HR 3444 115th Congress House Agriculture and Food Accounting and auditing Administrative law and regulatory procedures Agricultural conservation and pollution Agricultural education Agricultural prices, subsidies, credit Alternative and renewable resources Charitable contributions Civil actions and liability Congressional operations and organization Congressional oversight Consumer affairs Department of Agriculture Education programs funding Elementary and secondary education Executive agency funding and structure Food assistance and relief Food industry and services Food supply, safety, and labeling Government information and archives

Food Recovery Act of 2017

Introduced: July 27, 2017 Introduced by: Pingree, Chellie Democratic · Maine See on congress.gov

Everywhere this bill has been 3 steps

Introduced

In committee

Reported out

Passed House

Passed Senate

To President

Became law

Jul 28, 2017

Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.

Jul 27, 2017

Referred to the Committee on Agriculture, and in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, Education and the Workforce, Energy and Commerce, Oversight and Government Reform, and House Administration, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

Jul 27, 2017

Introduced in House

Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

Food Recovery Act of 2017

This bill provides funding and establishes requirements to reduce food waste and standardize date labeling on food.

The bill authorizes grants or loans for activities related to:

raising awareness about wasted food and food recovery efforts to reduce the quantity of wasted food,
reducing food waste at schools and farms, and
installing facilities that include composting or anaerobic digesters that use food or crop waste to produce energy.

The bill provides funds for: (1) state storage and distribution costs under the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and (2) national media campaigns to decrease food waste.

The bill also:

establishes a Food Recovery Liaison within the Department of Agriculture (USDA),
specifies that composting is eligible for support under USDA's conservation programs,
expands the tax deduction for charitable contributions to include contributions of food inventory for nonprofit retail sales,
expands the liability protections for the donation of food, and
requires companies that receive federal food service contracts to donate surplus food to nonprofit organizations that assist food-insecure people.

The bill requires date labels on food packaging to include the phrases "best if used by" to indicate food quality and "use by" to warn of food that may be unsafe to eat after a specified date.

Labelers may include a quality date on packaging, but must include a safety date on ready-to-eat products. No one may prohibit the sale, donation, or use of a product based on passage of the quality date of the product.

What's happening now July 28, 2017

Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.

Committees of jurisdiction 7