Advertisers Hope House Bill Will Squash New Food Guidelines

Advertisers are hopeful that a clause in a new House appropriations bill for 2012 will throw a monkey wrench into the government's proposal for new guidelines on marketing food to children, guidelines that the advertising and marketing industries find unreasonable at best.

The clause, inserted in to the bill by Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), dictates that none of the funds allocated in the bill may be used by the Federal Trade Commission to move forward on the guidelines until the Interagency Working Group (made up of the FTC, the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) conducts a cost-benefit analysis. The full bill is headed for the House floor, where it is likely to pass, though it will then run into the Democrats who control the Senate, not to mention President Obama's veto pen.