Transcripts For CSPAN Consumer Federation Of America Hosts Food Policy Conference 20170412

Food safety. Cluded the federation of america posted this event. Good morning. All right. Good morning. Welcome. My name is thomas. I am the director of the Food Policy Institute at Consumer Federation of america. I would like to welcome you and thank you for attending our 40th annual National Food policy conference. Today is also the second day of the jewish passover holiday and so i would like to say happy passover. You know, Consumer Federation of america is an association of nearly 300 nonprofit consumer organizations. We were established in 1962 advance the form through advocacy. We focus on a lot of different Consumer Protection topics but particularly relevant to this conference is food safety, and agriculture policy. This Conference Provides an opportunity to hear from some of the key policymakers and players in the food policy world. And opportunity to explore food policy from a diverse range of perspectives. I hope you will agree we have a really Great Program for the shares conference. That program reflects the exemplary work of our Advisory Committee. I do not have a package with me but if you look in your packet you can see the listing of our Advisory Committee members. I would just like to say thank you to our excellent Advisory Committee. One of the great ideas that came out of our Advisory Committee meetings this year was to try Live Audience to get into the new millennium. I will try that now. If you look up at the screen behind me, we have our first live up audience polling question. The least important question that you answer at this years think it will i be interesting to see how we feel about this. So, there are two ways you can participate in the Live Audience polling. You can get on your browser on your phone or laptop, your tablet is there and put in the food policy poll or you can text food policy to the number 2333 write out food policy in the message of the text. As you can see somebody, it must be a millennial, has only gotten on the end answered. So we will try this out. We will let you experiment with that. While you experiment with that, i want to reflect a little bit on this being our 40th anniversary National Food policy conference and what a Great Program we have this year. In a few minutes, congressman jim mcgovern will be talking with you. Later this afternoon we are pleased to have the director of the u. S. Food and Drug Administration center for food safety and applied nutrition. Tomorrow well start the program with chuck conner, president and ceo of the National Council farmer cooperatives. Also a member of president trumps agriculture Advisory Committee. That will be followed by a conversation with esther dyson who is an entrepreneur and Angel Investor and whose waybill initiative is helping shift resources toward producing Health Rather than trying to recover it. When of that strategy has a lot to do with changes to the food supply. So i think that is going to be very interesting. Lets check in on our poll. Ok. I have to interpret that as a lot of disenchanted oldright isolationists. Altright isolationists. Or a different interpretation. Can close the door on this one. This vital question. Continuing with our experiment, i would like to get a better sense of our audience today. The food policy conference, we are proud to attract a very diverse mix of folks. And, you guys are ahead of the curve. And so, yes, our interests tend to fall in these three categories. I will give you some time. I know i would not have responded i now if it was me out there. To recognize some of the people that made this conference possible over the years. 40 years ago ellen haas started this conference while she was with a group called the Community Nutrition institute. And for many years after that art yeager kept it going. He also ran an awards ceremony called the golden carrot awards during the 90s which i know was very popular. And it has become a really beloved institution, a lot of folks that attend, as a question kind of indicates, we have a mix of the interest represented at the food policy conference. It started as a very nutrition focused event, and so its not surprising that a lot of us are most interested in nutrition. But we have a large food safety contingent as well, and i think that reflects in no small part the influence of carol tucker foreman who ran the conference and played a big role in Consumer Federation of america for many years and had an outsized effect on food policy generally, but food safety in particular. I should also hasten to add a lot of our program for everyone that in each of these interest groups, dont feel bad if youre a food safety minority. Okay, so get me off the stage. We will move on to our final polling question, to test out all the features of our platform here and i should do the number, dont write in and, this is sort of a word cloud feature. It would not have occurred to me to say zero, because you are here now. So thats one. But i know, i know that at least out there. E 13 where is he . Im thinking of Chris Waltrip who, i know for a lot of you, chris has been the face of the food policy conference for as long as you have attended, before i took over for him last year, chris had organized the food policy conference for 13 years. Attended at least 13. Last year he took a welldeserved break. Am really glad to have them back for this years event. I just wanted to say thank you to chris for being such an invaluable member of our Advisory Committee, a lot of the program reflects his input and for that matter whats in your packet today reflects, i go back and forth with chris and hes been very generous in his time sharing the wisdom he accrued over those years of leading this event. I dont know, what food policy was in response to . So we will be ironing out the kinks of a Live Audience over the next day and a half, but thank you for participating in that. And thank you for being here. Whatever you do, wherever you are from, this conference is a great opportunity to mingle and network with a Diverse Group of folks. And thank you for joining us here, and we hope you enjoy the program. We hope you enjoy the networking reception that weve added to the program at the end of the day. Please make sure you hang around for that. If any of you are on twitter, you can follow us cfafoodpolicy, and a hashtag for the conference is cfa2017. We are in the ballroom, this is where well be having lunch and where are networking reception will be at the end of the day. Two of the Breakout Sessions location on this floor. Salon e is out to my right, and the london breakout room is out to the left. And then our third breakout room is on the third floor where it says health club and pool on the elevator. So keep that in mind. Give yourself a little bit of time to get up there. You can take the stairs but its a bit of an adventure. Restrooms are located out the door to my left. Theres a map in your packets if you get lost, but you can also go to the Registration Table and we can help you. Theres also a description of the panels if youre having trouble deciding, you can consult that with a few exhibit tables outside the registration area. To my right over there. We have exhibitors from the union of concerned scientists, the National Association of county and city health officials, dupont, the interNational Food information council, the u. S. Food and Drug Administration and Usda Economic Research service. We also have a table for General Information if anyone has reports, brochures or hand out theythere would like to make available to your fellow attendees. Id like to take a minute to thank our sponsors. Theyre listed on the back of your printed program. We are very grateful to all our sponsors for their support for these companies and organizations rarely recognize really recognize the importance of supporting an event like this where we can foster an open and vigorous exchange of ideas on important food policy topics. So thanks to all our sponsors, come in particular id like to thank this years underwriters and benefactors including cardio, the International Dairy foods association, dupont car general mills, mars, Pew Charitable trust and walmart. Id also like to thank Sally Squires and 13 for their and her team for their work and support this year, the excellent design work over the past several months and the registration emails and the Cultural Program brochures on it. And finally special thanks to the cfa staff. They put an enormous amount of work to register all the participants, prepare the conference, materials, deal with much of the logistical work to help make this conference happen. To especially thank annamarie lowery and the rest of the cfa staff that are here today. [applause] and i would like to thank all of you very much for being here, and once again welcome to the 2017 National Food policy conference. Now to kickoff the program i am thrilled to present our opening keynote speaker. He is a native of worcester massachusetts, which he now represents in congress along with the rest of the Second District of massachusetts. Since being elected to congress in 1996 he has been a leader on food policy issues come and take a outspoken on hunger issues. He has promised one hell of a fight to those proposing cuts to food aid programs and the accounts among his policy successes expanding the mcgoverndole international for education and trot child nutrition program, program that recently gained notoriety as a target for elimination in the Trump Administration proposed budget. He is at the second ranking democrat on the house rules committee, a member of the house agriculture community, the democratic Ranking Member on the House Committee on agriculture subcommittee on nutrition, and culture of the house hunger caucus, among many other credentials. Since 2013 as part of his hashtag into hunger now campaign he has given nearly weekly speeches focus on Food Insecurity in america on the floor of this house of representatives. We are happy to have him talk about hunger and other food policy related issues with us today. Welcome congressman jim mcgovern. [applause] rep. Mcgovern good morning, everybody. I know its not easy to get up early in the morning. The only thing worse is being the first speaker of the morning. But thomas, thank thank you very much. I want to thank the Consumer Federation bringing you all here today, represented from consumer advocate organizations with Food Industry, nonprofits as well as governmental officials and come together get some important conversations about agriculture and food policy and nutrition. So i welcome the opportunity to be here. I probably should say at the outset that sometimes people think because my last name is mcgovern that im related to George Mcgovern who was the senator from south dakota and ran for president in 1972. While i worked as an intern in his office in the senate one i was in college and a beacon when a major strength in the world, a great inspiration can we are not related. I say that because when i was giving a coffee in the lobby somewhat in the camp came up and said they were longtime supporters and my dad. And they seemed a little shocked when i said thank you. My dad owns a liquor store in worcester, massachusetts, and hope youll keep on supporting him. [laughing] rep. Mcgovern so i thought i should just clear the air on that. Look, you know, i welcome the opportunity to talk about the issue of hunger and Food Insecurity in this country and around the world because i think it is an important issue, and its one of those issues that is maddening because its solvable. I tell people all the time that hunger is a political condition. We have the money. We have the resources. We had infrastructure. Where the brainpower. We have everything, but we dont have the political will. And i have a tough time grasping why that is the case. We live in the richest country in the history of the world, and we have 42 million americans who are hungry for food insecure and the United States of america. And as a United States congressmen come as a citizen of this country, im ashamed of that. I find that so unacceptable. It is unconscionable. With all of our riches in this country come with all of our knowhow and all of our ingenuity, that is the reality. We talked about hunger. Its more than just about talking about people who dont have enough to eat. There are other issues related to it. There are Health Issues related to people who on a regular basis go without food. Your child who misses meals on a regular basis, you show up in school, youre less likely to be able to learn. You are more likely to have developmental challenges in your lifetime. If you are a pregnant mother and you cant get the adequate nutrition, that oftentimes results in the birth of an unhealthy baby. If you are a worker who, on a regular basis, goes without food, you will be less productive in the workplace. So there are all these avoidable costs that are associated with hunger. And so when we talk about it i think we need to look at not just the immediate problem but the impact that this has on our country and on so many people who live in this country i have had a blessed life. Im not talking at getting elected to congress. I dont know if its a blessing or a curse some days, but i have had a blessed life in the sense i have never had to worry about basic necessities. Ive always had a home. Ive always had shelter. Ive always had enough to eat. Ive never been hungry. But i believe that those of us who are blessed, have blessed lives come have a special obligation to make sure that we worry about and care about those who are having challenges. I think thats just the decent thing to do. Whether its in our communities or whether its in congress, i think this is a matter of decency to address issues like hunger. I get frustrated in congress because while i think this issue should not be a partisan issue, and for many years it wasnt, George Mcgovern and bob dole worked together in a bipartisan way during the 1970s to strengthen our nutrition and antihunger programs. We are actually on our way to eliminating hunger in this country. Then we began to reverse some of the progress we made. And now what i find is that this issue has become a very polarizing. You are never going to find a member of congress is going to tell you that they are prohunger. They will never say that to you. When you look at the voting records at some of my colleagues colleagues, i dont know how you could come to any other conclusion. Because what is happening is that they are chipping away at programs that provide the basic necessity of food to our children and to parents and two older people. When i look at the president s budget, we are told in that budget their may see cuts to programs like wic, womens infants and children program. Basic nutrition for pregnant mothers for their Young Children after they are born. I mean, it is important. It is important because if we neglect that we will end up having to pay in other ways down the line. And again i to talk about this in terms of the bottom line in dollars and cents, we should be moved to do something because its our moral obligation because what to prevent human suffering in this country. I get the feeling sometimes thats not enough. I get to become friends, after, when i was running, when i first got elected with john kenneth galbraith, the great economist and a great visionary. I remember him saying to me one time, ill ask you to go out and comfort the afflicted, but in these days that might be considered a conflict. I will go out and ask you to afflict the comfortable. I think thats the mode were in right now. We had to go out and afflict some of the comfortable and get them to start responding in ways to make progress on issues like hunger. We have these debates in congress its always about the fact that the people who need these programs get characterized as somehow lazy or somehow undeserving, or their poor because they want to be poor. Ive never met anybody who wants to be poor. Ive never met anybody who wants to be hungry. And by the way, just so that the facts are clear, when we talk about snap, a majority of people on staff our children. They are Senior Citizens. There are people who are disabled. Of those who can work, the majority works. So why isnt the question in washington how can it be that somebody who works is still so poor, but they need to rely on snap to put food on the table . Why we talked with increasing wages in this country so people can actually earn and livable wage and afford to put food on the table and the kinds of foods that they wanted. Instead we tend, the debate tends to be, tends to demonize the most Vulnerable People in this country. And it is frustrating because it is, because a perception in washington is so different from the reality all throughout this country. We talk about we want people to make better choices. We want people to make healthier choices. Absolutely. By the way we all need to make healthier choices. Not just people who are on snap it with studies that show those of us who are able to afford our own food make lousy choices, too. So we need to have, and better and more Effective National dialogue on nutrition. But with regard to snap recipients, i serve on the nutrition subcommittee. I dont know how many hearings we have had, i think i lost count after 20 come i dont know. We had so many hearings i dont know, ive lost count. During one of the last hearing someone raise the issue, why dont people make better choices . The reason why, and its very simple is at the average snap benefit is about 1. 40 per person per meal. I bought a Starbucks Coffee on the way in here, you know, that was more than 1. 40 and thats a small one. The fact of the matter is that the benefits we provide people are inadequate. What we should be talking about is making sure that our social safety net is a safety net, that it provides what they need to be able to put nutritious food on the table. We ought to be talking about increasing the benefits of snap, not talking about decreasing it or putting more hurdle in place to make it more difficult for people to obtain the benefit. We are having to debate about ablebodied adults without dependent on whether they should will will will be things like that, they need to feel the pain because it is creating a lot of pain. If you are going to vote to make hunger worse they will let your constituents know and make sure you are helping to be accountable at the ballot box. One thing democrats and republicans have in common is to get reelected. I think in the issues of hunger and food security, we need to elevate this issue, there. The other thing i will say, to spend more time, i would prefer too because i hear myself talk all the time. A big drug of these ablebodied ofple without a big chunk these ablebodied people without benefits are veterans. Exoffenders fall in that category oftentimes. It used to be governors of states could request waivers so that people would go without the benefit. An effort toward waiving any benefits when it comes to ablebodied people without dependents. I find that wrong. In washington we are supposed to be about helping people and lifting them up. Not demonizing them. Not making peoples lives more miserable. And yet that is what we are doing. We are talking about a new farm bill. You have seen the president ial budget. Also after meals on wheels. Witches crazy. Crazy. H is dr. Saying theres no evidence be some of these new nutrition programs and better performance by students in school or better in terms of health status. I will show him a lot of studies that show you the defense of Good Nutrition that every age. You know, in how important it is at every age to make sure people have access to Good Nutrition. Just because you say it does not mean it is true. I know we live in a place where alternative facts are in vogue factscts are facts are are facts. Benefits Good Nutrition benefits people in many ways. I would argue that Good Nutrition is the best health care out there. My grandmother used to say, and apple a day keeps the doctor away. That used to annoy me. I wish she were still alive so i could say, you were right. Good food results in good health. It prevents us from getting diseases like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes. Doctors can write out prescriptions for very expensive pharmaceuticals but maybe we should give them the ability to write up prescriptions for good, nutritious food which is a lot cheaper hand in the long run will be a lot more than effect to that person. We need to get our medical schools to focus more on nutrition. I wish starring the Affordable Care act when we had that debate that there was a bigger discussion on the importance of nutrition. As a way to keep people healthy. I think that discussion needs to continue to build. But the idea that we will take food weight from people to me as something that we cannot stand for. In the last farm bill, we had the republicans in the house actually moved to cut the snap benefits by 40 billion. 40 billion. We had of amendments on drug testing, for step recipients. I do not see any amendments asking for there to be drug tests for big heads of defense contracting firms. They get more money on taxpayers then people on snap. It are yet, lets drug test all members of congress because that might explain why we are having these stupid discussions have the time. [laughter] rep. Mcgovern but the bottom line is one of the things that need to change in this country, especially amongst those who advocate for these policies is we need to insist that when people do things like that there is a consequence. When iphone 4 been control legislation i get the nra cover calling my office, visiting me in my district. I know they are not going to vote for me. When i vote against a tax cut industry, niner times out of 10 they are sending their representatives to see me and somehow bad i am in and they want to support my upon them. I know there is a consequence. But when members of congress voted to cut snap i49 dollars there was not a consequence. I think one has to change in this country if we are going to change our priorities is that when people do things like that they need to feel the pain. Because they are creating a lot of pain. They need to understand that if you are going to vote to make under worse in this country, then we are going to let your constituents know and we are going to make sure that you are held accountable at the ballot box. The one thing the democrats and republicans have in common in washington as we all want to get reelected and i think on the issues of hunger and food security, we need to elevate this issue. There needs to be a consequence. The other thing i want to say because i want to spend more time having a conversation and hear myselfcause i talk all the time. I would rather hear from some of you. The other thing we need to grapple with in this upcoming cutsbill in addition to with snap is the issue of food waste. You know, we have 40 of what we produce in this country we do not eat. Oftentimes it is thrown away. I mean, i have visited supermarkets. Are probably calling security when i show up, but i go try to look in the dumpsters at some of the supermarkets. Perfectly good food being thrown away. There are some doing a good job of trying to recapture it that food. But we need a national allah see this. We have farmers that do not have the infrastructure or do not have the manpower or woman power to be able to capture food they do not think would be, you know, salable at their local supermarkets. We are also finicky about our food. We have to have an apple that looks like it came out of snow white. If there is a little bump in it, we do not want to buy it. Often time, this was and vegetables are discarded. Sometimes they are used for animal feed. Some places, composting. Sometimes they are put in landfill which is a bad idea. Lets see if we can recapture some of this perfectly good food for hours goals, senior centers, food banks. We need to be thinking out of the box and creatively about how we put together this infrastructure to recapture the food on our farms, in our restaurants, in our supermarkets. Lets not waste it. My grandmother also used as if i did not eat all of my food it was a sin. In juneau, i had the fear of god put into me so i would always finish my food. But she was right in a way. Especially when the need is so right. I will say one final thing because thomas mentioned Mcgovern Dole interNational Food corporation. Global schoolonal feeding program. Basically what we learned, in any of the poorest countries of the world kids dont go to school because their parents are working in fields or some other capacity so they can have enough to be able to feed them. You introduce a nutritious meal in a School Setting somebody more kids go to school. More girls go to school because in some countries education for girls is not a priority but put a meal at that school, parents will send their girls to school. Girls who go to school are less likely to get married at an early age, less likely to have as many kids and heres the other benefit boys and girls who go to school, learn to read and write, could be future leaders of these countries, these developing countries are not going to develop with a with an illiterate population. When i saw Donald Trumps budget and he zeroed out the School Feeding program i was flabbergasted because to me that is the best of america. By the way the food served in these schools, some is produced here but we dont want to disrupt markets but you can buy food locally, support markets globally. Locally. To me represents, you know, what i believe this country is all about. I will try you one story. I visited mcgoverndole School Feeding program many years ago in a country with a displaced Person Community and columbia. A young mother came up to me and introduced me and the u. S. Ambassador at that time to her 11yearold son and said i want you to know something. Every day in this slum one of the armed actors comes through, rightwing paramilitary, they asked me, this 11yearold boys mother to give my son over to them. They say to me if you do, we will give him something you cannot do. We will give him food every day. And she said, i have come so close to giving up my 11yearold boy to one of these armed groups but now i dont have to because of what the people of the United States have provided. We talk about National Security all the time and donald trump says his budget is a National Security budget, let me make a suggestion, the term National Security, the definition of National Security needs to be expanded. It needs to mean more than just the number of weapons in our nuclear arsenal. It needs to mean more than the number of military bases we have around the world. It needs to mean things like combating extreme poverty and hunger around the world, to make sure every Single Person in the United States of america has access to good nutritious food and is not food insecure. Ought to beink food viewed as a fundamental right for every human being on this planet. It onto mean jobs, structure, it ought to mean 1000 other things to improve the quality of life for people and i think this is the time likeminded people need to come together and steer this discussion because if not you are going to see budget past that are heavy on increased military expenditures and Everything Else gets cut. This is a time to engage because if not, you will see a farm bill that will talk about either block granting snap or more hurdles for people to jump through just to put food on their table. Childs a time because our nutrition programs, our School Feeding programs, our programs for the elderly are under attack. We are even having a debate about lowering nutritional standards in school. Honest to god. It would be laughable if it werent so tragic. You know, sometimes there is a disconnect between what is talked about in washington and what goes on back home somebody said to me one time kids dont like to eat apples, they throw them away. So, i went to the school where they told me they were doing that. Everybody raised their hand when i asked if they like apples, how many dont like apples . One kid. I said, well i am being told you throw away your apples. Can someone tell me what you throw away the apples . He raised his hand and said by the time i get through the line to get my lunch i have ten minutes to eat so i eat my sandwich quickly, take a bite of the apple, cant bring it to class because they tell me it is disruptive and throw it away. I said, if you had like three or four minutes more to eat your lunch would you eat the apple . Absolutely. I visited a school with George Mcgovern when he was still alive in a town in my district where this was before the upgrade in nutritional standards in the School Feeding programs, the sloppiest sloppy joe you have ever seen, look like an oil rainbow int had a it. [applause] french fries and there was an apple. This was a group of second or thirdgraders. The person overseeing the meal wont eat the apples. George mcgovern said do you have a knife . He cut the apple up in little pieces and brought it around at all the kids ate the apples. I said, that is amazing. Some of these kids are losing their teeth. It hurts to bite into an apple. Know your audience. Those are the kinds of things that are so readily understandable when working in the field, in schools, working closely on these programs but not so clear in washington. I am sad to say. It is important you engage all of us in the coming weeks and months so we continue to move forward and not go backward. It is too important and let me finish with this. Some people say i am a bleeding heart. I will tell you honestly my heart does bleed for people i bump into who are hungry. When you see a child who is hungry, it breaks your heart. When you see a Senior Citizen who is regularly going without food because they are trying to afford their prescription drugs. It breaks your heart. But we can fix it. Hunger inwe can and our lifetime not only in this country but around the world. We just need to have the clinical will. Political will. Thank you for having me. [applause] we will do some q a now. Representative mcgovern will stay with us. Two microphones, you can come up and fire away. We have 15 minutes. Im noticing some really good panels coming up, the conference will increase with some off the stage. Any questions on this or anything else . Tell me who you are and if it is a tough question i will yield to thomas. I am with Johns Hopkins. Thanks for the talk. It was great. In your debates with colleagues on the other side of this have you found any arguments or types of arguments effective if not convincing, shifting the tone of the conversation . Rep. Mcgovern yes. What i have found that works with some of my skeptical colleagues is stories. You know, we constantly are handing people pages of statistics and data which is an important because we need statistics and data. But sometimes i think members of congress have lost their human ability to feel. When i say 42 Million People in this country are hungry, it is kind of hard to wrap your arms around that or feel the magnitude of that. When i talk about an individual story, and individual child or citizen i met when i went on a meals on wheels store, it begins to change things in and a lot of the offtherecord conversations im having with some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are turning to, look, i get it. What can we cut. What can we reform so we can say we cut and reform something. I am trying to say, there is no place to cut. 1. 40 per person, what are you going to do . Cut it down to 1. 20 per person . Really . We have allowed this perception to grow that the population that benefits from our nutrition programs are somehow undeserving. That somehow their whole goal in life is to be pouring in the on snap. Or when there is abuse in the program, and sometimes there is but it is so miniscule compared to any other government program, we exaggerated. We find everybody busby abusing me program. That has been reinforced on talk radio, it has been reinforced on fox news. It has been reinforced on speeches on the floor and i think there is a base out there that has but into that. I think one of the challenges we have right now is getting members of congress to be able to go back to their particular base and say, wait a minute. I actually looked at this and some of these perceptions are wrong. And to take a stand based on that. I dont think the situation is hopeless. I do think we have a hell of a fight ahead of us but we can win some of these fights and it is a very interesting coalition of people, we have farmers, people in industry, people in the medical profession. We have new players. Chefs coming up and advocating on these programs. But i think stories, reallife stories that the best way to move people. This is a followup, i am director of the National Center for children in poverty. You talked about what you can do with your colleagues but also mentions building the will for the change we need. You talked about what the public needs, criminally inclined, we want to be poor. What is it, the same kinds of stories, the public make the difference for representatives like you. Rep. Mcgovern absolutely. I met with a group of doctors recently, talking about this issue. Id there was a nice report did that they came to view. I said, this is great. What i suggest is representing different parts of the country, go back to your home state and congressional district, the beneficiaries of the nutrition programs. Go visit your local representatives and maybe do a little press conference. Not a threatening press conference but here is the benefit, here is why it is so important and we are asking congressperson soandso to support it. Just to set the stage and raise local Public Awareness because if they vote to cut these programs you will need this to go back and do the same thing. There needs to be an increase in the level of political activism on this issue. We need to step it up. If not we are in danger of going backwards. I said to a group of faithbased leaders who came to see me and did a bunch of visits, priest, ministers, rabbis, visited one member of congress who was particularly difficult to deal with on these issues. In i said, how did the meeting go . They said that. We made our case, said we are going to pray for him and we hope for the best. And i said, then what happened. They said, we said goodbye. I said, you know, i am probably not the one to say this but every once in a while you can say go to hell if you are going to do bad things because there needs to be some meaningful push back when people tried to again, make hunger worse in this country. Look, i will consider it a victory on the next farm bill if we do not make hunger worse in this country. I want to eliminate it. I understand the political realities. Lets make it better. Lets not make it worse. Lets not increase it. How hard can that . How difficult is that to explain back home . And yet that is going to be a tough goal to achieve. My question is about food deserts. There is a native American Indian and other groups of people who are isolated from nutrition and basically buying out grocery stores, native American Indians, some tribes where at the age of 18 many of them develop diabetes because of that. It seems to me there should be partnerships between government and industry to solve this, amazon and walmart shifting food, why not government partner with industry to send nutrition into these areas to seniors and other people isolated from Good Nutrition . Rep. Mcgovern we actually should. There is no reason we should not. When it comes to food deserts, i visited some of the Stores People purchase their food in in these food deserts, they are small, dont have refrigeration, dont have space to add more nutritious options. We ought to find a way to incentivize or provide funding to help local businesses expand so that the food can be there. But any outofthebox Publicprivate Partnership to get better nutrition to people, i am all for. And i tell people the biggest struggles with regard to food and security, we have serious issues in urban areas but those rural areas where the transportation is difficult and there arent many places to get food and we absolutely should. That may cost some money up front but i will argue with you every step we take in the direction of better nutrition, you are going to lower healthcare costs. It is dramatically, this is a win win win win and i think part of the problem in washington is the way we do the budgeting. The issue of hunger and Food Insecurity, it is not one committee. It is multiple committees. And it is not one agency. It is multiple agencies. So sometimes the coordination is not fair. I tried unsuccessfully for eight years to get president obama to do a white house conference on food nutrition and hunger. I thought bringing the best minds together, locking them in a room in not letting the mountain to we had a comprehensive holistic plan to fix this problem and solve it and told people to account would have been a good step for us to take. It didnt happen. I dont know whether i want this administration to do that or not but the point is we need a plan. When you go to war you have a plan although i dont think we have a plan in syria but put that aside. You are not going to be successful unless you have a plan. Esther dyson. I am thrilled to suggest this to you personally. When you call from food swamps because there is food that is bad why not create within congress a school food day where everybody goes home to his or her constituency, schools and has to you lunch with the kids. The School Nutrition association was just here. I wish i wouldve talk to them. Efore, that is a good idea you can get elected to congress and never visit a school meal program. You can get elected and never go on a meals on wheels visit or talk to anyone who benefits. You can never talk to anybody on snap. I think, you know, the assumption that, because you get elected to congress, you know everything, is just wrong. Id hate to burst her bubble but intelligence is not always a prerequisite or getting elected to congress. The way you combat ignorance is that we need people locally to bring as in. Invite us to the schools and the food banks. Invite us to a meals on wheels visit and a hospital emergency anm where they are noticing upswing in hunger and Food Insecurity related illnesses. I met a woman a few years ago, elderly woman, who was in the hospital, emergency room, she was taking her medication on an md stomach when the medication said to take with food that she did not have the money. Empty stomach when the medication said to take with food and she did not have the money. Job but in the evening i am a graduate student at the Charles School of policy and government at george mason. You spoke about the need for a foodbased policy. How do you envision that happening . That would make a nice paper for a class project. [laughter] i get onto the agricultural committee, i represent in urban and suburban district, i get redistricted and now have rural areas in massachusetts. Lots of farms. I understand the connections that i think you all already know. Everything is related here we need to support our farmers and make sure we have a 50 state farm policy. We need Sustainable Agriculture in every state in this country. It is important and a security issue and a food safety issue. It is a nutrition issue. Integrate better nutrition in our educational systems. Learning about the nutrition at an early age, and developing good habits and early age is easier to ensure you will follow that the rapture life than developing better nutritional habits at my age. It is tough to change. Understanding that everybody has a role to play in this issue. Not just elected officials, but community leaders, it is a local leader issue. Hospitals. There is a veteran component to this and a military component because we are getting complaints on the military that the people we are sending to be who want to join the armed forces are way overweight. There was a time when it was the opposite. I think these discussions are happening. One of the reason why i wanted this white house conference was because i needed somebody who has the authority to put all of this together and put the pieces together. And that the dots. There were a lot of think tanks and people doing that. I think we need to have that kind of approach. Jane with abbott nutrition. Nutrition is my background, nutrition and Public Health. Thank you for your efforts because i believe nutrition can be medicine or poison. I am including the lack thereof or the presence of not nutrient dense food. Thank you for your effort. Thank you and i appreciate you being here and i appreciate your work. [applause] great stuff. I feel inspired. We are just in time for i would like to invite the speakers for our next panel. To come to the stage and we will get set up. Our moderator is vigorously networking. I would like to introduce you all to our moderator for the first panel of the morning. Scott faber who is getting situated. He is a familiar face and food policy circles. I am sure many of you have a history with them. He works with the Environmental Working Group as Vice President of government affairs. And many Consumer Health advocates, myself included, know them as a leader in Regulatory Reform. Other members of the audience will recognize him from his time as the grocery manufacturing association. They weres at gma, our partner for the food policy conference. He left, it was on its own. Cannot be a coincidence. Here is scott faber. [applause] scott what a terrific allstar panel and it is always an honor to share the stage with my hero, jim mcgovern. Probably a group that needs no introduction but i will quickly do introductions and asked each speaker to spend a couple of minutes talking about what this administrations food policy priorities should be. Going down the line, we have rick frank. Michael jacobson. Levitt. Mines. Ittman of food lets go straight down the line and talk about what this administrations food policy priorities should be and we will get you guys involved with live holy live polling. Rick i have been there 40 years. I was at the first National Food policy conference, which was called the golden carrot, for those of you who remember. I called my few moments of brief remarks the swinging pendulum inevitable correction to eight years of barack obama. You may not like what i will say. Not my opinion of what i want to happen, my explanation for why it is going to happen. The Obama Administration was dedicated to sound science, except that was not convenient. Frequently, policy emanated from the president of the United States, the first lady of the United States, and even, on occasion, the ship of the United States. States. Of the united dietary guidelines, handpicked Advisory Committee, in 2010, fairly balanced and did a good job. 2015, there were no industry people on the dietary guidelines Advisory Committee. This was packed with a highly liberal agenda. What did we get out of it . Recommendations from the Advisory Committee far outside anything we had ever seen in the dietary guidelines. Thing,ability, not a bad but not within the dietary guidelines. How about a recommendation for state so to taxes soda taxes . Does that need to show up any dietary guidelines . The answer is no. We got six years of a war on sugar. I am old enough to remember the war on fat and salt, the war on eggs. We now have the war on sugar. Done in a way that i have never seen. Maybe joking comment. Joe can comment. This was done with mediocre science and no report looking at the science here with a procedure that happened so quickly you can hardly blank. Why . They wanted to get it done before the next administration so it was not fall within the sixmonth time within the end of the administration. It is probably going to go in effect. When . We will talk about today but it is a lousy rule, not for its outcome necessarily, but for the procedure it established to establish a drv for added sugar as opposed to total sugar is unique and unprecedented and was a war from the first ladys office. The pendulum will swing back to the right, whether we like it or not. Less regulation and less activism, less funding. Look at the key players, donald trump and others. I do not think the people in this room should have a lot of heart looking forward to the next four years. You had a lot of fun the last eight. You will probably ok with bismuth. Labeling, maybe ok, maybe not ok, probably ok. Generally a wide support. Biotech, for the first time strong support. You did not see that coming out of obama. The Regulatory Environment could roll back some stuff. There will be some increase in state and local activity. Why . Somewhat of an application from washington. Application from washington. They go to the state and local governments and go to the percolators of new ideas. Class action suits will continue. The only other matters i would mention that could impact all of this are import tariffs and the hiring freeze. Conclusion, shift back to less robust and less activist regulatory philosophy. I think this is a natural and inevitable consequence of eight years of barack obama. Thank you. Another shrinking violet. Michael jacobson. Michael i disagree with everything rick just said on the first cap about all the reasons. [laughter] i do agree with his view about what will happen, that it is between the Trump Administration and congress. This is a disaster for anybody who cares about health, the environment, civil rights. And on down the list. Scott, you ask what should the policy be in the Trump Administration and congress. That is not a relevant question. You do not want to look down that hole. What they will be is what rick was suggesting, it will be egulato and not addressing public Health Issuesry. We focus on the fda. I do not know what they will undo but the big thing is the budget. Skinny budget proposed roughly 1 billion reduction in fdas budget. That would be devastating. Would be paralyzed and not able to do any kind of enforcement or initiate new regulations. And so on. Even if they have full funding, there are important things the fda is in the myths that are in the drawing board that will not get done. One of the most worrisome is there proposed sodium targets. If we could reduce sodium is mostly from salt, familiar to everybody, from eliot are the breeds disinterest Familiarity Breeds disinterest, people do not understand how dangerous high levels of sodium in the american diet are. If we could reduce sodium consumption by 50 that would save close to 100,000 lives per year. It is extraordinary. Far more damage than practically everything in the food supply put together. The fda may let us propose targets languish or they could resend them. Them. Cind there are bad Food Additives like aspartame i am pretty confident the fda will be even less aggressive in reaching out dangerous Food Additives. Out dangerous Food Additives. The ingredients called generally recognized as safe, which is to be vinegar and citric acid, totally safe substances. Now, the Chemical Industry crams Everything Possible into that grass category, instead of going through the food additive route to the fda i do not think will revise the grass allegory. Grass category. Something on the fdas agenda was package labeling, do have simple nutrition symbols like a smiley face or a green dot on the healthy food, and either nothing or a red dot on the unhealthy foods. Or ratings from one to 100. I cannot imagine this administration moving along on this front. The Food Industry is largely opposed to that. Where are things going to happen for many of us in this room . A lot of us will be fighting everything we can for the congresss is proposing and that the administration will push for. I hope we will see more grassroots activism in cities and states, pushing for gardens and cooking classes in schools. And getting different labeling laws adopted. Many National Groups will look at the state level, as rick suggested. We have a bill in congress that would in the California Legislature that would require warning notices on died foods dyed foods that affect childrens behavior. And more litigation. That the number of i do not know the exact figures the number of class actions against Food Companies has skyrocketed, probably up tenfold in the last 10 years. That will continue. When the federal government does not enforce keep the Food Industry under control, they will try everything they can to trick us into buying their products. Class actions are at least part of the answer. , from some perspective, exciting, the next four years, it will be interesting. I know many lobbyists will be very busy. On capitol hill and in the agencies. I retain a little bit of optimism that we will be able to make progress. Much ithank you very much. Thank you very i worked at fda. For 25 years. And live in 1978 through every president ial transition since the one from carter to reagan. Each one of them has its unique aspects but each one had a lot of commonalities. I was assistant director in the last time we went from democrat to republican, from the Clinton Administration to the george w. Bush administration. I came up with three points that i think should be the highest priorities. Number one, the highest priority is the value in embrace the fdas mission as the leading Public Health agency in america. An agency that literally affects every single american every single day. The importance of the fda to america cannot be understated. Number 2 taking it on correctly starts with leadership. Scott gottlieb is an excellent choice to head up the fda who served in the fda and understands the mission of the fda. He was a protege of mark, who was always a strong supporter of the fda. His experience will let this fda commissioner 50 ground running. Hit the ground running. I work for every commission for 20 years, when they come in and do not know the fda, especially from the inside, it is a long learning curve. He will start much more rapidly. I am very optimistic about that selection in todays time. I want to recognize steve, who performed admirably as acting commissioner, his second time in that stent. I hope that distinguished background will carry him over to the one of the chief advisor to sky gottlieb. Scott gottlieb. The key is funding, the fda, unlike most federal agencies, almost all of the money goes to paying people who work there. When budget cuts come, headcount dropped. What it does start with the people who work there. The alliance for a stronger fda has been in place for over a decade. , representative by consumer groups, Industry Groups alike. They have been very successful in making the impression on key appropriators that the fda budget is something that is very important to preserve and even grow, when possible. I think that that history will be very important as we go forward. It is a threepart play, mission, leadership, funding, that could lead to good things. Thank you. Thank you, good to be here. A last comment on this panel before we get to conversation. A minor spoiler alert, you may hear something to already heard from the panelist or representative mcgovern prior to this. I will go through my remarks and add to the conversation. It is fair to say that, u. S. Politics has elevated to a new level of divisiveness. Any heated conversations, food policy has taken a backseat and every conversation i have had in d. C. , trying to anticipate what will happen, the main point of conversations has been, we do not know because there has been no telescoping exactly what will happen. We can get a sense now that we see people put into position. As a conversation that was raised earlier, food policy itself and all the various issues have not elevated to the national conversation. And and how it has grown how it has an impact on the health, economy, environment, and security of america. There has been a lot of speculation on what may happen. You have heard it here today already. We cant expect to see many functions of food and efficient policy be reviewed and analyzed based on cost and needs. We can expect to see many functions of food and efficient policy be reviewed and analyzed based on cost and needs. Ill drop has a vision to renegotiations and create jobs and support american agriculture, growth through exports. He has made immigration a major part of his efforts with vote immigrant while we can expect federal regulations and policies to delay or stall, it is possible, as has been mentioned on this panel, local and state governments will take matters into their own hands and pursue actions at the state and local levels. So just what we see on soda taxes and sodium targets and warning labels and gardens and other opportunities. We will see increasing activities and best practices among Community Groups and local food policies and advocates to be successfully replicated across the country. We know food policy plays an Important Role in ensuring access to safe and healthy food, especially in vulnerable populations such as mothers and infants and low income individuals and families and their communities. I want to reiterate that the biggest priority should be that we should have a conversation about these issues and it should be elevated to the National Level and everybody in this room becoming engaged and reactivated on the issues to be sure that what we have gained is not lost. Where there is opportunities to make improvement, we look at the opportunities. T is important every american needs at least three times a day for the most part. One in two babies is affected by wick and agricultural and food sectors are the most significant labor, providing 11 in u. S. Employment and making up a significant portion of the gdp. Food is central to our collective quality of life and diet is a key driver of Health Promotion and disease prevention. It is fair to say that improvement in the health of americans will help keep our country secure and prosperous. Not just for this generation, but for future generations. We have discussed under president obama, we saw significant changes to policies. While we can expect a typical pendulum swift in this current administration, some of the things i am observing is that donald trump is intent on doing that opposite of what president obama did. We can expect to see relaxation and potential reverser of obama era food nutrition policies, depending on how we activate around these issues. We are lookinge at best practices and opportunities to engage in the pursueation and opportunities and interests that we think need to be continued. But also, thinking about where we may want to see some improvements. Again, to close it out, if donald wants to employ a an american first policy in the nutrition policies and all the sectors it impacts from consumers, who happened to be farmers and food workers and eaters, and nurses and doctors and taxpayers to the agricultural food issues should be Priority Issues and Healthy Eating and access to food nutrition can be a bipartisan effort. Given some of the early signals coming out of this administration, terms of how things will be done, we should not be encumbered by past approaches as a blueprint to how to approach what is going on going forward. It may be an opportunity to forge a new thinking and new ways of working together to pursue Common Ground and shared values and opportunities. Thank you. Thank you to our allstar panel. We will start we asked our expert to opine on what on they think the food policy priority should be for the investigation. We will ask your help. Thomas will help me to make sure this works. We will ask you to answer the question, which of these should be the administrations biggest food policy priority . We have given you a sample. Thomas will explain how you can help respond. Thomas you can either text a letter, or you can go on a browser. Some of these things you have to do on the browser. If you want to experiment with that. I think they figured it out. Secondsave another 10 to text your answers. Great. Ok. Nutrition,d safety, Adequate Funding for fda and usda. So, one area that there is probably a lot of agreement around, even on this panel, is the need to continue to implement the food safety modernization act. I will throw the first question to joe. Administration continue to make progress on food safety . And what challenges will they face as they continue to implement fisma . Joe when mike taylor was at fda and shepherded all the regulations through, he held a approach,w priority one was a high bar for food safety and the other was regulation that were workable for the Food Industry. It was not practical and would not happen, if it did not achieve a good result, it was not worth it. He had a right. Fdas First Mission is to carry through the miss vision into implementation with inspections that are skilled and evenhanded. Looking at the food Safety System as a whole, not taking the Little Things but big things that matter. Inspections will be important, the fda could not do that alone. Enlarging the roles of the state. Mike was a strong advocate of that, part of the funding picture. It enlarges the scope of the inspectorate by manyfold. It is a lost opportunity if not done. It requires funding. One of the things that was not completed in the last administration is a series of guidance documents to implement the fda regulations. I think everybody is hopeful that those will emerge because they fill out the picture. A followup question. Help also understand how budget ultimately may interfere with the ability of the agency to meet that inspection mandate and develop the guidance documents. , the way the fda budget works almost all money goes to payroll. Which is like nih, important, a lot of money there goes outside. It is also important but it does not affect people inside working. If the inspectors are fda employees and there are fewer, they will be fewer inspections. The big bump up will be supporting the state involvement. Fda has smartly started slowly training its own people, training state people so there is alignment. At one point there was concern over whether the state inspectors would be as rigorous as the federal. They have a plan to do that. They also need money to do that. It is a question of followthrough. Scott needs to be acknowledged for his role while the gma, one of the key cogs in fisma. E years tour or fiv pass and for the regulations got there and will take another four to five years at least to get the Inspection System down. We are building capacity throughout. Each step of the way, enhancements are being made. Areachael rick, is this an where there would be bipartisan agreement that the fda should have the resources to fully implement fisma . If you mean bipartisan among industry and consumers, i think yes. Democrats and republicans, i think no. It is budget, budget, budget. Budget, budget, budget, and what is the administrations attitude . Will it be a strong enforcement or you can do it better next time. Rick i think there is no question nothing has changed in the past 20 years. One of the top three priorities, food safety, food safety, what do not you understand about food safety . I do not think that will change. In terms of what might just said, history suggests a 180 degree difference, republicans in force, democrats regulate. There will be not a lot of new regulations but you will see a fair amount of enforcement. That is what republicans do. Speaking of regulations, this morning, groups released a letter urging Food Companies and retailers to oppose the regulatory accountability act. This is the bill that passed the house that would require formal rulemaking and congressional approval for all major rules and major guidances. Could you talk more about what you see what Regulatory Reform may mean for implementing laws like fisma and other food safety laws and rules. R5 is the bill the house passed, a 48 page singlespaced bill. I urge everybody to try to read it for fun. It is a complicated system of bureaucratic hurdles which would have to be overcome to adopt paralyzing it is the government. Food, it is across every regulatory front the government has. Mine safety, employment discrimination. It flew through the house. Now it is before the senate. Will tonethe senate it down a little bit and donald will undoubtedly sign that kind of a bill. I do not know if the democrats would filibuster. Some organizations are urging industry to oppose it. Even though industry is a member of some of the trade associations like the chamber of commerce that are supporting the regular regulatory accountability act. I woulding about like to amend what i said in the beginning about consumer, the Public Interests and government side. There are a couple of driving forces that are the driving force one is Scientific Research. Showing that something is good and something is bad, something is safe for workers or not safe. That is a continuing pressure. Antiregulatory Administration May be able to resist that for a while, but at some point, the dam will break and there is a real problem that has to be dealt with, people will understand. That is a major silence force. A second thing, what we have seen in the last 20 years maybe, a more progressive Food Industry. Sometimes with the little companies, the natural food thriving, whole foods, by catering to people who are more concerned about Public Health and the environment. We are seeing big Food Companies sometimes doing progressive things. Unilever, a few others. All of the Big Companies have bought little companies. General mills bought cascadian farms. And others. Companies, i see somebody from mars here, they have been very supportive of andition fact labelings sodium guidelines and added sugar labeling. Balkanizationthe of industry and they are more progressive companies. On energy also, with climate change. If some companies are willing to admit, this is the 21st century, are willing to stick out their next and do more progressive things. This administration will resist a lot of those things. Ttlieb, hened scott go said we should the late nutrition facts labeling by i do not know how many years. Nutrition fact label and why i do not know how many years. Did you want to Say Something . Work for both, democrats and republican administrations about equal in my tenure at the fda. Each has opportunities. One opportunity, to the cup on something michael said, maybe you did not expect me to, i think this administration will want to spur innovation. The innovation track right now is something that i think is moving in a direction that a lot of people can support. Consumers are demanding a changing food supply. Companies are responding to that. We need a Regulatory Environment that accepts that embraces that and nurses that. That is something that this administration could very well embrace it. What are some examples of things this administration could do to support innovation and healthier diets . Exactly what was said. When you think about taking about how i look at the upuation, how do you marry the shared values or intersecting agendas . That isministration interested in spurring innovation and helping the industry. Also, it says that they are interested in helping the american consumer. How do you join the Public Health goals with the interests of the industry . I would agree that we have Many Companies which have stepped forward and took really great opportunities to develop programs that have done just that. They have looked at here is the opportunity we need or there is in the Public Health environment and also have business sessions as a company to figure out how to marry those pieces. To build on what michael said around consumers looking at really demanding different choices. I think food matt did a Service Called food temperance and america for a couple of years. Last september, we did our fourth wave before the election. What was interesting to us is that early in our survey, in the early years, we wanted to look at what people thought about Government Intervention with creating a healthy environment for making food choices or, do people like this . We looked at it along political lines, democrats versus republicans and republicans onus on individual choice for democrats more onus on other factors and other segments of society around them. When we just did our most recent wave, we saw a more converging of both democrats and republicans, supporting the idea of creating healthy environments through outside sectors, or other opportunities. Stillshort, republicans are interested in more favorable towards individual choice. They are moving more towards the line of what the opportunities are for creating programs and policies that help them make different choices. The fda has been taking comments on the definition of words like natural and healthy. Is that an area where industry may support finally drawing a clear line around what those words mean . As an opportunity to provide consumers more clarity about how they are using their food dollar . There is the opportunity to evolve along with what the current science is telling us. And also an opportunity to evolve around without consumers are receiving food in their diet. It will be challenging given the various aspects going into it. I do not know how fast it will happen. I do think it may be one area where there will be opportunity for industry to continue to be calling their foods healthy. Getting consumers what they need living consumers what they need giving their consumers what they need from a labeling standpoint and evolving that would be science. Should fda defined natural . No. Why not . That has gone to its lowest common denominator in many ways. I am not sure you can lift it up to a new standard. When i first came to washington in 1976, a woman named judy work at the ftc. Ng a definition of natural. She was on page 650 [laughter] of the federal register for how the ftc would prescribe this. It never saw the light of day. It probably should not have because it was too much. , whichction lawyers might seem to favor, mike seems to favor, many are useful and many are parasites. They file a lawsuit and negotiate a settlement for themselves. They are not really trying to make law. They rarely go after the company that is capable of fighting what they are doing. It is a way to raise money. We have defended many of them. It is amazing how willing they are to roll over. I do not think they will define those things. R5 hr5t on mike and h strikes me as the pendulum swinging too far to the right. That is the beauty of washington, d. C. Obama will take it too far to the left with executive orders. The first lady was developed by sugar. Republicans will try to get legislation which makes it impossible to regulate. That does not make sense. If you look at who is running om , do you think there will be progressive regulations the next four years . The answer is a resounding no. It will not happen because politically it will not happen. Washington should go back and forth and we should test these ideas. We should people should not be my senate laboratory but we inuld test things be mice a laboratory but we should test things. Needes too far, you do not to go that far and i think it is an overreaction to executive orders and push the regulations that we saw in the last year of the Obama Administration. One thing to give an eye on is that keep an eye on is that there are a lot of very general, across the board rhetoric, legislation, like we just discussed. The fda food program, at least so far, has been below the radar screen. Not in the crossers like Immigration Reform or things like that. Not in the crosshairs like Immigration Reform or things like that. It set the groundwork for sensible policy moving forward, including areas where the former administration was not able to do anything. We may differ on natural, not that it will be easy or that any resolution would be widely applauded. Because you cannot satisfy everybody on that one, i guarantee you. One thing it would do, presumably, put an end to all of that class action litigation, which i will tell you is in a normas diversions enormous diversions, before the lawyers, good for the lawyers, i would rather see Companies Put in the money to food safety and defend andthan to settle lawsuits over marketing claims like natural. Maybe it is worth it for the greater good to get some of that on the books. Another labeling question delays urged the fda to the implementation date of the update to the Nutrition Facts Panel until 2021. Limitation ofy of the Nutrition Facts Panel . Should we delay it to sync up implementation of the unfp with the requirements of the new gmo disclosure law . Yes, in a word i would go one step further and ask for there to be a study during that time on whether or not fdas option of the added sugar provisions that provisions was done inappropriate way, scientific and in an appropriate way. I am not saying it was not, i am saying it was rammed through. For anyone who has a different nutrient, this is the way it can be done, politically, everything is at risk. Nutrient of the month could immediately have added sodium or a present sodium percent sodium, these things cannot happen that quickly and should be more thoughtful. The outside concern about marrying up those issues if god knows when we will see a gmo final regulation. Congress set a date but Congress Sets lots of dates and they are not always followed. Labeluld only have one change, it is about 1 billion per change which is passed on to consumers. They need to buy food. Ifyou only have 1 billion you have one, if you have to, it is 2 billion. The nutrition facts deadlines for Big Companies july 2018 should be kept. For smaller companies, july, 2019. Companies can do it. They are facing time pressure, sure. They could do it so that the public could have the benefits of having better labels, indicating they print, calories, having added sugars with a percent dv. , noticed sugars line and comment, rulemaking, tons of comments. There is a lot of Scientific Research that has accumulated in the past 15 years, documenting the harm from added sugars and the innocence of naturally occurring sugars which come in things like fruits and vegetables. You are writing about linking it means delaying it, perhaps forever, we have no idea if the gmo labeling will happen and how many years it will take to develop regulations. Lets get the labels moving. It is nice to see some of the labels any marketplace already. I think the companies are proceeding on the assumption that they are going to have to provide labels by july of 2018. Probably, a fait accompli. Gmaf i understand the letter correctly, they asked for a delay but not a change. Correct. Just to be clear. Number one, i am in in favor of probablyion, the fda was a little unrealistic when its at the twoyear deadline. Labels, ittons more was like going through a funnel, only so many places to change labels. Some will be first but a lot will be last. Companies are very fearful and they were from the beginning. Long before the change of the administration. The gmo labeling should put pressure on usda to do it. Used to talk about label it, just label it, just do it, just get the regulation out and ok to sync them up. One should not wait for the other. One should be accelerated so they can come together in a reasonable time. The cost is significant. I think a delay is a reasonable and another double. Inevitable. With the timeframe, it makes sense. I worked with companies on labeling changes and what they have to look at and there is a lot that goes into it as many Company Representatives in this room may attest to. I think there is a lot of money that is behind the labeling changes. I think that companies that are willing to move faster and get something in the marketplace have an opportunity to be leaders and do something different. I agree, the gma letter to my knowledge says there is a delay but not a change and reasonable to make sure it is done right within the timeframe. What do you think about this question. . We will put another poll up h ere. Lets go to the next one. Shouldthink fda and usda align the deadline for the Nutrition Facts Panel update with a deadline for discussing gmo ingredients . Ingredients . Gmo while you are doing that, we have about 15 or 20 more minutes. Why dont we invite folks we have an amazing a great panel, folks to come to the microphone and asked questions. We will love to get you involved in the conversation. Sir . Who are you and who are u. S. . I want to comment about the labeling issue. Ustry has initiative consumer demands, consumers are for transparency. Accessing a a lot more information that can be put on the label, any comments . Do you want to talk about using Digital Solutions in addition to what is on the pack . It is nice to have more information. The web can provide endless information. I do not think many people will use their smart phones to check out the upc label or the qr code. Formuch of a nuisance information that most people are not very interested in. Anyone else want to answer this question of the role of digital to supplement what is on the package . Over time, it will become more and more useful. Found thatdies have people who care most and will be impacted by Nutrition Information read it, and people who do not care, are not impacted. Then you have total sugars and added sugars, total carbohydrates, and the fdas study showed that 35 of the respondents were very confused. The ftc would bring a case against you, the fda, no problem, we are moving forward anyway. We should have electronic, should it be the only vehicle instead of the label . May the over time maybe over time. I am a consulting attorney in the boston area. I am concerned about the privatization of law and pushing the limits of the nondelegation through adoption of terry codes of conduct voluntary codes of contact or Regulatory Frameworks that are made out of whole cloth by private organizations and then incorporated by reference. Can you speak about what you think the impact of requiring two, getting rid of two if you bring in one regular asian, will it accelerated rulemaking that creates safe harbor where people can adopt a comprehensive set of regulations that are not actually on the federal books . To self regulate potentially to the detriment of consumers . One question is about the role of private certifications. Maybe not obviously, very little enforcement by ftc or fda around the myriad of private certifications that ultimately result in or are used as the base for label claims. Is that something that should be addressed . Should there be more oversight . The National Advertising division of the Better Business bureau has been around for 50 years and do a darned good job of policing that area. I do not think to Many Companies ever admit wrongdoing, they just discontinue the advertisement program. It is a private mechanism to police advertising. One, thehe two for bigger concern is that is more of a philosophy, the guidelines, i know it is an executive order so it is a rule. I think it will slow down all rulemaking as a general matter. Lets go back to my debate with mike about what do they do with the rule. A number of guidances that have not been finalized yet. People cannot start printing those labels, or should not come until the guidances are finished. How quickly will the fda be able to finish the guidance and get it through omb and back out . They could take months if not years. There will be a political philosophical barrier with that two for one and i am not sure it will actually be a two for one. Hr5 when not only require formal rulemaking for major rules, it would require formal rulemaking for major guidances which many of the Food Companies in this room will depend on, whether implementing fsma or updates in the Nutrition Facts Panel. Something to be thinking about. Of aat is another example very broad ranging policy. And how it applies to the fda food program is to be seen. The guidance issue is up for negotiations between the agencies and omb. The fda had a renaissance of major regulations over the last eight years. Regulations, all the Nutrition Facts Panel regulations. Which i believe will go forward with whatever timetable. In washington, you get the headline from the new regulations but you get the impact from the implementation. If this is a time for the fda says more time for implementation of the huge regulatory agenda that was just rolled out, i would say that is a good thing. I am hi, joseph john and with fitness and nutrition. My question is being a representative of a micro group that is impacted greatly by food policy and nutrition. My question is being a representative of a micro group that is impacted greatly by food policy and nutrition. Despite the criticism of michelle obama, what she did do is create a consciousness concern and health and wellness. How do we as evidenced by the panel, how do we get more qualified and capable women as the final decisionmakers with policies concerning nutrition and health and wellness. I would start at the current one, susan maine who with the Center Nutrition at the fda. Likewise. Yeah, amen, again continuing to work with women on the hill and in other venues that can help to lead the charge on his conversations. Advocacyist or the room byhere in the and just making sure were having conversations with individuals in the leadership positions to make decisions or help make decisions. I think as susan said, most of the major leadership positions within fda and usda we will see. I certainly agree with your point that no one has done more to change the way americans think about who in the last decade or more than mrs. Obama. It is hard to imagine someone playing that role because she played it so well and had such an enormous ability to reach people in a way that wasnt perceived as lecturing or making us feel like they were being told why to me, but rethinking some of their assumptions about diet. She is still continuing on the issues and even though she may not be as well, she still has a lot of sway with organization and crew that can have influence. I dont think we should assume that having a woman in place for automatically mean a smart policy. Should we have sarah palin, michele bachmann, betsy devos, numerous other people . Michelle obama had a progressive philosophy. But i think kind of a larger thing going on in society, us guys, our 15yearold successors are playing with their smartphones and playstation and its women who are getting into medical school for law schools. I think theres now a majority in both. That is going to percolate up and when men will be having a much, much greater role in society than they have had in the past because of their efforts and because of men just playing around. [laughter] can i just comment . I should stop videogaming. [laughter] i had a point. The point is simply that could policy is not either obviously female or male issue. Not necessarily republican or democrat issue. Markst year as director, came in as commissioner his calling card was nutrition and he actually was a forerunner of what we are seeing today when he declared that consumers can do more good for the longterm health by making sound dietary choices than anything else. Thats because he was a health care economist. He was looking at the money and the budget on Health Care Costs and saying that Health Care Costs can only be brought down if people eat better. And so again, this opportunity in the administration if you think about it the right way. Hi, scott mcclure, doctoral student in Public Health. I was a food scientist for blue diamond almonds back when the vermont gmo labeling went through. And we were concerned not to much of the actual labeling that because the distribution we couldnt make a label just for just one state. We have to make it for whole blocks. Both susan and michael mentioned potentially an increase state level labeling initiatives. How would you address concerns that may concerns that maybe states would make mutually exclusive or conflicting labels, but also allowing for that is a source of innovation . Well, i think that is what is going to happen and that might spur some activity than at the National Level. Maybe take gmo labeling as an example of how statelevel activities it is challenging for companies to implement at the state level. Then it got punted back up and so maybe we will see similar type of patterns happening. It remains to be seen. That type of activity has good results and bad results. Before we had nutrition labeling, cspi basically went after claims that even Oatmeal Companies were making and they did it in texas, california. There were enough cases and enough state rules that ultimately industry came to washington and said enough. We will agree to nutritional labeling. We will agree to standards for claims, they give us one step. Congratulations. That was really well done. I dont think gmos was really well done. Gmo is what i call the precautionary principle, guilty until proven innocent. Its almost impossible to prove anything except over a long period of time. If you give voters in one state or a legislator and wednesday trying to impose Something Like that, industry may ultimately say enough, please. But a mandatory gml rule is really not a good idea at this point in time. They vilify something that is probably very good for the public and the world and that is not a good model for regulating. One response to that conceivably would be federal preemption that she had with the noaa and claims, possibly federal preemption that goes beyond that for things like gml is their god for bid california prop 65. But that type of regulation that goes to the states sometimes works and sometimes in my opinion can be very dangerous. I would just add thats not something we can advocate for. Its important to Pay Attention and be engaged in the dialogue is somebody whose representative of industry and knows the challenges that can happen if these changes are happening at state and local levels. Did you want to add something . Is a strategy, its a very valuable one and maybe we dont like one specific instance or another. But getting calories on restaurant menus, it was very effective where we saw new york city doing a first regulation including just calories in philadelphia and seattle required not just calories on menu boards, but on printed menus. Calories, carbs, saturated, sodium and trans. And that got restaurant clamoring for federal regulations that preempt the state differences. Getting those disparate laws at the local level are statelevel down there in the laboratory of democracy was ultimately a very powerful way of bringing in just industry to the table and bringing in somthing good. Rick, you mentioned menu labeling in your introduction which of course is required under provisions in the Affordable Care at and it turns out whom to the Affordable Care act would be so hard to replace. Putting that aside, why do you think that sort of as you put it, will be as opposed to something that will have been. That will happen. The vast majority of impacted players, whether it be the fast food chains or dining locations, they are ready to do it. I represent three large players in that space. When i saw there was an opportunity, i didnt recommend you should urge delay, but my job is to say theres an opportunity and they went three for three saying we are ready to do this. Lets go ahead and do it. So i think it will happen for that reason. A lot of these things, mike was saying how progress in some parts of the Food Industry are becoming. Thats a competitive issue. You can wear a white hat, then you may support what he wants. If youre nutrition profile is not dispositive, you may oppose it. Im not sure its necessarily because youre a good person and youre concerned. Its what you have to sell. Its interesting that mars and pepsi and have been pretty supportive of certain nutrition measures. And they dont exactly cater to the health food market. And i think that is where it was a strategy to think about okay, we know these are not row issues and how do we as a response about company im not suggesting this is exactly what happened, but its looking up where we can find intersecting agendas and put together programs and opportunities that will benefit the company and also address issues happening. Strategically, a confection is a treat, not a snack. Its important to characterize it that way. Philosophy of the Confectionery Industries be a treat, which addressed properly is finding an overall diet. The pepsi situation, they have a wide variety of offerings. Anything from water to sugarfree to choose to their mainline pepsi. But they are diversified enough that they can support just about anything because they have a product to meet. You are seeing the maturing and growth to be able to do that. Coming back to something mark used to say, that he really wanted Food Companies can begin on the basis of nutrition. I think we are seeing now. Nurturing innovation, fostering that competition with todays Consumer Needs and demands has got to move everything in a good direction. Good morning. I am from Johns Hopkins university. My questions about those saved it, it seems to me that the panel is quite optimistic about food safety regulation implementation and enforcement rather than creating new regulation. I would like to understand why its so optimistic given that the announcement about water safety are somewhat concerning. For example, we know that the usda budget costs with the water and wastewater, bone and grant programs, which will affect negatively what are called the world communities and with respect to the epa, we know that government Enforcement Capacity that will also probably a fact the infections, for example. So why do you think that food safety will not be a fact day by the same type of policies . I think it is because that law was developed in a very inclusive way. It had both consumer and industry support and it was implemented in the regulation developed in the same way. Is it, perfect . Water quality something thats an issue in the Fresh Produce and fda signaled a willingness to look at that. But again, i think it comes down to if i was to draw a map on Regulatory Reform, it would be based on inclusiveness and workability. Thats a winning formula. When people are complaining, you dont get up that. While were on that subject, produce remains the leading source of illness at the produce safety world is set to go into effect soon. Maybe its a question for joe and mike. Do you foresee any challenges in implementing that rule . Farmers will have to Start Testing their Irrigation Water to ensure that their water is meeting certain standards. My crystal ball is murky. Much like the Irrigation Water. [laughter] a lot of it is budget. Is there and enforcement, any pressure on farmers to do that . I think you have to take the long term picture. Foods, youve got an enormous industry never before regulated by the fda. The fda is going to list an enormous amount of state power to oversee it. Rome was not built in a day. And neither will the produce rule be implemented. But youve got to think of it a decade from now. This is a time to think about implementation about the Initiative Study taken and put the same figure in implementation and i was developing the rules in the first place. Tweakedhey need to be them alongay, tweak the way. Why not . Minutes but. I have two questions. One was not really touched on, but states are now beginning to get back to around the questions of Food Additives to ban foreign aid chemicals and food packaging. Happening . Is that an area where they might say it might make sense to come up with a system of review that would reassure consumers . I think definitely yes. This is an area whether it be grass or Food Additives, if the federal government has acted it will be a barrier to the state doing much. So if it is a particular heavy metal or something showing up in and california decides to take action against it, i think you might see the industry going to the fda and say, lets establish what are the safe levels. I think they will go to the fda and asked them to do that. One overarching thought and maybe my final for this group would be dont view these next four years or eight or whatever it may be as necessarily pressing and horrible. Opportunity. Dont yell and scream. Pick and choose your fights and lets go back to sound science. Sound science, not evolving or fringe science. If sound science should be the role then make the Administration Live with sound science. Try and get them to stay in the on that. I think you saw some deviations in the last two years from obama which is going to cost. Back tot that pendulum the middleware science rules, on that. Inot politics. Then i am sure you will agree with me that epa should revoke the tolerances. I know nothing about that. [laughter] we have just a couple minutes. Lets get parting thoughts for our group. I hate to disagree with rick at i think we have to fight on everything. This administration and this congress are, lets face it, a total disaster from a Public Interest perspective. A lot of different people will have a concern about this or that issue but we need to try to cover all of the issues from Different Directions politically stopith litigation to crazy rollbacks that are unfounded. So, keep fighting. Joe . Joe no i think having it lived through many changes in both directions, i think every time has its own opportunities. I would urge people to both look for those and rally around those end again, use this as a time to solidify gains made the and implement them well. The old song, every hand is a winner, every hand is a loser, well take the handy and play it right. Take the hand and play it right. That like iay stated early on, i think that it is important for the discussions around food policy to make its way to front and center which amateur hatchet happened. It remains to be seen, i think. Ands its way to front center which i am not sure has yet happened. I think. S to be seen, my crystal ball is murky, too. No matter what side of the aisle you are on or where youre coming from as an organization, think about the opportunities to create a path forward that will that will not kumbuya for everyone, but will help a lot. Now is a time to rally together and. Please join me and thinking our panel. [applause] unfoldswhere history daily. In 1970 nine, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Television Companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Announcer cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, staff writer for Foreign Policy discusses this weeks trip by secretary of state Rex Tillerson to moscow and the future of u. S. Russian relations after last weeks strike in syria. Then a discussion on what republicans can faces they attempt to replace and repeal the Affordable Care act. And editor and publisher of the nation on key progressive priorities and how to achieve them in a gopcontrolled government. The future of the Supreme Court and the conflict in syria. Watch cspans washington journal coming up at some 00 a. M. This morning. Join me discussion. Discussion on a newseum begins at nine 00 a. M. On cspan2. Then kellyanne conway, former cbs newsman bob schaffer and a panel of reporters. Later, a human rights advocate addresses a joint session of the Canadian Parliament in the capital ottawa. Well have live coverage at 11 30 a. M. On cspan two. A reminder, you can watch all of these programs live on cspan or get and listen on the cspan radio app. Defense secretary james mattis told reporters there was no doubt the Syrian Government was responsible for the chemical attack against civilians antitrust about the reason the u. S. Decided to launch missile attacks in syria. He was joined by general joseph oh tell votel. They spoke at this 25 minute briefing