Teamsters to Hochul: GRAS bill must be vetoed
The Honorable Kathy Hochul
Governor
State of New York
2nd Floor, State Capital
Albany, New York 12210
Re: A1556G – Assemblymember Kelles (Senator Kavanagh)
AN ACT to amend the agriculture and markets law, in relation to
enacting the “food safety and chemical disclosure act”
Dear Governor Hochul,
The legislation detailed above has been passed by both houses of the legislature and will soon be before you for consideration. The legislation enacts the “food safety and chemical disclosure act” which prohibits certain food additives and food color additives and establishes requirements for the reporting of GRAS (generally recognized as safe) substances. The New York State Joint Conference of Teamsters opposes this legislation and urges you to veto the bill before you.
The Teamsters have organized workers in virtually every occupation imaginable, both professional and non-professional, private sector and public sector. Our 1.3 million members include more than 120,000 working men, women, and their families across New York State, thousands of whom produce, bottle, package, and deliver liquor, beer, dairy and other food products.
The New York Conference of Teamsters represent over 120,000 Teamsters in every corner of the State. We strongly oppose Senate Bill 1239F/Assembly Bill 1556G, the “food safety and chemical disclosure act” which creates a new, unnecessary and costly system just for New York.
This legislation authorizes the imposition of criminal and civil penalties on Teamsters who deliver any food containing the targeted ingredients – whether the Teamster is aware of the presence of the ingredient or not. This legislation is an unwarranted attack on our members.
We represent workers and their families and believe in the importance of food safety. We know our companies and we know the rigors that they go through to place a product on the market. Union members like ours keep New York running. We are not supposed to be running away! This legislation not only imposes penalties on Teamsters; it creates a new layer of cost and red tape on the businesses that employ us. We have been informed of estimates concluding that building and operating this new system will cost at least $21 million in its first three years. This is NYS money that duplicates the role supposed to be fulfilled by the federal government. If there is a failure at that level-it should be addressed by our federal elected officials with federal tax dollars.
The U. S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) “Generally Recognized As Safe” (“GRAS”) requirements, is one of the many safety processes our employers follow. The present legislation is an attempt to have New York State take over this federal process. The FDA GRAS requirements are extensive and expensive to enforce. The regulations are continually reviewed and probed to make sure consumers are safe. Again – if FDA is not doing its job – we should push our federal representatives, not add duplicative expense and process at the State level.
This bill would require specialized scientific expertise regarding the ingredients of products that many of our Teamsters do not have. If S1239F/A1556G are enacted, the legislature would establish a duplicative review system that would further drain the emergency response capacity and specialized scientific expertise of our state government laboratories, such as the Wadsworth Center. This legislation effectively creates a New York State GRAS system and a resulting New York-only compliance hurdle. The result is that companies could will produce different and a more limited line of items for New Yorkers rather than New York being a place of diverse culinary experience.
Finally, this legislation adds real compliance costs: new filings, testing, legal review and disclosure work, in addition to what our companies already send to FDA. Those costs land on employers. We can tell you that the employers will not be able to force Teamster to shoulder these costs at the bargaining table. When employers are forced to absorb new costs, prices to consumers (taxpayers) go up.
We support smart, practical policies that protect New Yorkers. But this proposal threatens our members with criminal and civil liability, threatens the jobs and hours that working families depend on, raises costs to consumers and creates unnecessary state bureaucracy. If change is needed to protect us from poisons in our food, we need to stand together with our neighboring states and strengthen our federal rules and regulations. We are calling for transparency and safety, not isolating ourselves from the interconnected economies in our region.
Accordingly, we urge you to veto this legislation.
Sincerely,
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