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[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2844 Introduced in House (IH)]

109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2844

To amend the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 
 1990 to foster greater understanding of human dietary eating patterns 
   and food intake, physical activity level, food security, dietary 
  exposure, and nutritional status; to provide timely information to 
 public program managers and private sector decision makers to improve 
 nutritional intake, physical activity, health, productivity and other 
   measures of quality of life of Americans, based on scientifically 
established norms and the knowledge and experience developed under the 
National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990 over the 
  past decade; to reauthorize nutrition monitoring programs; and for 
                            other purposes.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              June 9, 2005

  Mr. Hinchey (for himself, Mr. Latham, Mr. Sanders, Mr. McNulty, Mr. 
   Frank of Massachusetts, and Mr. Al Green of Texas) introduced the 
   following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Agriculture

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL

 
To amend the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 
 1990 to foster greater understanding of human dietary eating patterns 
   and food intake, physical activity level, food security, dietary 
  exposure, and nutritional status; to provide timely information to 
 public program managers and private sector decision makers to improve 
 nutritional intake, physical activity, health, productivity and other 
   measures of quality of life of Americans, based on scientifically 
established norms and the knowledge and experience developed under the 
National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990 over the 
  past decade; to reauthorize nutrition monitoring programs; and for 
                            other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as ``National Health, Nutrition, and Physical 
Activity Monitoring Act of 2005''.

SEC. 2. AMENDMENTS.

    The National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990 
(7 U.S.C. 5301-5342) is amended--
            (1) by amending section 2 to read as follows:

``SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

    ``(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
            ``(1) The United States faces an epidemic due to the large 
        number of overweight and obese Americans. The Department of 
        Agriculture (in this Act referred to as `USDA') and the 
        Department Health and Human Services (in this Act referred to 
        as `DHHS' ) have identified obesity as a high priority and are 
        mobilizing resources and staff to address this growing problem.
            ``(2) Two of the major national surveys that collect data 
        on dietary intakes of foods and nutrients, the National Health 
        and Nutrition Examination Survey (in this Act referred to as 
        `NHANES') conducted by the DHHS, and the Continuing Survey of 
        Food Intakes by Individuals (in this Act referred to as 
        `CSFII') previously conducted by the USDA, were merged in 2002 
        into an integrated survey intended to be the primary source of 
        nationally representative data on the nutritional status and 
        dietary intakes of foods and nutrients.
            ``(3) The newly integrated NHANES obtains data that 
        contribute to our understanding of excess body weight, 
        diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, stroke, 
        gallstones, coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, 
        respiratory problems, bladder control problems, psychological 
        disorders (such as depression and eating disorders), certain 
        types of cancer (such as breast, prostate, and colon), as well 
        as exposure via food to environmental toxins and contaminants.
            ``(4) Preventable lifestyle-related diseases are major 
        contributors to poor quality of life and health care 
        expenditures for an increasing proportion of the population. 
        There is a lack of tracking of health behaviors related to 
        dietary intakes and physical activity, via surveys such as the 
        Diet and Health Knowledge Survey, which has not been conducted 
        since 1999.
            ``(5) Preventable dietary and physical activity related 
        diseases cost the economy over $117 billion annually and is 
        predicted to rise to $1.7 trillion in the next ten years. 
        Nevertheless, funding for the national, comprehensive nutrition 
        and health monitoring system has not increased in real dollars 
        since 1992.
            ``(6) The nation commits over $35 billion to Federal food 
        and nutrition assistance and education designed to maintain and 
        improve the health of millions of Americans, but Federal 
        agencies lack adequate data from a statistically valid number 
        of nutritionally vulnerable individuals on dietary and dietary 
        supplement intake, physical activity, food safety, food 
        security and bioterrorism risks, and diet and health knowledge 
        to inform management decisions on Federal nutrition and public 
        health efforts.
            ``(7) Compositional changes in agricultural commodities as 
        a result of new technology, as well as reformulation and 
        development of food products, have brought improvements in the 
        food supply. Any assessment of food consumption patterns and 
        intake must take into consideration product modernization and 
        include newly available estimates of all health promoting 
        components in food.
            ``(8) The USDA and DHHS have relied on data on dietary 
        intake, physical activity, nutritional status, and diet and 
        health knowledge to advise decisions about the `Dietary 
        Guidelines for Americans and the Food Guidance System'.
            ``(9) Substantial Federal resources at the Food and Drug 
        Administration (in this Act referred to as `FDA') are committed 
        to developing food fortification policies, food and nutrition 
        labeling policies, and risk assessments on food additives and 
        contaminants based on the dietary intake data collected by the 
        integrated NHANES.
            ``(10) The Environmental Protection Agency (in this Act 
        referred to as `EPA') cites the dietary intake data from the 
        integrated NHANES as the basis for exposure estimates included 
        in risk assessment of pesticides and toxic substances, but many 
        scientists, including those at EPA, National Institutes of 
        Health (in this Act referred to as `NIH'), and the National 
        Academy of Sciences (in this Act referred to as `NAS') 
        recommend that a larger longitudinal study is needed to collect 
        additional data on the food consumption patterns of infants and 
        children for risk assessments.
    ``(b) Purposes.--The purposes of this Act are as follows:
            ``(1) To reauthorize the National Nutrition Monitoring and 
        Related Research Act of 1990 to strengthen the combined DHHS 
        and USDA nutrition monitoring and research activities.
            ``(2) To affirm and enhance America's commitment to 
        nutrition for all, and to ensure sufficient resources for a 
        national nutrition monitoring system that can support both 
        management decision-making and research needed to address and 
        improve the crisis of obesity, nutrition-related diseases, 
        physical inactivity, food insecurity, and the poor nutritional 
        quality of the American diet, as well as provide the data 
        needed to protect the public against environmental pathogens 
        and contaminants.
            ``(3) To strengthen the scientific and statistical basis 
        for the comprehensive nutrition monitoring system to enable 
        effective management and informed decision-making pertaining to 
        improving outcomes of dietary and physical activity guidance 
        and nutrition education, food and nutrition labeling, food 
        fortification, risk assessments of pesticides, toxic 
        substances, and food additives, and exposure to potential 
        health promoting components of foods.
            ``(4) To enhance the performance and benefits of current 
        Federal nutrition monitoring and related data collection and 
        research activities, and thereby provide a scientific basis for 
        the maintenance and improvement of the nutritional status of 
        the people of the United States and the quality (including 
        nutritive and nonnutritive content) of food supplied and 
        consumed in the United States.
            ``(5) To improve the quality of retrievable national 
        nutritional, physical activity, and health status data, related 
        data bases and networks to improve its value and accessibility 
        for public and private sector decision makers at Federal and 
        State level.
            ``(6) To coordinate the Federal nutrition monitoring 
        activities to provide more timely and useful data for the many 
        health, nutrition, physical activity, food safety, and food 
        security programs and entities that use it; and to stimulate 
        development and adoption of uniform indicators, standards, 
        methodologies, technologies, and procedures for food and 
        nutrition monitoring.
            ``(7) To advance mechanisms for addressing the food, 
        nutrition, and physical activity monitoring needs of the USDA 
        nutrition assistance programs, Federal dietary guidance and 
        nutrition education activities, the USDA Extension Service, the 
        USDA economic, food safety, and human nutrition research 
        programs, the EPA, the Food and Drug Administration, the 
        Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (including the 
        National Center for Health Statistics), the National Institutes 
        of Health, the Department of Defense, the Department of 
        Homeland Security, other Federal data users, State, and local 
        governments, scientific and engineering communities, health 
        professionals, and the public.
            ``(8) To provide for the conduct of such scientific 
        research to ensure that timely collections of nutrition and 
        physical activity monitoring data adequate for program 
        management purposes are completed, and that such data are 
        sufficient for corollary scientific analysis that can 
        contribute to the scientific understanding of human nutrient 
        and food consumption.
            ``(9) To secure ongoing source of funding.'';
            (2) in section 3--
                    (A) by striking paragraphs (1), (3), and (6), and
                    (B) by redesignating paragraphs (2), (4), (5), (7), 
                (8), and (9) as paragraphs (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), and 
                (6), respectively,
            (3) in section 101--
                    (A) by striking subsection (c),
                    (B) by redesignating subsection (b) as subsection 
                (c),
                    (C) by inserting after subsection (a) the 
                following:
    ``(b) Extension of Program.--To carry out the purposes of this Act, 
the 10-year coordinated nutrition monitoring system known as the 
`National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Program' is hereby 
extended for the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment 
of the `National Health, Nutrition, and Physical Activity Monitoring 
Act of 2005'.'',
                    (D) in subsection (d)--
                            (i) in paragraph (1) by striking ``; and'' 
                        and inserting a period,
                            (ii) by striking paragraph (2), and
                            (iii) by striking ``shall-- (1) be'' and 
                        inserting ``shall be'',
            (4) by amending section 102 to read as follows:

``SEC. 102. IN GENERAL.

    ``The Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and 
Human Services shall provide jointly for the--
            ``(1)(A) continuous collection of data that is nationally 
        representative;
            ``(B) periodic collection of data representative, to the 
        extent practicable, of special populations such as, but not 
        limited to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, rural populations, 
        the homeless, and Hispanic Americans, through community Health 
        and Nutrition Examination Surveys;
            ``(C) timely distribution of statistics through publicly 
        accessible channels, to determine the nutritional status, 
        physical activity levels, food security, and food consumption 
        of Americans; and
            ``(D) collaboration and coordination with users of the data 
        to address the nutrition monitoring needs of--
                    ``(i) USDA nutrition assistance programs, Federal 
                dietary guidance, food guidance system, and nutrition 
                education, and USDA Extension Service programs;
                    ``(ii) USDA economic, food safety, and human 
                nutrition research programs;
                    ``(iii) risk assessments of the EPA Office of 
                Pesticides and the EPA Office of Children's Health;
                    ``(iv) risk assessments, fortification decisions 
                and labeling policies of FDA;
                    ``(v) research, education, and programs of Centers 
                for Disease Control and Prevention (including the 
                National Center for Health Statistics), the National 
                Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the 
                Armed Services, the Department of Homeland Security, 
                and other Federal data users;
                    ``(vi) health and nutrition programs of State and 
                local governments; and
                    ``(vii) food and nutrition activities of the 
                private sector (including both the food and dietary 
                supplement industries, scientific and engineering 
                communities, and health professionals) and the public;
            ``(2) analysis of data collected as part of the integrated 
        NHANES, when new data becomes available, and integration with 
        data collected under paragraph (1) to the extent practicable, 
        to determine the nutrition, physical activity, and health 
        status of Americans to guide policy recommendations regarding 
        Federal nutrition programs and dietary and physical activity 
        guidance, as well as estimate dietary exposures of vulnerable 
        groups to environmental pathogens and contaminants, and to 
        compile periodic reports, at least once every 5 years, of 
        trends identifying nutrition, physical activity, and health 
        status concerns that are to be made available to the public;
            ``(3) continuous updating, in consultation with public and 
        private stakeholders and relevant professional groups, of the 
        food composition tables, using all reliable nutrient 
        composition data and all available resources to analyze foods, 
        to keep tables current with the food supply in the marketplace 
        for maximum usefulness in program design, and management and 
        evaluation, as well as scientific research;
            ``(4) development of data collection methods and standards 
        for analyses that could be used by USDA or made available to 
        other entities, for assessment of nutritional and physical 
        activity data;
            ``(5) awarding competitive grants to States, public, and 
        nonprofit entities to encourage and assist local and State 
        governments in collecting and analyzing nutritional and 
        physical activity data, based on the methodology developed for 
        the integrated NHANES or developed under paragraph (4);
            ``(6) provision of competitive grants and other programs to 
        accelerate the development of uniform and cost-effective 
        standards and indicators for the assessment and monitoring of 
        nutritional, dietary, and physical activity status and for 
        relating food consumption and physical activity patterns to 
        nutritional and health status and to further the purposes of 
        and implement the provisions of this Act;
            ``(7) availability of technical assistance, standards, and 
        methodologies, to the extent practicable, to grantees supported 
        by this subsection and other federally funded nutrition 
        programs, to maximize the data quality and comparability with 
        other studies; and
            ``(8) consultation, at least annually, with Federal 
        agencies, State and local governments, the private sector, 
        scientific communities, health professionals, and the public, 
        regarding monitoring and related research needs for determining 
        the nutritional status and physical activity levels of the 
        United States population, especially infants, children, youth, 
        ethnic minorities, and persons with mobility-limiting physical 
        disabilities of all ages.'',
            (5) by striking sections 103, 104, and 105, and inserting 
        the following:

``SEC. 103. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

    ``Nothing in this title may be construed to grant any new 
regulatory authority or to limit, expand, or otherwise modify any 
regulatory authority under existing law, or to establish new criteria, 
standards, or requirements for regulation under existing law.'',
            (6) in section 106--
                    (A) in subsection (a)--
                            (i) by striking ``Committees on Agriculture 
                        and Science, Space, and Technology of the House 
                        of Representatives and to the Committees on 
                        Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, and 
                        Governmental Affairs of the Senate'' and 
                        inserting ``Committee on Agriculture, the 
                        Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on 
                        the Budget, and the Committee on Energy and 
                        Commerce of the House of Representatives, and 
                        to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and 
                        Forestry, the Committee on Appropriations, the 
                        Committee on Budget, and the Committee on 
                        Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of 
                        the Senate'',
                            (ii) by redesignating subsections (a) and 
                        (b) as subsections (c) and (d), respectively, 
                        and
                            (iii) by inserting before subsection (c), 
                        as so redesignated, the following:
    ``(a) There are authorized to be appropriated $44,600,000 for 
fiscal year 2006, $46,200,000 for fiscal year 2007, $47,800,000 for 
fiscal year 2008, $49,500,000 for fiscal year 2009, $51,200,000 for 
fiscal year 2010, $53,000,000 for fiscal year 2011, $54,800,000 for 
fiscal year 2012, $56,700,000 for fiscal year 2013, $58,700,000 for 
fiscal year 2014, and $60,754,500 for fiscal year 2015, for the 
National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention, and $15,525,000 for fiscal year 2006, $16,100,000 for 
fiscal year 2007, $16,700,000 for fiscal year 2008, $17,300,000 for 
fiscal year 2009, $17,900,000 for fiscal year 2010, $18,500,000 for 
fiscal year 2011, $19,100,000 for fiscal year 2012, $19,800,000 for 
fiscal year 2013, $20,500,000 for fiscal year 2014, $22,217,500 for 
fiscal year 2015, for the Agricultural Research Service, to--
            ``(1) collect continuously dietary, health, physical 
        activity, diet and health knowledge data on a nationally 
        representative sample;
            ``(2) collect periodically data on special populations;
            ``(3) distribute data to the public in a timely fashion;
            ``(4) analyze data when new data becomes available;
            ``(5) update continuously food composition tables;
            ``(6) research and develop data collection methods and 
        standards;
            ``(7) provide competitive grants and technical assistance 
        for local and State government data collection and analysis; 
        and
            ``(8) hold annual meeting with stakeholders and users of 
        the data.
    ``(b) The funding for the comprehensive nutrition monitoring should 
include, but not be limited to, continuing the integrated NHANES on at 
least 5000 individuals on an annual basis. An additional $7,000,000 for 
the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention for each fiscal year is authorized to be 
appropriated to plan and commence in fiscal year 2006 and each 
subsequent year, the community Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. 
Additional funds are authorized to be appropriated for Agriculture 
Research Service to commence a food consumption longitudinal survey of 
at least 15,000 individuals in fiscal year 2007.''.
            (7) by striking title II, and
            (8) in title III--
                    (A) in section 301--
                            (i) in subsection (a) by amending paragraph 
                        (1) to read as follows:
    ``(1) In General.--The Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary 
of Health and Human Services shall publish, at least every 10 years, 
coordinated with any other Department effort to set health goals, a 
report entitled `Dietary Guidelines for Americans' that shall be based 
on the preponderance of the nutrition monitoring data and the 
scientific and medical knowledge that is current at the time. This 
publication shall be promoted by each Federal agency in carrying out 
any Federal food, nutrition, or health program and should serve as the 
basis for nutrition education, nutrition information, and food 
assistance programs.'',
                            (ii) in subsection (b)(2) by amending 
                        subparagraph (A) to read as follows:
    ``(A) In General.--(i) During the 60-day review period established 
in paragraph (1), the Secretaries shall review, and approve or 
disapprove, such guidance to assure that the guidance either is 
consistent with the `Dietary Guidelines for Americans' or that the 
guidance is based on medical or new scientific knowledge that is 
determined to comply with the standard of significant scientific 
agreement.
    ``(ii) If after such 60-day period neither Secretary notifies the 
proposing agency that such guidance has been disapproved, then such 
guidance may be issued by the agency. If both Secretaries disapprove of 
such guidance, it shall be returned to the agency.
    ``(iii) If either Secretary finds that such guidance is 
inconsistent with the `Dietary Guidelines for Americans' and so 
notifies the proposing agency, such agency shall follow the procedures 
set forth in this subsection before disseminating such proposal to the 
public in final form.
    ``(iv) If after such 60-day period, either Secretary disapproves 
such guidance as inconsistent with the `Dietary Guidelines for 
Americans' the proposing agency shall--
            ``(I) publish a notice in the Federal Register of the 
        availability of the full text of the proposal and the preamble 
        of such proposal that shall explain the basis and purpose for 
        the proposed dietary guidance;
            ``(II) provide in such notice for a public comment period 
        of 30 days; and
            ``(III) make available for public inspection and copying 
        during normal business hours any comment received by the agency 
        during such comment period.'',
                            (iii) by redesignating section 301 as 
                        section 201, and
                            (iv) by striking section 302, and
                    (B) by redesignating title III as title II.
                                 <all>
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