两党领导层领导代表Chellie Pingree（D-ME）和代表Dan Newhouse（R-WA）介绍Food Date Labeling Act（H.R. 3981）8月1日向国会致国会。新法案旨在将整个美国的日期标签标准化，以应对日期之前，使用和最佳的复杂销售系统。
“食品标签对于消费者教育很重要，但是当前的实践令人困惑和过时，”说众议员纽豪斯。尽管许多消费者使用日期标签作为食品安全的参考，但大多数日期仅表示产品的峰值质量。这不仅导致混乱，而且导致了数百万吨不必要的食物。众议员Newhouse说：“该法案通过帮助消费者了解日期标签的含义，迈向减少食物浪费的一步。”
根据到Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)和哈佛食品法和政策诊所（FLPC）, date labelling emerged in the mid-20th century when Americans began to move from rural to urban communities. Away from their food source and increasingly reliant on grocery stores, people lost their ability to judge the freshness of food and began to demand standards and verification.
Although appeals for a nation-wide date labeling system emerged in the 1970s, none gained federal approval. Instead, the NRDCnotesthat states and manufacturers began to create their own date labeling standards—resulting in approximately 50 different date labeling terms across the United States. For example, Montana requires a sell by date within 12 days of pasteurization for milk while Pennsylvania requires a date within 17 days. And New Hampshire places a sell by date on cream—but not on milk while New York has no requirements for milk or dairy date labels.
“Most Americans don’t know the ‘best by’ date label on items at the grocery store aren’t based on safety or science. These completely arbitrary food date labels are confusing and costly for customers,”说Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who introduced the companion bill to push for consideration in the Senate. “Our commonsense measure to establish a uniform national date labeling system would provide consumers with clarity—helping them save money on their grocery bills and preventing perfectly safe food from going to waste,” states Blumenthal.
在整个食物链中，消费者在美国，产生的食物浪费比任何其他部门都多，包括零售，运输或农业。这使美国四口之家平均每年至少1,500美元。食物浪费的生态效应也有害：环境保护署（EPA）found食物浪费是美国垃圾填埋场废物最大的组成部分，它发出了甲烷等温室气体。
While consumers shoulder a majority of the responsibility, the Food Date Labeling Act provides an opportunity to reduce household food waste with a unified labelling system. In addition, lawmakers hope it could simplify food redistribution to hunger assistance programs. “Estimates indicate that around 90 percent of Americans prematurely throw out perfectly safe food, in part because of confusion about what date labels mean, meanwhile 38.4 million Americans are food insecure,”说Rep. Pingree. “This bill is an opportunity for the federal government to reduce confusion across the food supply chain and make sure no one is going hungry or inadvertently hurting our environment.”
