This story was originally published by Daily Montanan:
URL: https://dailymontanan.com
This story has not been altered or edited.
(C) Daily Montanan. Licensed for re-distribution through Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
------------



'Malice in Montanaland' : New commercial food laws need a constitutional challenge – Daily Montanan

['More From Author', 'May', 'Jeff Havens']

Date: 2022-05-24 00:00:00

As Montana continues its seismic shift further toward the radical right of the political spectrum, one cannot avoid the obvious lure that we have finally fallen into the rabbit-hole described in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 story, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” But in our unfortunate circumstance, it’s more aptly titled, “Malice in Montanaland.”

This rabbit-hole is a right-wing realm populated by politicians who are gullible and extreme enough to fulfill the illogical and unwise fascist fantasies of misguided groups, such as Americans for Prosperity. To them, the hole is an alabaster kingdom, where up is down, down is up, and in a new commercial food law, local also means nonlocal by simple virtue of it not being constitutionally challenged in court by responsible state officials.

This new commercial food law, deceptively titled as the “Montana Local Food Choice Act,” exudes spite for not only sensible regulations to protect consumers, but also a seemingly pathological contempt for federal jurisdictional authority. Therein lay the problem with this law: In its spite for all governmental consumer protection regulations, bill drafters’ myopia was so severely limited by disdain, they only focused their defective vision on final food products.

The bill drafters were either profoundly ignorant or completely ignored the first half of the food law equation, which consists of food ingredients. And this fact makes all the difference in the real world above their hell-hole. In our world, food products are comprised of ingredients—some products, like salsa, have numerous ingredients, while others might only have one ingredient, such as milk from a domesticated cow.

As a result, the bill drafters fabulously failed to separate the subjects of interstate commerce and federal jurisdictional authority from intrastate commerce and state jurisdictional authority, in arguable violation of the Montana Constitution.

The first iteration of this malicious law first emerged during the 2012 Montana legislative session in an enormous overreaction to the 2011 federal “Food Safety and Modernization Act.” The Montana bill was then marketed under a food “freedom” banner, backed by the same anti-government supporters as the 2021 effort. Differing versions of the same bill eventually devolved into 2021 Senate Bill 199, now known simply as “199,” or the “local” food law.

199’s sole support of legislative support was from raw milk enthusiasts. Absent raw milk, the “freedom” bill was very likely to meet the same deadly fate as its forerunners. Raw milk should have remained a separate bill for the very same intrastate commerce and state jurisdictional authority concerns I previously argued.

The local commercial food law has already resulted in one documented illness outbreak last fall in which the agency I work for refused to even issue a simple press release to remind consumers of the hazards and risks associated with drinking raw milk. I am confident such willful neglect would not have occurred under previous administrations. And I see no hope for improvement anytime within the next decade or more.

During the interim, one could reasonably expect the illnesses, injuries and perhaps even deaths to continue from 199, while local legislators proudly exhibit their ignorance and malice toward federal jurisdictional authority at the cost of unwitting consumers, despite the “informed” consumer provision required in 199.

The only way 199 achieves its actual intent is only if ingredients solely grown within the state are used to comprise final products. It’s that simple. In other words, state officials must say what they mean and mean what they say, by holding 199 true to its title and actual intent. Local must mean just that and only that. The “local” food law needs a courtroom challenge and I am happy to lead that effort out of the rabbit-hole.

“’Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on.

“’I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.’

“’Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same “thing as “I eat what I see”!’”

Jeff Havens is past-president and president-elect of the Montana Environmental Health Association, and works for the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services as lead in the wholesale food program.

[END]

[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2022/05/24/malice-in-montanaland-new-commercial-food-laws-need-a-constitutional-challenge/

Content is licensed through Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/