NAMA’s government affairs team and the California state council (CAVC) worked with coalition partners in the beverage industry to help deliver an important legislative victory late last week related to ongoing work with food labeling and taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages.
NAMA’s California state grassroots effort joined industry partners to help defeat a bill involving sugar-sweetened beverage tax in the California Senate Appropriations Committee. Senate Bill 622, introduced last year by Senator Monning, would have imposed a $.01 per ounce tax on every distributor of sweetened beverages in the state of California. The bill was held on suspense in the Senate Appropriations Committee and cannot be reintroduced, making it dead for the year, reported NAMA.
“Most important in this victory is that it represents our ongoing work to support the industry on issues that could have a negative impact on our members,” said Sandy Larson, NAMA’s senior director of government affairs, in a prepared statement.
“While we will continue our commitment to provide tools to ensure the health and well-being of children, we believe further taxing distributors of sweetened beverages is unfair and not a viable answer,” she continued.
