Quote of the Day: “Given sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.” — Woody Page, Denver sports columnist
S. 510 will make your food more expensive and less safe. It will drive many small farms out of business. The leaders of the “lame duck” Congress want to pass this falsely named “food safety” bill NEXT WEEK, but they’ll need 60 votes to break Sen. Coburn’s “hold” on the bill.
That means we can defeat S.510 with just 40 votes, but we must apply the pressure now!
Please send a letter right now telling your Senators to oppose S. 510.
You may borrow from or copy this letter . . .
S.510 will crush family farms and small businesses with excessive regulations – even though they were NOT the source of recent food safety problems.
S.510 also violates the Fourth Amendment by allowing the FDA to invade and search farms and food producers without court permission.
If you think the FDA will use this new power responsibly, think again. David Gumpert reports that the FDA shut down two raw-milk cheese-makers for the presence of the pathogen listeria, even though . . . http://tinyurl.com/2e5x2sq
- Nobody got sick
- The FDA almost never shuts down companies for the mere presence of pathogens – even when people DO get sick
- Companies have previously been allowed to clean things up, rather than shut down.
If the FDA is starting to behave like this now, just imagine how abusive it will be under S.510?
Finally, it must be stressed that big agribusiness has been the source of most recent food safety problems. S.510 will make this problem worse by burdening small producers, and driving them out of business. This will make our food supply more centralized, less diverse, and more dangerous.
Please STOP S.510. This Congress must NOT pass any food safety bill. Remember, the voters have repudiated this Congress, and it’s heavy handed ways.
You can send your letter through DownsizeDC’s Educate the Powerful System.
Remember, Congress DOES read your letters. They DO have an impact. The more letters they receive, the more we’re likely to succeed.
So please forward this, share on your social networks, and retweet this message: http://twitter.com/#!/DDCDispatch
And thank you for being a DC Downsizer!
James Wilson, Assistant Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org