Description: House Joint Memorial 10 would encourage the federal government to ban artificial sweeteners in school meals.
Analyst Note: House Joint Memorial 10 does not set specific policy, but instead conveys the wishes of the Idaho Legislature to the President of the United States, members of the United States Congress, the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
Specifically, the memorial calls for the federal government to “prohibit the inclusion of artificial sweeteners, specifically aspartame, acesulfame potassium, advantame, neotame, saccharin, and sucralose, in all school meal programs administered under federal law.”
In their place, the memorial proposes “the use of real sugar as a natural and locally produced alternative to artificial sweeteners.”
There are several troubling elements to this memorial. The first is the implicit acceptance of the federal government’s continued participation in the unconstitutional administration of school meal programs. No such authority exists anywhere in the U.S. Constitution.
There is a related issue of federalism here. By abdicating its rights and responsibilities to the federal government, the state of Idaho finds itself begging the federal government to implement the state’s preferred policy goals. If the state of Idaho administered its own school meal programs, it wouldn’t need permission.
Finally, the memorial is cronyistic, offering little reason to oppose artificial sweeteners other than vaguely supporting a “precautionary approach” to their use by children.
The bulk of the memorial is spent extolling the local sugar beet industry, highlighting its financial benefit to the state and its “agricultural sustainability.” “Idaho ranks second in the nation for the production of sugar beets,” it boasts, as if that justifies sweeping changes to federal policy.
The memorial’s statement of purpose closes by saying, “Idaho has the chance to lead the way.” Yet, it was less than a year ago that Idaho Legislators were opining about the harms of sugar in products purchased through the SNAP program. Asking the federal government to promote and subsidize “real sugar” isn’t about promoting health; it’s about promoting a favored industry.
