Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 2017, the so-called Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act.
Far from common sense, this unnecessary legislation would deny consumers critical information about the food that we eat.
I began my career a long time ago as a consumer advocate, joining together with a small group of housewives to get retailers to put expiration dates on the products they sell. This was way back in 1970, when every single item in the grocery store was code dated. Now expiration dates are on nearly every single product because this change was good not only for consumers, but it was good for the retailers. They were able to control their inventory much better--less waste because dates are on the food. We can also control our refrigerators a little bit better as well.
Consumers can make better decisions with better information, and retailers can better control their inventory. Similarly, I believe menu labeling would be helpful to both consumers and retail food establishments, as more and more people are asking for this information and making smart decisions.
At a time when over 78 million adult Americans are obese and the estimated cost of obesity in the United States is $147 billion a year, we should be embracing efforts to reduce this enormous cost to our healthcare system.
In fact, a recent Harvard study found restaurant menu calorie labeling could save over $4.6 billion in healthcare costs over 10 years. That is not chump change.
Countless consumer and public health organizations oppose H.R. 2017. That includes the American Diabetes Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Public Health Association, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Supporters claim that menu labeling requirements would be too difficult to implement. That is what I heard from my colleague. But we know this isn't true. Why? Because California, New York City, the State of Vermont, and several counties around the country have successfully implemented menu labeling.
Only chain restaurants with 20 or more locations operating under the same name must post calorie information. So this is not about small businesses must post calorie information. Many of these chains have already had to comply with menu labeling in the places where it is currently required.
In addition, the National Restaurant Association has long supported menu labeling, and consumers find this to be an asset. Claims that implementation of menu labeling has been rushed or has not allowed industry to weigh in are simply false.
It has been 6 years since the law first passed, giving industry plenty of time to weigh in with the FDA and implement this law. The FDA has already issued a 1-year extension, and the FY16 omnibus delayed implementation even further.
The FDA has allowed for plenty of industry participation through this 6-year process, and their final regulations provide a great deal of flexibility.
H.R. 2017 would not only decrease consumer access to calorie information, but it would allow for inconsistent or confusing menu information. This legislation, for example, allows food establishments to simply make up their own serving sizes.
For example, the bill would allow establishments to list the calories for one chicken wing as opposed to an order of chicken wings and wouldn't require the total number of calories to be listed.
We have also heard that many establishments, especially chain pizza restaurants, claim that menu labeling would be too difficult for them to account for all the variations in their menu offerings.
But let's be clear. Pizza chains only need to post calories for the standard menu items they list on their menu boards, not every possible pizza combination. So clearly, California, Vermont, and the City of New York have figured it out.
I also took it upon myself to come up with an easy template for pizza restaurants to use and that is free of charge. I am not going to charge them. It shows how easy it is for them to clearly display the calorie information and account for the different pizza options. You can see right here.
So we have one slice of cheese pizza. I just made up these calories. I think they are way too low. But let's say one slice of cheese pizza is 250 calories. God bless them if they can do that. So then, for sausage, you would add calories; mushrooms, you would add calories; pepperoni, add calories; onion. I think it is rather attractive, easy to read, and important for consumers.
Pizza is undeniably one of the most common menu items in America. On any given day, one out of every eight Americans eats pizza--one out of eight. The United States spends $37 billion a year on pizza, which accounts for one-third of the global pizza market.
H.R. 2017 still requires chain pizza restaurants to calculate the calories for their menu items; so, clearly, it can't be that difficult to come up with this information.
Instead, this bill would allow them to present calorie information in a deceptive manner and restrict customer access to this information, depending on where they place an order.
Given how often pizza is consumed, it is critical that consumers have access to accurate calorie information at all points of sale.
More and more, people are planning their caloric intake and making healthier decisions for themselves. We should be encouraging this and providing consumers with the information they need to make smart decisions about their health.
So I encourage my colleagues to oppose this unnecessary bill that only serves to harm and confuse consumers.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. DeSaulnier).
I am really glad to introduce Mark DeSaulnier, who has experience with this particular legislation.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I yield the gentleman from California an additional 1 minute.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, can I inquire how much time I have remaining?
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the wonderful consumer advocate who has been fighting issues on nutrition and consumer information for such a long time and who is so knowledgeable about the importance of information for consumers.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I yield the gentlewoman from Connecticut as much time as she may consume.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The previous speaker said that this is all about choice. I agree with that. I think it is all about choice and about having the kind of information to make a proper choice.
Let me just give you an example of a menu from a SUBWAY in Montgomery County, Maryland.
This is from SUBWAY, which lists the calories in a standardized way, and that is what the original regulations and law required before there being this confusing change in the legislation. It reads, for example, that a SUBWAY Melt is 380 calories and that a Chicken and Bacon Ranch is 580 calories. Now, one would not necessarily assume that a SUBWAY Melt, which sounds cheesy and kind of rich, would, actually, have fewer calories--by 200--than a Chicken and Bacon Ranch. I think it is good for me and for many consumers to go in and to be able to see that and know that is going to be the standard way that calories are presented. This legislation would allow such things as this.
The covered establishments could make their own decisions about what is a serving size. It wouldn't be the same from establishment to establishment. For example, this allows covered establishments to not list the total number of servings for an item on the menu, like a platter of a certain appetizer. For example, an advertiser could list the calories as 400 calories but not disclose that one platter--just one order--has three servings, for a total of 1,200 calories--400 versus 1,200 calories. This presents real confusion and, I would argue, misinformation to the consumer.
More and more Americans are eating food outside of the home that is prepared by restaurants or by chain grocery stores where they have a section on prepared foods. In order to have complete decisionmaking power, it is very important that we have the calories that are there and posted.
Obviously, this is not overburdening, certainly, small businesses, because this isn't about small businesses. We have the largest State in the country already having these regulations, operating smoothly. We have got the second largest city in the country--the city of New York-- and we have the State of Vermont, very different kinds of locations that are being able to comply with the FDA regulations and the law that we want to go into effect next year. We do not need H.R. 2017 to confuse and disarm consumers and not provide them with the information they need.
I have another menu from Specialty Pizza: build your own pizza. What it has is a range of calories; so it would not be overburdening for every single different iteration of a pizza to have all of the different calories. There are options and there is flexibility under the legislation. It doesn't need to be changed and undermined by H.R. 2017.
If we are serious about dealing with one of the most important, expensive, and ubiquitous diseases in the United States of America-- diabetes. One of the greatest problems that we face is obesity in adults and especially in children--then I think we owe it to our families to make sure that we do not pass H.R. 2017, a special interest-driven bill to decrease consumer access to important nutrition and calorie information.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered today by Representatives McMorris Rodgers and Cardenas. This amendment would further undermine consumer confidence in the nutrition information they receive from restaurants and retail food establishments. One could call it flexibility, which actually the current legislation provides; and others, including me, would call it adding confusion.
Under the Federal menu labeling law, restaurants and retail food establishments are supposed to have a reasonable basis for determining calorie and nutrition information for their menu items. This can be done using a nutrient database, such as USDA's National Nutrient Database, cookbooks, recipes, nutrition fact labels, or FDA's nutrient values, among others. Again, the FDA is allowing significant flexibility, as it is, in how establishments determine this information. What is most important to the agency is that this information is accurate and consistent.
Some stakeholders have raised concerns about changes to the nutrition information based on an employee being too heavyhanded with one ingredient, like pickles, or perhaps not following the recipe appropriately. We can all understand that in cooking, this type of flexibility is needed. FDA's guidance addresses the question of how closely standard menu items must match the nutrient values, advising that an establishment ``must take reasonable steps to ensure that how you prepare your product . . . and how you serve your product are the same as those used to determine the calorie and nutrient declarations.''
The McMorris Rodgers-Cardenas amendment further undermines the ``reasonable basis'' standard outlined in H.R. 2017 and in FDA's final rule by permitting any type of variation for any reason from the nutrient content disclosed to the actual nutrient content in the standard menu item. Under this amendment, a restaurant would be able to change their recipe or how they prepare the food or swap out one ingredient for another and not have to change the nutrient information they disclose to account for these variations.
This amendment would also allow for further inconsistencies from restaurant to restaurant or grocery store to grocery store, as what might be a permissible variation to one restaurant or one grocery store may not be permissible to others, again, potentially creating an uneven playing field among the industry.
It is also important to note that this amendment is inconsistent with requirements for food labeling under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. This law requires that food labeling be truthful and not misleading. If nutrient content disclosures can vary for any reason to any extent, it would undermine such requirement in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, a requirement that the food industry has long had to meet.
As we have said all along, for calorie and nutrition information to be valuable to consumers, it must be accurate and it must be consistent. If consumers have no reason to believe that what is disclosed by a restaurant is accurate, then the disclosure of nutrient information is rendered meaningless.
I believe FDA's guidance has provided a great deal of flexibility for how nutrient content should be disclosed, and I know the agency is committed to working with covered establishments to meet the requirement of providing accurate, consistent nutrition information in a way that is feasible for the establishment.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chair, there were so many falsehoods, really, in what my colleague across the aisle said. We have evidence in California, the city of New York, and Vermont that absolutely restaurants can comply. It is not about small businesses, about 20 or more establishments with the same name.
This idea of 50 percent online, this is not the vast majority of their information online. It is 50 percent. We already know that 49 percent of orders at these establishments are done in person. What about those people who come in? Are they not entitled to the same thing that is in other restaurants?
Mr. Chair, I support the gentleman's amendment.
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