Search results: food policy action

Food Policy Action started keeping score on congressional votes on food issues in 2013, but the last time I wrote about its scorecard was in 2017.2020

It has just published its 2020 interactive Scorecard, which you can use to check how your state’s legislators score on food issues.

As Food Policy Action puts it, the “scorecard underscores Senate’s failure to feed hungry, protect workers.”

Food Policy Action identifies six ways Trump has hurt eaters, food workers and farmers.

The purpose of the Scorecard is to hold legislators accountable.  Now is the time to do that.

Vote with your votes by November 3.

Food Policy Action has released its annual scorecard, evaluating how our federal legislators vote on food issues.  In case you haven’t noticed, they aren’t voting on much these days so there wasn’t much to score.

In the Senate, there was only one vote (on the nomination of Scott Pruitt as USDA Secretary), although ten bills were introduced.

In the House, there were five votes and 11 bills.

Overall scores averaged 49%—dismal.

The site has a handy interactive map; click on it to see how your legislators are voting.

In case you want to see just how badly Congress is doing, I’ve been posting these scorecards since they started:

• 2016
• 2015
• 2014
• 2013

One thought: maybe it’s just as well.

This year, only three Senators—Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Richard Durbin—got top scores from Food Policy Action for their votes on food and farm issues.  This is down from the 29 who earned perfect scores in 2015.

In the House, 79 representatives got perfect scores as opposed to 87 in 2015.

The annual Scorecard ranks lawmakers on whether they support legislation on issues such as GMO labeling, hunger, fisheries management, food waste, pesticides, the EPA’s waters of the U.S. rule, among others.

It’s disappointing that fewer legislators are getting top scores, since one of the purposes of this activity is to hold them accountable and encourage more liberal voting on food and farm issues.

I went yesterday to the press conference for the release of the Food Policy Action 2015 Scorecard.

This was outdoors at Campos Community Garden in Manhattan’s East Village, attended by classes of schoolkids.  The speakers:

• Tom Colicchio: co-founder of Food Policy Action (FPA) and owner of Crafted Hospitality
• Bill Telepan: executive chef of Wellness in the Schools (WITS) and chef/owner of Telepan
• Ken Cook: co-founder of Food Policy Action and president of Environmental Working Group (EWG)

Food Policy Action aims to improve national discussions of food policy issues by informing the public about how elected officials vote on these issues.  Hence: the Scorecard.

As I discussed last year, points are awarded for votes on bills introduced or co-sponsored that deal with:

• Domestic and international hunger
• Food safety
• Food access
• Farm subsidies
• Animal welfare
• Food and farm labor
• Nutrition
• Food additives
• Food transparency
• Local and regional food production
• The environmental effects of food production

In the Senate, for example, there were just 5 bills to be voted on an 10 that were co-sponsored (but not voted on).  In the House, there were votes on 10 bills and 12 that were co-sponsored (no vote).  This leaves lots of room for improvement, even among the best.

The speakers explained to the kids that the Scorecard gave grades to members of Congress, just like they get, and took them through a discussion of thumbs up and thumbs down appraisals of legislators’ votes on key food issues.  Congress is doing a little better this year than last, they said, but still has a long way to go.

Those of us in New York are lucky.  Both of our Senators, Kirsten Gillbrand and Charles Schumer scored 100.

Here are my reports on the Scorecards from 2013 and 2014.  The Scorecard is a great first step in holding legislators accountable.

Food Policy Action announced the release of its second annual National Food Policy Scorecard last week, ranking members of the House and Senate on their votes on key food-related issues.

Food Policy Action is unique among food advocacy organizations in its explicit use of the political process.  Its goal is to

promote policies that support healthy diets, reduce hunger at home and abroad, improve food access and affordability, uphold the rights and dignity of food and farm workers, increase transparency, improve public health, reduce the risk of food-borne illness, support local and regional food systems, protect and maintain sustainable fisheries, treat farm animals humanely and reduce the environmental impact of farming and food production.

How?  By holding legislators accountable for their foods on food and farming issues.  Hence: The Food Policy Scorecard.

I discussed the previous scorecard in December 2013.

On this round, Food Policy Action awarded scores of 100 to 71 members of Congress – 54 in the House of Representatives, 17 in the Senate.

It awarded scores of zero to 35 members.

The scores are given for votes on bills related to key food issues:

• Hunger
• Food aid
• Food labeling
• Farm subsidies
• Sustainable farming

The website makes it easy to track your legislators’s votes.

I looked at Senators from New York.

• Kirsten Gillbrand scores 85 (she lost points by voting against reducing federal insurance subsidies for rich farmers and against protecting states’ rights to require GMO labels)
• Charles Schumer scores 100

This is a valuable tool for anyone who cares how politics works in America.  Let’s hope it encourages citizens to hold their representatives accountable and legislators to think twice before voting against consumer-friendly food and farming bills.

Washington is such a mess that you can’t tell the players without a scorecard, and this one is really useful.

Food Policy Action to the rescue.

Food Policy Action is a project of the Environmental Working Group.  Ken Cook of EWG is its chair.  Tom Colicchio is listed as the first board member.

The 2013 National Food Policy Scorecard ranks each member of the Senate and House on their votes on food issues.

The interactive map lets you click on a state and see how our congressional representatives are voting.  According to the scorecard, 87 members are Good Food Champions.  We need more!

• Senate Good Food Policy Champions
• House Good Food Policy Champions

I looked up New York.  Senator Charles Schumer gets a perfect 100%.  Yes!

But Senator Kirsten Gillibrand only gets 67%.

How come?  Click on her name and the site lists her votes on key legislation.  Oops.  She voted against GMO labeling and against a key farm bill amendment on crop insurance.  If you click on the button, you get to learn more about this vote and the legislation.

This kind of information is hard to come by.  Food Policy Action’s scorecard is easy to use and performs a terrific public service.

Thanks to everyone responsible for it.

We need good news.  This announcement comes from the Norwegian government.

It will still be legal to sell these products to children and youth, but marketing unhealthy products to this group will be illegal.

When it comes to products covered by the ban, the most unhealthy products, such as candy, soft drinks, ice cream and energy drinks, cannot be marketed particularly towards children. For other products, such as cereals, yogurt and fast food, limits for different nutrients are used to cover the most unhealthy products in these categories. For example, for breakfast cereals, the content of sugar and dietary fibre determines whether the product can be marketed particularly towards children or not.

The foods that are covered by the ban are listed in a product list attached to the regulation (in Norwegian, PDF).

I looked for an English translation and found this from Obesity Action Scotland:

The ban on unhealthy food advertising will cover all forms of marketing, including television, print, online, and in schools. Products affected by the ban include sugary drinks, salty snacks, and fast food…The regulation will ban the advertising of unhealthy foods that are high in fat, salt, or sugar. It will also ban the advertising of foods that are marketed as being “healthy” or “natural,” if they are high in unhealthy ingredients.

Impressive!  I wish RFK Jr’s MAHA campaign would do this as well as removing color additives.

Thanks to Marit Kolby for sending this.

I was riveted by this report in the Wall Street Journal: USDA Is Fast-Tracking Requests to Yank Soda From Food-Stamps Program.

The Agriculture Department is fast-tracking state requests to yank soda and candy from food-stamp programs. Arkansas and Indiana are among the first in line.

Both states Tuesday said they were seeking clearance from the USDA to implement the changes, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said her agency would move “very, very quickly” to approve them.

“That’s exactly the vision of making America healthy again,” Rollins said in an interview. “I am 100% certain that these changes will be nothing but positive for those underserved communities that are food challenged.”

I’m also riveted by the American Beverage Association statement that provoked her remarks

It’s disappointing that Governor Sanders and Secretary Rollins are choosing to be the food police rather than take truly meaningful steps to lift people off SNAP with good-paying jobs. Nearly 80 percent of families on SNAP work, they just don’t make enough to make ends meet. Low-income working families were promised a new, better era and not to be left behind again. Instead, they’re being denigrated and treated like second-class citizens.

WHAT?  The American Beverage Association is also sounding like me when it comes to root causes of poverty in America?  I never thought I would hear anything like this from that organization.

OK, so what’s going on here.

Let’s start from the beginning.  When Congress was considering authorizing food stamps in 1964, a few foods were excluded from benefits, soft drinks among them.  But lobbying from soft drink companies and retailers (who make money from soda purchases on food stamps) quashed that idea.

About ten years ago, a presidential commission on SNAP (the successor to food stamps), on which I served, recommended pilot projects to test the effectiveness and recipient responses of adding sugary beverages to the small list of foods that cannot be purchased using Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards.  Several states and cities petitioned the USDA for “waivers” that would allow them to run pilot projects.  In all cases, the USDA rejected the proposals.

The Trump Administration USDA is reconsidering.

This is not a simple issue.

PRO: 

Public health: Sodas contain sugars but nothing else of nutritional value (empty calories), and are well documented to derange metabolism, increase calorie intake, and to be associated with obesity and chronic disease.

Political: SNAP recipients spend too much money on sodas; taxpayers should not support unhealthful food choices.  SNAP recipients could continue to buy sodas with their own money, just not EBT cards.

CON

Anti-hunger: Removing sodas from SNAP constitutes government interference with personal choice, is condescending, and is unfair to people who have few ways to treat themselves.

Political: Taking sodas out of SNAP is a cover for the Republican agenda to cut SNAP benefits.

Comment

It looks like the USDA will approve state requests.  I have been in favor of pilot projects for a long time, on public health grounds.  But—I want to see careful research studies not only looking at changes is purchases among SNAP recipients, but also at how they perceive the new requirements.

More on this

• USDA’s Snap Rule Waiver home page
• Arkansas governor’s press release
• Idaho governor’s press release
• Indiana governor’s press release
• Indiana to restrict food stamps, put work requirements on Medicaid