The Continuing Resolution introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives includes language prohibiting the Federal Trade Commission from moving ahead with implementation of the Interagency Working Group’s (IWG) proposed nutrition principles for food marketed to children without first conducting a cost-benefit analysis in accordance with a 2011 Executive Order prescribing regulatory courses of actions by federal agencies. The Continuing Resolution is the all-encompassing legislation the Congress must pass in order to keep the federal government running in the next fiscal year.
At the same time, Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa and Representative Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. and many of their Democratic colleagues have written to the Federal Trade Commission asking for increased oversight of food and beverage companies to ensure that they are making progress on reducing unhealthy food marketing to children.
The letter was sent as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a study that found that major food manufacturers have cut calories in their packaged products by more than 10 percent over five years, substantially beating an industry-led pledge to trim 1.5 trillion calories by 2015.
In 2009 the 16 companies in the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation promised to cut 1.5 trillion calories from its products, compared to a 2007 baseline. But the study, authored by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that the companies removed 6.4 trillion calories by 2012, more than quadrupling the pledged amount.
This article is from the September 19, 2014 AAF Government Report by Clark Rector Jr, Executive Vice President – Government Affairs.
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