Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix. It was nice to take a break last week, even if spring break with little kids is its own chaos. Fun fact: This is the 345th edition of this newsletter!

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Helena

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There’s a long running joke in Washington about President Donald Trump and “infrastructure week.”

As I talked to sources over the past couple of days, I couldn’t help but think that food policy watchers are officially in what I’m calling preemption week. Everywhere you look, the industry is working to advance the same policy strategy right now: preemption.

Preemption 101: For the uninitiated, preemption is just a fancy term for the concept of federal law superseding state laws. There’s a few different ways interests can seek preemption — through the courts, Congress, etc. — but the bottom line here is that the end result is knocking down state laws that are either already on the books or coming down the pike.

Industry groups tend to like preemption in part because it gives more certainty — no one wants to operate in a state-by-state patchwork of laws saying different things. It’s also easier to lobby federally vs. having to deal with all the state legislatures as separate battlegrounds. Right now, preemption is becoming even more critical for industry because MAHA groups and consumer advocates have been having a ton of success in state legislatures. In many cases, the industry is actually getting creamed outside of Washington.

Big Apple news: Just this week, the New York legislature passed a landmark bill that will mandate that companies disclose to the state anytime they’ve self-determined a food additive is “Generally Recognized as Safe.”

Under current federal rules, food manufacturers are not required to notify FDA of a GRAS determination, though many responsible companies do. This means that FDA doesn’t have a list of all the food chemicals currently on the market, nor an account of the safety data underpinning each substance. Under the New York law, companies would be required to share their safety data with a state agency that would then make this publicly available.

The bill also bans three additives: Red Number 3, propylparaben, and potassium bromate in New York.

Preemption on food additives: While the New York news was certainly big … perhaps the biggest news this week is the quiet introduction of a draft bill by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) that would preempt state laws on food additives and other food safety issues — legislation clearly aimed at nuking this New York measure along with the growing pile of state bills and new laws the food industry loathes.

Readers of this newsletter may recall that top food industry groups have been pressing for preemption on Capitol Hill for months, after an early attempt blew up in the Senate due to intense MAHA opposition. They formed a big ol’ coalition called Americans for Ingredient Transparency (AFIT) to try to get this done.

Interestingly though, AFIT didn’t have anything to say as the bill came out this week. Many people, including some in the food industry, found out about the legislation from a critical press release by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which is super opposed to preemption.

EWG called the bill — formally titled the ‘FRESH’ and Affordable Foods Act — “rotten to the core.”

“I did not think it was possible to make our food system even weaker, but this proposal does it,” said Melanie Benesh, EWG’s vice president for government affairs.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which like EWG has long advocated for an overhaul of how food chemicals are regulated in the U.S., also slammed the bill.

“The FRESH Act doesn’t close the GRAS loophole, it replaces GRAS with astro-turf,” said Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs at CSPI. “Contrary to its title, the bill would not require FDA premarket review of new food chemicals. In fact, it would make permanent, and even widen in some ways, the current loophole in federal law that allows food companies to introduce new food substances without submitting safety data for FDA review.”

Vani Hari, a key voice within the MAHA movement, also eviscerated the legislation. “This bill is a wish list for the chemical industry, weakening the already limited role of the FDA, expanding industry self-policing, and preempting state laws that have been leading the way on food safety,” Hari said. “It would allow substances linked to cancer and reproductive harm to enter our food supply with little to no meaningful oversight, while silencing states trying to protect people.”

The other side: I asked AFIT for a comment on the bill and did not get one. I also pinged Rep. Cammack’s office about the bill and whether they wanted to respond to the criticism. No comment yet. I didn’t see any food industry groups come out in support of the bill right out of the gate, either.

Tensions are high: Now, certainly all of this is sensitive, particularly after MAHA advocates torpedoed the last preemption attempt on Capitol Hill, but this level of silence at launch doesn’t strike me as a good sign for this effort.

The preemption bill will get a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s health panel on Wednesday next week alongside a long list of other food safety and food related bills — including a bill from committee ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) that would require federal oversight over GRAS determinations. It’ll be the first congressional hearing in a long long time — maybe decades? — focused on how food additives are regulated.

Preemption blitz: The food industry’s bid to wiggle out of the patchwork of bills pushed by consumer advocates and MAHA groups in the states is not the only preemption game in town — far from it. On Monday, Bayer will get its day before the Supreme Court as the company tries to argue that EPA’s determination on pesticides should be the final say and that states can’t impose additional warning or labeling requirements. In practice, this largely shields the company from billions in pending cancer lawsuits tied to weed killer glyphosate. (EPA has long maintained glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic.) While the Trump administration has sided with Bayer at every turn, MAHA advocates are planning a “The People vs. Poison” rally on the steps of the Supreme Court Monday.

Next week, we expect the House to advance its farm bill — a sweeping piece of legislation that includes at least two preemption provisions that are controversial. One aimed at blocking California’s Prop 12 and Massachusetts Question 3, which banned the sale of pork raised with the use of gestation crates in each state, and another aimed at — you guessed it! — blocking the state laws that have allowed thousands of glyphosate cancer lawsuits to proceed.

There’s a bipartisan push to strip these provisions from the farm bill, per Rebekah Alvey at Civil Eats. Reps Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced an amendment to strip one of the preemption provisions related to pesticides. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) introduced a similar amendment as well as another aimed at stripping the preemption provision that would gut Prop 12.

Taken all together, this is a full-court press on preemption. Consumer and MAHA advocates will have their hands full in the coming weeks and months.

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EPA adds more pesticide industry reps to science board (Civil Eats). “EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin appointed four chemical industry representatives to the agency’s Science Advisory Board last week, including employees of pesticide companies and of a leading manufacturer of the forever chemicals that now contaminate U.S. farm soils, waterways, and food,” reports Lisa Held. “One of the new appointees, Jessica LaRocca, works for pesticide giant Corteva Agriscience, and another, Matthew LeBaron, for Dow Chemical Company, which spun off its pesticide business but still produces chemicals used in pesticide formulations. Two others, Shawn Gannon and Sean Uhl, work for Chemours, which makes products with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Zeldin also appointed Gary Minsavage, a representative from ExxonMobil’s biomedical division. The announcement of the new board members comes amid the EPA’s fast approvals of pesticides containing PFAS and the White House’s promotion of glyphosate, which have tested the loyalty of some of the administration’s MAHA supporters.”

MAHA’s hopes for healthier school lunches collide with Trump’s spending cuts (Bloomberg). “Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made improving children’s diets a centerpiece of his 2024 presidential campaign, and his MAHA movement helped propel President Donald Trump to a second term,” writes Deena Shanker. “The administration is soon expected to demand that schools upgrade the quality of their meals—a widely applauded goal—but it comes after 15 months of chipping away at the funding and programs schools have relied on to put that food on the table. In January the Trump administration published revamped protein-rich, refined-carb-light Dietary Guidelines for Americans with much fanfare. Sometime this spring the US Department of Agriculture is expected to publish regulations informed by the new guidelines that all schools will be expected to follow. [But] Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill Act mandates changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that will pare benefits for millions of households; this has already started, but the biggest cuts will come into effect on Oct. 1, 2027. Shortly after Trump returned to the White House last year with a promise to slash federal spending, the USDA cut about $660 million for schools to buy food from nearby farms. But that’s not the end of it.”

US farm agency to move research and food safety staff from Washington (Reuters). “The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Thursday ​it will relocate many research and food safety staff ‌from the Washington region as part of its broader reorganization effort,” Leah Douglas reports. “The agency is in the process of moving most of its Washington-area staff – about 2,600 people – ​to five regional hubs in an effort to bring the ​workforce closer to farmers. The USDA will move some Washington-based staff of its ​Economic Research Service and National Institute for Food and Agriculture to ​their Kansas City offices, it said in a press release. Some employees of the National Agricultural Statistics Service will also ​move, the release said. The ​agency will also ​begin decommissioning its ⁠flagship research site in Beltsville, Maryland, the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, and relocating research programs, according ​to the release. The USDA will also ⁠move ​about 200 employees of its Food Safety ​and Inspection Service to a new National Food Safety Center in Urbandale, Iowa, the ​agency said.”

The ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement is cooling on Trump and Republicans (New York Times). “MAHA leaders warn that many of those who embrace the cause are dispirited and disillusioned — and that when the November elections come around, some may just stay home,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes. “Six of the movement’s most prominent leaders, who together have millions of social media followers, said in separate interviews that the mostly white, mostly female voters who followed Mr. Kennedy into Mr. Trump’s camp are so disappointed with the president that Republicans risk losing them. But they said Democrats would need to work hard to win their votes. The MAHA PAC, run by Tony Lyons, a conservative-leaning publisher and close Kennedy ally, launched an ambitious initiative in March to raise $100 million to elect ‘MAHA-aligned, Trump-endorsed’ Republicans — a goal that would far exceed the $1.2 million the group raised through the end of February, according to recent campaign finance filings. But the MAHA leaders who spoke to The New York Times said their voters belong to no individual party.”

Follow the money behind the MAHA brand (The Signal). “I’ve looked at the money. And what MAHA actually is, underneath the seed oils and the food dye messaging, is a Republican get-out-the-vote operation with a wellness Instagram filter over its face. And I will show you the money,” writes Robyn O’Brien. “The institutional MAHA apparatus, the PACs, the super PACs, the 501(c)(4), the endorsements, the $100 million war chest, is a Republican political operation. Its leaders say so openly. Its FEC filings prove it. And anyone telling you otherwise is either uninformed or deliberately misleading you.”

Protein-maxxing, GLP-1s have US farmers betting on peas and lentils (Reuters). “Aaron Smith, a fifth-generation pea and lentil farmer in northern Idaho, says the dizzying rise of GLP-1 medications and a social media-fueled protein craze may be his farm’s only path to ​profit this year,” Heather Schlitz writes. “The farm economy has been pummeled by low crop prices caused by a grain oversupply, tit-for-tat tariffs triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and skyrocketing prices ‌of fertilizer and diesel. But pulses – which include peas, lentils and chickpeas – have been a bright spot due to rising demand for protein-infused foods beyond traditional sources like meat, poultry and fish. Growers of the protein-rich crops see planting them as a way to weather an agricultural economy that has been in a yearslong downward spiral. U.S. farmers are facing the fourth straight year of low-to-negative profit margins despite near-record government payouts, and farm bankruptcies increased by 46% from 2024 to 2025, court records show.”

Aldi to remove 44 ingredients from private label assortment (GroceryDive). “Aldi announced Wednesday that it intends to remove 44 ingredients from its private label assortment by December 2027,” reports Catherine Douglas Moran. “The ingredients slated for removal include select artificial preservatives, colors, flavors and sweeteners. The discounter said the decision expands its list of banned ingredients from 13 to 57 and caters to consumers’ desire for products with simpler ingredients. The upcoming removal of the nearly four dozen ingredients comes more than a decade after Aldi removed certified synthetic colors from its private brands in 2015. At that time, Aldi was one of the first national grocers to remove certified synthetic colors, the discounter noted in its Wednesday announcement.”

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