is at a point of purchase.
Children are especially at risk. Today, more than a third of children and adolescents are overweight and obese. Children eat almost twice as many calories at a restaurant than they do at home. The impact on our kids alone should be reason enough to oppose a measure that undermines the consumer's ability to make an informed nutrition choice at mealtime.
The good news is that menu labeling works. A 2015 study at Harvard found that menu labeling could save $4.6 billion in healthcare costs over 10 years. It is a popular concept. A national poll found that 80 percent of Americans support menu labeling in chain restaurants. Over 100 nutrition and health organizations support menu labeling, along with trade associations, like the National Restaurant Association, chain restaurants such as McDonald's, Chili's, and IHOP.
The existing law is flexible. Restaurants with less than 20 locations--a mom and pop small businesses--are excluded. Your local grocery store is excluded.
It has been 6 years since the original labeling law passed. There has been a 2-year delay in its full implementation.
The Food and Drug Administration has actually gone almost door to door to work with the industry to address their concerns. We should let them work through this process rather than complicating it with this legislation, which is just industry's answer to gutting the legislation.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Let them work through the process. We would be undoing years of meaningful, impactful work on menu labeling with a single stroke.
This is a special interest-driven bill. No one is suggesting that every permutation of a meal has to be changed and listed on a menu board. That is false. That is misrepresentation. You take the standard menu and you put that up there, and the same is true of pizza places, the same is true of the deli counter, and a convenience store. Do not let an industry that doesn't want to provide information to the American people about what they are eating and what the calorie content is--you know, when we first started this, we talked about calories and sodium and a whole bunch of other things, but it was by working with the industry that I did at that time, that said: No, let's just put calories up there. That is reasonable. We don't have to go further than that. They stood side by side with me and we went to restaurants where we saw what the calorie count was on the label, and they were perfectly happy with it.
Subsections of this industry have refused to do what the broad-based industry has wanted to do.
This is industry-driven. It is not the answer. It would undo over 5 years of progress on menu labeling. It hurts the American public. It hurts our children. And I urge all of my colleagues to oppose it.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, let me make a point. The fact has been mentioned that people can go online and they can find their information in that way. Forty-nine percent of orders are placed from in-store menus. Food establishments can bury anything online. Not everyone has access to that kind of information. All of the studies have determined that you make your choice at the point of purchase.
I want to make one other comment because the National Restaurant Association has been talked about here this morning. Let me just quote to you Scott DeFife, executive vice president of the National Restaurant Association, who praised the menu labeling law when the two of us stood to introduce this legislation 6 years ago. He said why it was a good thing to do and why he praised it and why the National Restaurant Association was foursquare for it: ``It sets a clear national standard across the country.''
They were opposed to this bill. They have been all along. God only knows what happened in the last 24 or 48 hours to have the National Restaurant Association, which we stood shoulder to shoulder as we passed this unbelievably record-breaking bill in order to allow people to know what they are eating, make their own choice, and to know the calorie content of food, standard-sized menus. The variations are not there.
So much misinformation is being peddled on this floor today about what was a bill to protect the American public.
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