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Conaway satisfied sustainability & taxes won’t be in Dietary Guidelines

The Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee says he’s satisfied the upcoming Dietary Guidelines will NOT contain recommendations on food sustainability or food taxes, which were brought up by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory committee in its report. Congressman Mike Conaway thanked Secretaries Tom Vilsack and Sylvia Burwell for making that clear at this morning’s hearing. Chairman Conaway said at the end of the hearing, “I appreciate both of your comments this morning about limiting the criticisms about sustainability and taxes. You laid those to rest. Thank you so very much for that. The emphasis on staying within the scope (of the dietary guidelines) that was supposed to be there, I appreciate that.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Burwell testified that there were no advisory committee recommendations on taxes, “With regard to the question of whether there be a tax recommendation in our Dietary Guidelines we do not believe that that is something that is in (the) scope of the work that we are doing.”

And, Ag Secretary Vilsack said there are other avenues to discuss sustainability as when developing a Farm Bill, discussions about conservation and local and regional food systems. Vilsack said, “THIS, however, is about dietary and nutrition and that’s what we’re going to focus on as we develop these guidelines.”

The Secretaries testified that the dietary guidelines committee report is only one part of what is considered for the final guidelines and the more than 29-thousand public comments received are still being reviewed in their agencies. The guidelines are revised every five years and some lawmakers on the committee questioned whether there was a need for them at all.  The final 2015 Dietary Guidelines will be due at the end of this year, as required by Congress.