Phil Sokolof of Omaha figures he spent between $70,000 and $80,000 Wednesday for national newspaper ads claiming Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is killing a bill to make food labels more honest and helpful.
Hatch says Sokolof's ads were deceptive. He says he's even the one who started the drive for better labeling 10 years ago. But he is holding up a House-passed labeling bill in the Senate, saying it is bad legislation needing many essential reforms.That still upsets Sokolof - a wealthy businessman who founded the National Heart Savers Association after suffering a heart attack caused by high cholesterol - so he bought full-page ads blasting Hatch in the Washington Post, the Washington Times and the six daily newspapers in Utah.
Sokolof is the same man who led the fight that recently convinced McDonald's to stop using beef fat and tallow and convinced many national bakeries to stop using coconut and palm oil.
"I've probably spent $2.5 million of my own money to warn people about cholesterol. And food labels that give cholesterol information would be a good way to warn people. But we probably won't have it because of Hatch," he said in a telephone interview.
He adds, "There's no such thing as perfect legislation. But the bill Hatch is holding up would pass if it weren't for him, and it would bring improvement."
Hatch begs to differ. "Not only is this legislation not perfect, it's not very good."
He says it would allow each state to set many of its own labeling standards, which would wreak havoc for national distributors by forcing them to deal with 50 standards instead of one national set of rules.
Hatch said the House bill, sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., would also result in a large state such as California adopting stricter standards than what Congress would support.
And because most companies would do business in that large state and therefore be forced to meet its rules, California would set the common denominator that essentially would become the unofficial national standard.
"I don't want food label laws written by a bunch of nuts in California," Hatch said.
Another problem Hatch sees in the Waxman bill is that it would require labels on the 20 most often purchased fruits and fish in a store and on bulk-food bins. "That would be costly, hard to do and wouldn't really show much."
Hatch also complained the law would allow health claims to be made only on products about which scientific agreement exists.
"Nutrition science is always changing, and it's hard to find two scientists who will agree on everything. So, essentially what you would have is no health claims on food. Reasonable claims should be allowed," Hatch said.
Hatch also wants to tie food labeling and food safety bills together. Otherwise, he said, people such as Waxman would be reluctant to address food safety issues.
Hatch admits his objections likely will prevent the passage of a labeling bill this year, unless Waxman and others decide to back many of the provisions Hatch has in his own labeling bill.
That especially upsets Sokolof, who figures that if Congress doesn't pass a labeling bill by Oct. 4, it never will.
"After that, the Food and Drug Administration will enact its own labeling regulations, and they won't be as strict. The reality is it won't be easy to interest Congress in that kind of bill after that," he said.
"If we don't get a labeling law this year, it will be Orrin Hatch's fault - and I want the nation and his home state to know that," Sokolof said.