Participatory Online News Source Blog Reports Preemption Movement Afoot

According to NowPublic.com, a self-proclaimed participatory online news network, the food industry, facing legislative initiatives that would
require posting calorie and other nutritional information on restaurant menu boards, is fighting back with state-level preemption laws. Ohio recently approved legislation (H.B. 217) giving the state’s Director of Agriculture the sole authority to regulate how and whether food service operations must provide food nutrition information to the public, thus putting an end to the disclosure movement that was apparently gaining momentum at the local level there. Legislation adopted in Georgia (H.B. 1303) would prevent political subdivisions from adopting similar local laws.

NowPublic notes that the restaurant industry lost its federal preemption argument when mounting a challenge in court to a menu disclosure law that took effect in New York City. The industry then apparently “changed its strategy” by seeking legislation in Congress that would create federal preemption of calorie posting laws and in the states that would do the same at that level. These federal or statewide preemptive approaches would enable restaurants to post calories in places other than “where customers are likely to see them.” “Georgia and Ohio are two of industry’s successes,” the blog reports. See www.nowpublic.com, December 11, 2008.