Senate Bill Aims To Improve FDA Ingredient Oversight – Without Pre-Empting States

A provision to pre-empt the various state bans on food ingredients was removed from a Senate bill to improve the FDA’s oversight of ingredient safety, apparently because of pressure from the Make America Healthy Again movement.

The Better Food Disclosure Act was introduced earlier this month by U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas). It looked like the draft he circulated earlier with one exception: language was removed that would have made FDA regulations on ingredient bans supersede those of the states.

“I couldn’t believe how much pushback I got,” Marshall told the New York Times. His legislative effort attracted MAHA attention when, in an effort to discuss the bill “with all interested parties,” he also engaged Americans for Ingredient Transparency (AFIT), a lobbying group created by big food & beverage companies, including

“I was like, whoa. He can’t work with this group,” Vani Hari, a longtime food industry critic who has linked up with the MAHA movement, told the Times. “It would completely undermine everything he has shown in the past several months as a MAHA caucus leader and undermine Secretary [Robert] Kennedy’s work.”

Hari is quoted in Marshall’s press release announcing the bill.

Also in that release, Marshall acknowledged, “This legislation is coming in response to the great state-led efforts to strengthen our Nation’s food safety standards.” He notes 108 bills have been introduced in 17 state legislatures during the 2025 session concerning ingredients, SNAP, nutrition education, ultra-processed foods and physical activity in schools. And seven bills have been enacted in five states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.

The full bill is viewable here.

The senator also notes, “While we remain committed to working with everyone to establish a strong national standard of ingredient safety, we cannot ignore the reality that our current federal oversight is inadequate – and states have stepped up to hold both food companies and Washington accountable.”

As introduced, the bill would require food and ingredient companies to notify the FDA of ingredients they consider to be “generally recognized as safe” – that’s not a requirement under current regulations but there are several efforts underway to change that. It also allows state government officials and anyone to petition the FDA to review the safety of an ingredient that is currently in the food supply, such as food dyes, additives and other food substances currently not reported to the federal government.

This bill is cosponsored by Senators Rick Scott (R-Florida) and Katie Britt (R-Alabama).