Providing for Consideration of H.R. 339, Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself 8 minutes.
(Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, despite the rhetoric coming from the other side, this is not an open rule. This rule requires that any Member who wants to improve this bill must have already preprinted their amendment in yesterday's Congressional Record. Now, it is interesting to note that when they were in the minority, the Republicans condemned preprinting requirements, but now that they are in power, they find this and other procedures to close the process completely acceptable. In fact, even the very distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) agrees that preprinting requirements are wrong, or at least he used to.
On July 20, 1993, the very distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules said this about a Democratic rule requiring that all amendments be preprinted: "This rule also requires amendments to be printed in the Congressional Record. Now, that might not sound like much, but it is another bad policy that belittles the traditions of House debate. If amendments must be preprinted, then it is impossible to listen to the debate on the floor, come up with a new idea to improve the bill, and then offer an amendment to incorporate that idea. Why do we need this burdensome preprinting process? Shouldn't the committees that report these bills have a grasp of the issues affecting the legislation under their jurisdiction? Again, Mr. Speaker, I think we can do better."
Well, I agree completely with my friend from California. We can do better. Unfortunately, in this Congress, we are actually doing worse. This year, of the nine rules this body considered, only one has been a truly open rule. That is a batting average of 111, which will get you kicked off of my son's T-ball team. According to the Republicans' own definition, eight out of nine rules have been restrictive, and that one open rule brought a bill to the floor that was approved by a voice vote.
Now, Mr. Speaker, as for the underlying bill, this is an unnecessary distraction from the real problems facing the American people. In August 2002, two children brought suit against McDonald's, claiming the corporation bore legal responsibility for their obesity and health problems. The case got a great deal of media attention which is, I am sure, part of why we are doing this thing today. The judge working on the case quickly recognized that this lawsuit was clearly frivolous and dismissed the case.
In other words, Mr. Speaker, the system worked. But that is not good enough for the Republicans. Now they want to radically change the rules, not just so Americans cannot bring forth so-called frivolous lawsuits, but so that almost any case of negligence against these types of companies is banned. This bill is retroactive: any case currently pending before a judge would be subject to the new law. Mr. Speaker, you do not change the rules during the middle of the game, but that is just what this bill does.
This bill has many, many, many problems, and my colleagues on the Committee on the Judiciary will talk more about the merits or lack of merits of the bill during general debate. But there are bigger issues here.
Mr. Speaker, obesity is a problem, and this week we learned that obesity will soon pass smoking as the leading cause of preventable deaths. Americans, especially children, are gaining weight at alarming rates. In fact, according to the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity, obesity is the Nation's fastest rising public health problem. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, unhealthy eating and inactivity cause about 1,200 deaths every day. That is five times more than the number of people killed by guns, HIV, and drug use combined.
Now, adding to this is the fact that it just does not affect the obese person; it puts a burden on the entire system, from hospitals to the workplace to the home. And, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, healthier diets could prevent at least $71 billion per year in medical costs, lost productivity, and lost lives. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that if all physically inactive Americans became active, we would save $77 billion in annual medical costs. And this does not even begin to discuss the issue of hunger in America.
Unfortunately, there are many people in this country who suffer from hunger and yet, paradoxically, are obese because the little food they do get is not nutritious. Low-income families face a real need to stretch their food dollars to maximize the number of calories they consume. We are finding that low-income families may eat foods that may cost less, but that have relatively higher levels of calories per dollar to stave off hunger when they lack the money or other resources like food stamps to purchase a healthier balance of more nutritious foods. Simply put, it becomes a trade-off between food quantity and food quality.
Now, it is obvious to everyone, everyone but the House Republican leadership, apparently, that obesity and hunger are serious public health issues that need to be dealt with in serious ways.
But instead of bringing legislation before this body that will help feed the hungry, provide families with information on how to prepare and eat nutritious meals, encourage the food and restaurant industry to be more responsible and help raise the standard of living, we are here today considering a fake bill that pretends to fix a fake problem.
Now, I would like to tell the American public that we are actually having a real substantive debate about obesity in ways to address this national problem but we are not. And although today's bill would undoubtedly restrict lawsuits against restaurants, food manufacturers, and food distributors, what it really does is highlight the priorities, actually the lack of priorities, of this Republican-controlled Congress.
For example, over 760,000 Americans sit at home, jobless and without any income because the Republicans in Congress will not extend them unemployment benefits. But the majority party all of a sudden can find the time to take up this legislation.
While the European Union adds tariffs to American goods because of a trade dispute, the Republican majority continues to let a bipartisan compromise sit and gather dust; but the leadership can find the time to try to ram another partisan corporate tax cut through the House that will not address any real problem.
And while over 40 million Americans woke up this morning without health insurance, last week the majority took precious time out of their limited legislative schedule to set the rules for commercial space flight, which does not even exist yet.
With all the challenges facing this country, and with the limited schedule set by the Republicans this year, is this the best bill to consider? Is this the best use of the House's time? The answer is no. And, unfortunately, the Republican Party continues to ignore the real issues facing this country.
And it just goes to show you how misguided and out of touch the majority party continues to be.
Mr. Speaker, the United States House of Representatives is supposed to be a serious place. This is where the great issues are supposed to be debated. But under this Republican leadership, this House has become a place where trivial issues are debated passionately and serious ones not at all.
We should have a debate about the problem of obesity. And that debate should include serious discussions about the ways we can effectively deal with that issue. But that is not what we are doing here today. What we are doing here today, quite frankly, is, once again, concocting a way to avoid doing the people's business.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield for a question?
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, no. The gentlemen spoke for a nice long period of time. When I get done with my statement, I look forward to engaging with the gentleman. I never hesitate to do that.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thought the gentleman from California was going to yield to me.
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Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I reclaim my time.
I also point out again the gentleman (Mr. Dreier) talks about the openness of the Committee on Rules, but let me use his definitions, the definitions of the Republicans when they were in the minority. Under those definitions, this year of the nine rules we have had, one has been open, one has been closed, one was procedural, and there were six restrictive rules. This is hardly any kind of an example.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield for a question?
Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I will not. Mr. Speaker, I control the time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rehberg). The gentlemen reclaims his time.
Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I will extend the same courtesy to the gentleman that he extended to me.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), who has been a champion on the issue of nutrition issues.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, all these insane, crazy lawsuits that people are referring to are getting dismissed and the system seems to be working.
We have a real problem and this bill does not address that problem in any way, shape, or form. If anything, this bill says to the restaurant industry and the food industry, you do not have any responsibility, you do not have any responsibility to our kids and the type of products that you try to peddle to them. I think that is the wrong message.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the RECORD an article that appeared in today's Washington Post entitled "Obesity Passing
Smoking As Top Avoidable Cause of Death."
[From the Washington Post, Mar. 10, 2004]
Obesity Passing Smoking as Top Avoidable Cause of Death
(By Rob Stein)
America's weight problem is rapidly overtaking cigarette smoking as the leading cause of preventable deaths, federal health officials reported yesterday.
Although tobacco is still the top cause of avoidable deaths, the widespread pattern of physical inactivity combined with unhealthful diets is poised to become No. 1 because of the resulting epidemic of obesity, officials said.
"Obesity is catching up to tobacco as the leading cause of death in America. If this trend continues it will soon overtake tobacco," said Julie L. Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the study.
If current trends continue, obesity will become the leading cause by next year, with the toll surpassing 500,000 deaths annually, rivaling the number of annual deaths from cancer, the researchers found.
"This is a tragedy," Gerberding said. "We are looking at this as a wake-up call."
Being overweight or obese makes people much more likely to develop a variety of deadly health problems, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
In response, the Bush administration announced a new public education program yesterday, including a humorous advertising campaign that encourages Americans to take small steps to lose weight. In addition, the National Institutes of Health proposed an anti-obesity research agenda. Tomorrow, a special task force will present the Food and Drug Administration with recommendations on what that agency can do to help reverse the cresting public health crisis.
"Americans need to understand that overweight and obesity are literally killing us," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. "To know that poor eating habits and inactivity are on the verge of surpassing tobacco use as the leading cause of preventable death in America should motivate all Americans to take action to protect their health."
Critics, however, immediately denounced the moves as inadequate, saying the administration should take more aggressive steps to encourage more healthful diets, and force the food industry to improve its products and stop advertising junk food to children.
The government should have been much more aggressive about this much earlier," said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University's Center for Eating and Weight Disorders. "Even now, the administration defaults to explaining the problem away by individual responsibility and lack of physical activity rather than focusing on the toxic food environment."
The new estimates of the rising toll of obesity come in the first update of a landmark paper that ranked the nation's preventable causes of death in 1990.
Cigarette smoking, which increases the risk of a host of illnesses including lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease, topped that list. But antismoking campaigns have led to a steady decline in the number of Americans who use tobacco, slowing the rise in the resulting toll of illness and death.
In the new analysis, published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, Gerberding and her colleagues conducted a comprehensive review of the medical literature to calculate the most precise estimate possible of the risk of dying from all the leading causes of preventable death, including being obese or overweight. They then multiplied that risk by the number of Americans known to be overweight or obese, based on long-term, ongoing national surveys used to track the nation's health, which are the most accurate data available. The result, the researchers said, is the most reliable such estimate to date.
Tobacco still ranked No. 1, accounting for about 435,000 deaths, or 18.1 percent of the total. But poor diet and physical inactivity were close behind and rapidly increasing, causing 400,000 deaths, or 16.6 percent. That represented a dramatic change from 10 years earlier, when tobacco killed 400,000 Americans (19 percent) and poor diet and physical inactivity killed 300,000 (14 percent).
"There's been a big narrowing of the gap," said Ali H. Mokdad, who heads the CDC's behavioral research branch. It is particularly striking because the toll of every other leading cause of preventable death-including alcohol, infections, accidents, guns and drugs-steadily decreased over the same period, Mokdad said.
Despite intense public concern, the number of overweight or obese Americans has continued to climb to epidemic proportions. In 1990, about 60 percent of adult Americans were either overweight or obese, including about 20 percent who were obese. By 2000, that number had climbed to 64 percent being obese or overweight, including about 30 percent who were obese.
"Physical inactivity and poor diet is still on the rise. So the mortality will still go up. That's the alarming part-the behavior is still going in the wrong direction," Mokdad said.
Experts praised the government for highlighting the worrisome trend and taking countermeasures. But several said the severity of the problem warrants a much more intensive, innovative response.
"If we just count on the American population to change their eating habits and exercise habits, we're going to continue to have obesity," said Richard L. Atkinson, president of the American Obesity Association. "What we're doing is not working."
The government should consider more innovative strategies than simply encouraging people to eat better and exercise, such as subsidizing the cost of healthful foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables to make it more affordable to eat well.
"Let's start looking at things that make a difference," Atkinson said.
The federal government could take much more dramatic action, said Yale's Brownell. The Department of Agriculture "has the power to get rid of soft drinks and snack foods in the schools, and they're not. The [Federal Trade Commission] could deal with the tidal wave of unhealthy food advertising aimed at children. The government could change agriculture policy to subsidize the industry making healthy foods instead of unhealthy ones," he said.
Officials rejected suggestions that the administration take more dramatic steps, such as requiring food labeling at fast-food restaurants or prohibiting certain sugary, fatty products in schools.
"I don't want to start banning things," Thompson said. "Prohibition has never worked."
Officials have "been elated by the response" of the private sector to promote more healthful lifestyles, Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona said. "Everything we've seen from the industry has been positive."
Thompson urged Congress to pass legislation granting tax credits to people who lose weight, and said he has been lobbying health insurers to cut rates for those who lose weight or exercise.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments, but I would just say that what his bill does is it protects an industry that does not need to be protected at this particular point. We are dealing with a problem that does not exist. The problem that does exist is that we do have a problem with obesity in this country. This bill does nothing to deal with that issue. If anything, what it does is it tells the fast-food industry, you have no responsibility to our kids. You can do whatever you want to do. And that is the wrong message we want to be sending at this particular point.
I also want to correct the gentleman on one other thing. He referred a couple of times to this rule as an open rule. This is not an open rule. This is not an open rule. And by the definition taken by the Republicans when they were in the minority, they said any rule that is not considered under a completely open process is considered restrictive, and this is not a completely open process. They further said that these rules are the rules that limit the number of amendments that can be offered and include the so-called modified open and modified closed, as well as completely closed, rules.
This is not an open rule. The Republican majority when they came into power said they were committed to an open process. They have given us anything but an open process. And the question that I asked the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules still stands. If a Member is watching this debate and scratching their head, why are we debating such a trivial matter when we have so many other issues to deal with that really do impact the American people very directly, and they wanted to come down here right now and offer an amendment, they would be unable to under this restrictive process that the Republicans on the Committee on Rules have given us today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I will close the debate on our side, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
(Mr. MCGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, first, I will enter into the RECORD a letter from the Center for Science in the Public Interest opposing H.R. 339.
CENTER FOR SCIENCE IN THE
PUBLIC INTEREST,
Washington, DC, June 18, 2003.
Re hearing on H.R. 339.
Hon. CHRIS CANNON,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law Committee on the Judiciary, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC.
DEAR CHAIRMAN CANNON: On behalf of our 700,000 members in the United States, I request that you make this letter part of the record of the June 19, 2003 hearing on H.R. 339, The Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest ("CSPI") strongly opposes H.R. 339. Despite its stated purpose of banning frivolous lawsuits, H.R. 339 bans any lawsuit against a manufacturer, distributor, or seller of a food or a non-alcoholic beverage "unless the plaintiff proves that, at the time of sale, the product was not in compliance with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements."
H.R. 339 ignores the fact that both legislatures and administrative agencies frequently are too busy to enact specific standards dealing with a particular food safety or nutrition problem, and so the victims must turn to the courts for help. Meritorious lawsuits can, of course, spur the food industry to improve its practices.
Both Congress and state legislatures, recognizing their inability to deal with the myriad of food safety and nutrition problems, have delegated regulatory responsibilities to specific agencies. Congress, for example, has delegated regulatory responsibility over food to the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA"), the Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
However, these agencies, like their state counterparts, do not have enough resources to promptly address all the new concerns about food safety and nutrition. For example, in February 1994 CSPI petitioned the FDA to require the disclosure of trans fatty acids on packaged foods. More than five years later, in November 1999, the FDA published a proposed regulation in response to our petition. The FDA still has not issued a final rule, although FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan has said that a final rule, requiring the disclosure of the amount of trans in packaged foods, will be announced in the near future.
In conclusion, H.R. 339 should be rejected because lawsuits can play a valuable role in protecting consumers by filling the interstices in legislative and regulatory requirements.
Sincerely,
Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D.,
Executive Director.
Let me conclude my remarks by again expressing my concern, first of all, over the rule because this is a restrictive rule, and what I have been trying to find out from the chairman of the Committee on Rules, and maybe the gentleman from Texas may be able to enlighten me on this, is the wave of the future, no more completely open rules? Are we now going to be forced to deal with restrictive rules on every bill that we now deal with?
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I believe we had an open rule last week.
Mr. McGOVERN. We have had one open rule out of, I think, nine, but I mean, it seems that now we are being required to preprint all our amendments in advance, which by my colleagues' own definition is a restrictive rule. Is that the wave of the future?
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman for allowing me to respond. The Committee on Rules, when we file the rule and when we prepare these documents ahead of time, we notify every Member of Congress of our intent to have a meeting at the Committee on Rules to consider a subject. We ask them to please preprint those things that would be necessary. We ask every Member to please work with legislative staff who would help in preparing those documents to make sure that they are in order, would be made in order under the rule, under the rules of this House, and we believe we are trying to do things to move legislation forward, allow time just as we have done here, notify people ahead of time.
One of the things about this process is that for years and years the House has worked off Jeffersonian rules. We have a Speaker who is up here. We have a parliamentarian. We have people who make decisions about what is right and what is wrong and what is fair and what is not, and we believe what we have done here today from March 4 was said here on the floor of the House, all Members of Congress----
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the answer. I guess the question that I asked to the chairman of the Committee on Rules, and I will ask the gentleman from Texas, if a Member of either party is watching this debate and would like to offer an amendment based on something that they have heard here today, do they have the right to come to the floor and offer an amendment at this particular point?
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the answer is no.
Mr. McGOVERN. Okay. So, again, it kind of makes my point of the restrictive nature of this process, and I raise this issue because I hope that this is not going to be a trend where Members are going to be restricted.
Again, it is not just something the Democrats feel passionately about. Again, I have been reading quotes from Republicans over the years who feel very passionately about the importance of not having preprinting requirements because they believe that that constitutes a restrictive rule. So I think that there is a bipartisan consensus here that we should move away from restricting debate and restricting what can be offered and opening up this process on controversial bills and on noncontroversial bills. That is the only point I would make to the gentleman.
With regard to the bill that we are talking about here today, I will again say that I regret that we are dealing with this particular bill today because it does not address any real problem. This is a bill that corrects a problem that does not exist. These lawsuits that people are complaining about with regard to obesity and the fast food industry are being routinely dismissed. This is not a problem.
The problem is obesity. The problem we should be talking about here is how to make sure that our kids get more nutritious foods. The issue that we need to be dealing with here is how to make sure that the Federal programs that provide breakfasts and lunches to our children in schools meet proper nutrition guidelines.
The issue we should be talking about is better labeling, informing the public in a better way about what, in fact, they are eating. We should be encouraging more corporate responsibility by the fast food industry, and that is not being debated here. In fact, what we are trying to do is we are sending the exact opposite signal to the fast food industry.
We should be encouraging more physical fitness programs in our schools and so that our young people can take advantage of them, and we should also be having a discussion on this floor about the issue of hunger, which is relevant to this issue of obesity.
As I pointed out in my opening statement, people who have precious little resources tend to buy things that are high in calories, that are not nutritious, and there is a relationship between hunger and obesity, and it is something we never even talk about on the floor of this House.
But then we bring this bill to the floor. We bring this bill to the floor, and we are telling the people who are watching here today that we are addressing a huge problem out there, a problem that does not exist, and we are bringing this bill up today and we are only in for a couple of days, notwithstanding the fact that we are not dealing with the issue of extending unemployment benefits to those workers who are unemployed, which is a national disgrace.
I do not know how people can come here and appear on the House floor with a straight face having not dealt with that issue. I know the gentleman from Texas' (Mr. Sessions) district, like my district, includes a number of people who are out of work, who have run out of their unemployment benefits, who are desperately trying to figure out how to make ends meet, put food on their table and pay their bills, and they are looking to us to help them out, to provide them a bridge until they can get a job. We are not doing anything here, and we should be ashamed of that fact.
The gentleman from Oregon mentioned the transportation bill that is kind of languishing in committee. That will put people to work, but we are not dealing with that. We are not dealing with the issue of those who do not have health insurance. We are not dealing with anything that matters to anybody, and here we are again dealing with an issue that really is trivial. This place is becoming a Congress where trivial issues are debated passionately and important ones not at all.
So, for a whole bunch of reasons, I oppose the rule because it is restrictive, and I oppose this bill because it is silly. We should not be dealing with this today. We should be dealing with something important.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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