Ed Whitfield: “thanks are owed to several Members for their leading role in the development of the food provisions of this bill.…”

“thanks are owed to several Members for their leading role in the development of the food provisions of this bill. Special thanks must be given to Chairman Bliley, ranking minority member Dingell, as well as Messrs. Towns, Hall, Gankse, and of course, the author of the food reform legislation in the last Congress, Mr. Klug. Praise is also due to the exceptional work of committee counsel, Eric Berger, as well as James Derderian and to staff of members of the committee including Tim Taylor of my staff, Brenda Pillors, Grace Warren, and Jon Traub. Special note should be made of the work of Kay Holcombe, who has served the Commerce Committee and Public Health as a whole with extraordinary professionalism of many years. The food provision of the final version of this bill reflects closely the hard work of the House in addressing the need for fine tuning of The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 [NLEA]. Clearly, much more needs to be done before we can assert that our Nation's food law has been reformed. However, this is a responsible down payment of food reform that we may reasonably expect to benefit public health. A compelling problem that is addressed by this legislation is the Food and Drug Administration blocking truthful, nonmisleading information from American consumers.”