Posted on 11/19/2010 7:13:15 AM PST by DrewsMum
I am posting this thread to see if Freepers can help break down Senate Bill 510. The original bill was 266 pages and full of legalese. I have been rallying friends, family and Facebook friends to call/email/fax the RINOs who are supporting this bill, but I am getting tons of questions about it. (Why is it so bad?) I can answer some, but I need help. I naturally gravitate to FR for answers. Could I get some help breaking it down into laymen terms? Perhaps some of you could help with the most damaging items using bullet points about the bill.
Adm Mod---please don't just delete this thread if I did anything wrong. Please tell me what to correct so that I can do that. This is important to so many of us and I am not an expert on posting. We're all in this together, right?? :0)
Breaking news? Really?
They are getting ready to vote on it!!! So maybe “urgent” news..???? Forgive me please....
Among other ‘fun’ provisions, it puts in place the mechanism for DHS and/or DOD to Nationalize - seize - all, or any part, of our food chain — in case of an unspecified/undefined ‘emergency’.....
Is this the Food & Farmer Control Act (my name). If so, I haven’t read it so I don’t know the details, but:
1) any new laws are automatically suspect and really ought to be Breaking News;
2) As I understand it, it sets up some serious hoops for small and all farmers to jump through;
3) It may place more controls on Farmers Markets; and,
4) I have heard that the language is loose enough to potentially encompass sharing home grown food (although I’m sure this won’t happen...right away).
I know that is not alot to go on, but I trust nothing passed by our current government - - from the underwear bomber to increased travel controls; from copyright issues on the internet to internet controls; from egg/food salmonella issues to Food controls....anyone see a pattern here?
Here is a helpful source.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510
From the little I read in the Q & A section it is more government regulation and control that will do what most government regulation and control does - increase the cost of food and hurt the small farmer and farmers markets while doing little to do what it says it is going to do in protecting the food supply.
It sounds harmless and like a good thing to do but it is just more government overreach. It is the EPA of food.
Your best course of action is to read some of the sites which offer reasons to oppose the bill. Here is one.
Farm To Consumer Legal Defense Fund (petition)
http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum1061.php
wow, thanks y’all....see, this info is so helpful...I hope others can use it as well!
I waded through the 250 pages over the past two days. This is a very draconian bill. The language is so vague that almost anyone growing or making food is subject to the law.
From what I can tell, it gives the FDA complete power over anyone or any group which produces, grows or raises food if that food is distributed in any manner or consumed by anyone other than the producer.
It doesn’t even seem to distinguish between food sold or food given away, making it potentially illegal to give away vegetables grown in a home garden.
What is really frightening is it seems to imply that even feeding your family homegrown vegetables or meat, not inspected by authorities could land you in trouble.
It also implies that growing/raising one’s own food could be prosecutable if said actions are found to interfere with interstate commerce. That could apply to anything.
Monetizing the debt could lead to massive food shortages due to rising costs. Food is already up 30%. There won't be enough money to feed the parasites through food stamps. The government will then need food growing slaves the same way they need monetary slaves.
The scrounges on the left will still want, but will be unwilling to do anything to carry their own weight. In order to keep the scrounge vote, the left wing politicians will have to steal food from everyone else. They'll refer to it as "sharing with those in need."
” I waded through the 250 pages over the past two days. “
Wow.. You have certainly earned my respect - I barely got through the first page before I bogged-down in legalese/bureaucratese....
From what I was able to gather, though, I agree that this bill is so vaguely written as to give FDA what is essentially a blank-check open-’mandate’ to do just about whatever it damn-well pleases....
Thanks for having the courage to post this. I hope you...and WE ALL...find out what is in this bill so maybe can call the ones that need calling to stop it before it makes our lives even more miserable than they have been for the past 2 years!
Except on this point: ", each person (excluding farms and restaurants) who manufactures, processes, packs, distributes, receives, holds, or imports such article can be acted upon by the FDA."
But certainly, growing your own “25 marijuana plants” for “personal consumption” will be exempted from this law. (Personally, I find it hard to believe that someone who has 25 marijuana plants and uses them for personal consumption would be motivated enough to grow them???)
Tobacco. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
This bill will literally put him out of business. His entire family has invested heavily to keep this small farm running, and now he will lose everything. And my son will no longer be able to drink milk.
I just wrote/called the Burpee’s Seed Co. to find out its take on the S510 bill currently in front of the Senate. I told them I was particularly concerned about the following language in the bill:
“If implemented, S510 can define as a crime to clean, store, and own seeds or seed stocks unless granted that right by the federal government.”
Their response:
“I will find out about this and will let you know.”
left me with the feeling that they were unaware of the bill - how could that be? In any event, I will keep you posted on the response I get.
I would suggest other Freepers to reach out to companies that will potentially be affected by this bill to either wake them up, or get their take on the bill.
I have been reading bills for many years, so can more readily get through some of the language which seems confusing at first, but really are just standard legal phrases.
Oh, now don’t start.
;-)
I just found out that one of my favorite tobacco shops was turned into a medical MJ, “Dispensary.”
UGH!
This will make you sick:
Raw Food Raids: The Right To Eat What You Want
http://www.thehopeforamerica.com/play.php?id=5985
Then there’s the cost, an additional 350 billion to the FDA over ten years.
Yep. We don't have many freedoms left. They're taking it all so the welfare crowd can live for free. The grasshoppers want to feed, and feed, and feed, so the ants have to give up more, and more, and more.
There's too many grasshoppers, and the tower of liberalism is crumbling. They're doing everything thing they can now to survive. Their policies are "coming home to roost." Their base is still wanting, so they have to keep taking and taking to appease the lazy, angry mob they've created.
” I have been reading bills for many years, “
By the bye - in your reading of the bill, did you find any mechanism - or even mention - for ‘due process’ or ‘recourse’ for the ‘victims’ of FDA actions under this law??
I ask, because I’ve seen no mention of this subject in any of the synopses or discussions I’ve read so far......
. . . another govt. assault on our personal freedom .
I actually got a response from my congresscritter.......but, his being an original sponsor makes his comments about “changes behind closed doors”, resulting in his pulling BACK from supporting it tells me we’re in trouble.
“As a member of the U.S. Senate and a consumer myself, I believe it is vital to improve our capacity to prevent food safety problems, as well as our capacity to detect and respond to food-borne illness outbreaks. An effective public-private sector partnership is critical to this overall effort. The private sector has the responsibility to follow federal guidelines and ensure the safety of their products. The federal government has the responsibility to oversee these efforts and take corrective actions when necessary.
While I was an original cosponsor of S.510, I am concerned about the last minute changes that were made to the bill behind closed doors, both due to the substance of those changes as well as potential costs associated with them. I am also concerned that Senators will not have the opportunity to offer amendments on the Senate floor for an open and transparent debate. For these reasons, I voted against the motion to proceed to S. 510. I will carefully review the implications of the changes to S. 510 to determine if I will support the bill when it comes to a vote for final passage.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me. If I can ever be of assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to let me know.”
Congress CAN’T see past the noses on their faces.
Hahahahahah, that's a good one. Now be quite and pay your taxes serf.
I just posted a link that has some info on this.
There are 2 farmer’s markets walking distance from me....I may print out a little flyer with all this info and go distribute it to them.......along with phone numbers....
I read somewhere that this may not come for a vote until the Monday after thanksgiving
I am quickly losing any faith in the GOP. In fact, with stuff like this I may as well stay home in 2012.
Its over. Just look at 7 republican jackasses cosponsoring this bill.
ARE YOU KIDDING!???
In almost every bill these days, no recourse or mechanism for challenge by individuals or companies is included at all.
What congress does nowadays is pass unconstitutional bills which they KNOW don't meet constitutional muster, then they let the issue get settled in court, usually going all the way to SCOTUS. Meanwhile, unless an injunction can be granted, the law takes effect and is acted on, making it near impossible to get it repealed or changed.
Did that happend to be Mr. Hatch??? He is backtracking so fast it isn’t even funny....
THAT is exactly why you (Republican Congressmen) can NOT trust Dems!!! If you don’t sleep with them in the first place, you’re not worried later about being pregnant with their “baby”
Have you called your congressmen on this Senate bill 510?
I did, and both of my senators are voting against this ridiculous piece of garbage....You will do more good to call your senators, and if you need their phone numbers I will be glad to help you get them.
The Campaign for Liberty has been talking about this bill for weeks:
“According to The Hill, Harry Reid doesn’t think so-called “Food Safety” can wait ‘till after the holidays.
The Senate Majority Leader is pushing his fellow senators to quickly pass S. 510, which expands the FDA’s farm-destroying powers while drowning smaller producers of food in red tape and regulation.
A simple majority vote on the motion to proceed on S. 510 will occur sometime this evening. After that vote, there will be time for amendments. Reid has allowed Senator Tester’s amendment to be brought up for a simple majority vote, but he has decided that Senator Coburn’s stricter amendment will only be considered after a suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority.
Once the amendments are voted on, there’s a cloture vote on the bill itself, which requires a 60 vote majority. After that, only a simple majority vote is required to pass S. 510. So if you haven’t done so, there’s still time to contact your senator and educate them on the dangers of S. 510. If you’ve already called, please do so again.
Update: The critical cloture vote on S. 510 will occur after Thanksgiving. Happy holidays.”
Chambliss.......Georgia.
Wow. I’m impressed. And it takes a LOT to impress me. That’s not the standard form letter.
” Senator Coburn’s stricter amendment “
What is Sen Coburn’s amendment??
(Unless it’s a ‘poison pill’ that renders the whole bill meaningless, it’s just “deck chairs on the Titanic”...)
Thanks for the info, though - I wasn’t sure about the legislative schedule for this monstrosity.....
Lugar and Bayh. I have a letter sitting on this desk from Lugar from the last time I called his office.
They did respond, it was over S.3454. But it was way after the bill had been voted on. That one was the military appropriations bill that punk Harry Reid tried to slip the Dream Act in.
Ticked me off. Lugar said Reid will put that bill back on the table this month. Get ready.
Bayh won’t care because he is out in January. He will probably vote present.
This bill is a classic example of a large industry trying to regulate competitors out of business by using complicit nanny-staters to do their dirty work. A pox on both their houses!
And I will not submit to their authority. Don't touch my junky tomatoes! I will only give up when they pry the okra from my cold dead hand.
woaaaaa the CBO estimate that I saw said 14 billion$$$$$$.... where does that number come from?????
Call me an alarmist if you must but first look up Russian food collectives.
Russia started breaking up large farms and giving the smaller plots to peasants. Since you no longer had the economy of scale less food was produced. The communist rather than admit it was a mistake put price controls on food. The small farmers then would eat it themselves or sell it on the black market why sell at a loss. The State then made it illegal to sell food without the OK of the state. The state decided that large farms were good and in one year 60% of all farms were now under state control. Those that resisted were jailed or executed as Kulaks or “tight fisted”. The means of production were socialized (Land, crops, livestock). You were not allowed to even have a household garden.
Estimates range from 4 to 10 million die from starvation as a direct result of this plan. Stalin declared people were dizzy with the success of collectives.
Could this law be the first step? Will Nancy be dizzy with success when this passes?
Still looking, but the only thing that I've found so far is that his amendment banned earmarks from the bill.
” his amendment banned earmarks from the bill. “
Oh.. I’d heard about this (but didn’t know that Coburn was the shill) — the plan is to attach the ‘Earmarks Ban’ as a rider to this bill, so that Republicans who wouldn’t ordinarily vote for such a Bureaucratic Power Grab would either have to vote for it, or be branded as hypocrites on the issue of Earmarks...
“I would suggest other Freepers to reach out to companies that will potentially be affected by this bill to either wake them up, or get their take on the bill.”
Good suggestion.
I took a copy of H.R.2749 to the local “seed and feed” place, and asked if they could leave it on their countertop for all customers to see.
Made me wonder about the outcome of THAT POS....
“UPDATE: Despite the best efforts, HR2749 passed out of the House on July 30, 2009 by a vote of 283 to 142. It sits in the Senate awaiting reconciliation with Senate bill S 510 if it passes.”
http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum993.php
Seems we’re in deep doo doo.
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