New Database Spotlights Food Legislation

by Jan Ellen Spiegel, Posted Apr 22nd 2010 @ 1:00PM

If you ever thought "there ought to be a law on some food-related something or other...," there's now a free web tool to figure out if there is a law, or potentially could be.

Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has launched an online database that tracks state and federal legislative efforts that relate to food, and the lobbying that goes on for and against those issues.

"We realized it would be a very useful tool for people working on obesity policy and food policy," said Roberta Friedman, Rudd's director of public policy.

So if you're wondering what's going on that would make healthy food more accessible -- the Rudd database will tell you there are 19 pieces of legislation in 10 states and the federal government. The feds have 11 different bills out there related to school nutrition. And a whole bunch of states are considering taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages. One click and you can get the bill summary, sponsor, contact and links, and its status.

There's a whole separate tracker for bill updates in the last day or week. And the site also shows what's been approved. Hang onto your hats -- so far in 2010 it's Mississippi with a whole bunch of new laws aimed at improving nutrition.

Friedman said there's more general interest in food issues and obesity these days and that means more legislation than there used to be. "People are more interested now," she said. "Legislators are picking up on this and see they have got to do something to change the environment we live in."

The Rudd site does one more thing with potentially explosive ramifications -- it shows who's lobbying and how much they're spending using the quarterly reports lobbyists are required to file.

Friedman points out lobbyists don't have to say which bill they're targeting or whether they're for or a against an issue, but it's not too hard to figure out what's happening when all of a sudden Coke was spending more on lobbying around the time all those bills on sugar-sweetened beverages were starting to pop up. And you can see that in fiscal year 2009 the American Beverage Association spent more than $19 million on that issue.

Does the site have everything? No -- all this has to get updated manually.

"It is a lot of work," Friedman said. "But we want to make it as easy as possible for people to know what' going on in the state and federal arena in terms of obesity and food policy legislation."

Filed Under: Food Politics
Tags: online database, rudd center for food policy and obesity, rudd database