William (B.J.) Lawson Help Stop the Food Safety Modernization Act

Uploaded on February 18, 2010 by Lawson for Congress © All rights reserved.

While we've been campaigning, Washington has still been working -- but not for us. Last year, a dangerous piece of legislation was passed by our House of Representatives -- the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. Despite the reassuring title, this Orwellian legislation will weaken local food producers and suppliers and make us even more dependent on an increasingly brittle and centralized food system. Our 24 year incumbent David Price voted for his lobbyist masters, and against the interests of his constituents, by helping to pass this legislation.

Our last chance to fight this assault on our freedom to feed ourselves and increase our local food security is to head off the Senate's dangerous companion legislation, The Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510).

Please visit the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association's Web site today for more information on this bill, and contact information for Senators Burr and Hagan.

Regardless of where you live, please call or write your Senators today. Let them know in no uncertain terms that this legislation must not be passed.

The CFSA does an excellent job at relating the problems with this legislation -- it was written to serve the interests of industrial agriculture, and creates onerous regulatory burdens that will put smaller local/regional producers out of business and prevent new producers from contributing to our local foodsheds.

While the CFSA asks for this legislation to be amended, I believe it must simply be stopped. We must defeat S. 510, and prevent this misguided effort to further consolidate control in the hands of the largest producers.

As your Congressman, I will work to enact agricultural reforms to empower local producers and local foodsheds by restoring a free market economy for our food.

That means ending all agricultural subsidies, ending all taxation on the production of food, and permanently eliminating the estate tax/death tax -- all of which work against the interests of our local farmers and food producers.

A free market for the production of good nutrition will empower us to do a much better job of feeding ourselves, and make a meaningful impact on our health care crisis. As Moses would have said, "Let my people grow!"

TEXT CREDIT: Lawson for Congress