Senate Bill S510 Explained… Sort of…
1. It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency. It resembles the Kissinger Plan.
2. It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security. It would end the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994, which put US sovereignty and US law under perfect protection. Instead, S 510 says:
COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS. Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.
3. It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.
4. It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food. It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements. Its bizarre history and its expected impact in limiting access to adequate nutrition (while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.) threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, since the world knows now it needs vitamins to survive, not just to treat illnesses.
5. It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security. See Seeds – How to criminalize them, for more details.
6. It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals. The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease. Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically engineered animals on which corporations hold patents. Animal diseases can be falsely declared. S 510 includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite its corrupt involvement in the H1N1 scandal, which is now said to have been concocted by the corporations.
7. It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production – put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety.
8. It deconstructs what is left of the American economy. It takes agriculture and food, which are the cornerstone of all economies, out of the hands of the citizenry, and puts them under the total control of multinational corporations influencing the UN, WHO, FAO and WTO, with HHS, and CDC, acting as agents, with Homeland Security as the enforcer. The chance to rebuild the economy based on farming, ranching, gardens, food production, natural health, and all the jobs, tools and connected occupations would be eliminated.
9. It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs. This would industrialize every farm in the US, eliminate local organic farming, greatly increase global warming from increased use of oil-based products and long-distance delivery of foods, and make food even more unsafe. The five items listed — the Five Pillars of Food Safety — are precisely the items in the food supply which are the primary source of its danger.
10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control. The bill postpones defining all the regulations to be imposed; postpones defining crimes to be punished, postpones defining penalties to be applied. It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review. It is (similar to C-6 in Canada) the end of Rule of Law in the US.
S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act*, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US. It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money. “If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” ~Dr. Shiv Chopra
15 GOP senators help Democrats Kill Constitution
In a stunning expansion of the power of unelected bureaucrats to control the population, the U.S. Senate voted today to approve S.510--the so-called 'Food Safety Act.' 15 GOP Senators helped Democrats pass the bill, which gives the FDA and the Agricultural Secretary powers the Constitution does not allow.
Not a single Democrat voted against the ominous measure, which was first submitted by 'Little Dick' Durbin, D-Illinois.
While the vast majority of Republicans voted against this assault on the Constitution, 15 broke ranks and helped Obama and the Leftwing Democrats that presently run Congress seize control over the food supply.
The GOP Senators who voted in favor of S.510 are: Alexander (R-TN), Brown (R-MA), Burr (R-NC), Collins (R-ME), Enzi (R-WI), Grassley (R-IA), Gregg (R-NH), Johanns (R-NE), Kirk (R-IL), LeMieau (R-FL), Lugar (R-IN), Murkowski (R-AK), Snowe (R-ME), Vitter (R-LA), and Voinovich (R-OH).
Among the Republican defectors the most surprising is normally staunch conservative David Vitter. And some notable RINOS are missing from the vote in favor of the bill, such as Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
The bill gives sweeping powers to the FDA and the Secretary of Agriculture to make unilateral decisions, with no input from Congress, that can potentially shut down small family farms, particularly organic farmers.
In a telling overview of the bill provided by Michael Geer at The American Thinker, the writer correctly observes that while there is nothing wrong with attempting to insure the safety of the nation's food supply, this bill is not the vehicle by which to do so. Needless overlapping with a dozen other federal agencies charged with oversight over various aspects of the food supply are inherent in the bill, not to mention the massive power-grab by the FDA to mirco-manage the food industry.
A previous article by Mr. Geer sounds the warning bell for this outrageous federal power-grab:
This is the food safety version of ObamaCare. Reading the thing will make your head hurt for all its cognitive dissonance. Trying to winnow out its complexity and hidden empowerments is stultifying.
Introduced by Dick Durbin of Illinois, the bill has moved through the usual phases of amalgamation and deal-making. The monstrosity advancing to the floor on Wednesday is not so much "food safety" as it is the decadence of the rights of small farmers, hobbyist food producers, garden-variety farmers markets, and your average small producer of foodstuffs. Under the rubric of safety, this Senate proposes a bill that establishes such new and sweeping powers over how you and I produce and consume foodstuffs that even the Pew Charitable Trusts * are calling S510 a clear and present danger.
Senator Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, wrote a scathing piece that was reprinted in USA Today delineating the numerous problems inherent in the bill.
And, in a explosive excerpt from the bill itself, citizens can readily see for themselves the numerous land-mines buried in the legislation:
"2) USE OF OR EXPOSURE TO FOODS OF CONCERN.-If the Secretary believes that there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to an article of food, and any article of a food, that the Secretary reasonably believes is likely to be affected in a similar manner, will cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals, each person (excluding farms and restaurants) who manufactures, processes, packs, distributes, receives, holds, or imports such article can be acted upon by the FDA."
And what, exactly, constitutes serious adverse health consequences? In short, whatever the Secretary of Agriculture decides. And given that this Administration has a penchant for supporting the banning of 'unacceptable' food substances such as sugar, fats, snack foods, cola drinks, etc., the implications of this legislation are ominous.
What are the chances of the bill actually passing through Congress? At present the bill must go through the reconciliation process with a House version that has already been approved. Pelosi hints that she may support the House's approval of the Senate version in an effort to beat the deadline of the holiday break, so that the bill can go straight to Obama's desk prior to the end of the 111th lame-duck Congress.
Be sure to catch my blog at The Liberty Sphere.
Food Safety Bill is a Dangerous Expansion of the Federal Government
November 29, 2010 - 13:56 ET
By Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) 
The Food Safety Bill (S. 510) started out with the best intentions, to make our food supply safer. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions many in Congress will use any excuse to grow government and spend recklessly.
As a conservative on the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee I initially supported the Food Safety bill. At the time, I was clear that the bill needed significant improvements and if it did not continue to improve that I would stop supporting the bill. I hoped to use my co-sponsorship to steer this legislation away from the big government expansion that I feared it would become. I made it clear that if there was a huge price tag to taxpayers that I would not support the bill.
That’s regrettably what happened. After the bill was approved by the committee, the legislation did not improve. It expands the federal workforce by the thousands. The federal workforce should be capped, which is why I introduced legislation this year to do exactly that. In addition this bill has a price tag of $1.5 billion, we simply cannot afford that. We need to balance the budget not continue to spend. Because of these concerns, I have voted against this legislation not once, but twice.
I will continue to oppose this bill. We need to return to the principles that make our country great: a limited federal government and balancing our federal budget by cutting spending.
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