Letter: States’ interests taking back seat to big money

Tuesday, March 14, 2006 | 7:13 a.m.

The Republican Party has once again demonstrated its hypocrisy. It continues to claim that it is the party of states' rights and that it always has the interests of the American people as a priority.

However, last week the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would deprive individual states of the right to label food packaging as they see fit. Instead, all food packaging information would be regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

That means, for one thing, that the Great Lakes states can no longer require the mercury content of locally produced fish to be provided unless the federal government allows it - and the record of the FDA under this administration is certainly nothing to brag about. Its agenda has certainly been more political than scientific. Where is the protection for the public?

If the Republican Party was truthful, it would publicize that its priority has been and continues to be support for big money interests, in this case the food industries, and that the interests of the states and the general public are far down the list.

Wallace J. Henkelman, Henderson