Senator's bill calls for levy on soda

... and they're starting with (drum roll, please).....the school children!!

By Andrew LaMar - CONTRA COSTA TIMES

'To educate a mind in knowledge and not in morals is to create a menace to society.' - Theodore Roosevelt

SACRAMENTO, CA - With obesity increasingly becoming a problem for California's schoolchildren, one state lawmaker is proposing a tax on soda to discourage consumption and pay for programs intended to guide kids to healthier living.

Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, said her legislation will help highlight the growing trouble children have controlling their weight while at the same time offering schools an incentive to drop lucrative contracts to sell certain brands of soda on their campuses. "All I'm saying is let's have them (soda drinks) made available in other places than schools," Ortiz said. "Our children are there six and eight hours a day. They are a captive audience there."

If enacted, the bill would create the first soft drink surcharge in the nation dedicated to combating obesity.

To accomplish Ortiz's goal, SB1520 would charge manufacturers and distributors 21 cents for every gallon of bottled pop and $2 for every gallon of soft drink syrup used to create the drinks in soda fountains.

The cost would amount to two cents for a 12-ounce can, a price expected to be passed onto consumers.

The tax would generate an estimated $342 million a year, according to the Board of Equalization, and half would go to schools that quit selling soda on their campuses. One-quarter would be sent to the state Department of Health Services to promote nutrition and exercise, and one-quarter would be distributed to hospitals, clinics and trauma centers. Although the measure has yet to receive a legislative hearing -- it is scheduled to be taken up by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on April 10 -- it has prompted vigorous debate among school officials, health professionals, soda manufacturers and lawmakers.

Few dispute that the high number of children experiencing weight problems presents a grave public health concern. Obesity can lead to heart disease, diabetes and stroke, among other maladies.

Physical exams conducted by schools last year showed that 30 percent of California children in fifth, seventh and ninth grades are overweight. Meanwhile, a study last week in the New England Journal of Medicine said across the nation, 20 percent of preschoolers are overweight.

The trend worries doctors, who say a large portion of today's children are laying the foundation for a lifetime of health woes.

"From the soft drink perspective, we don't think you can single out this product as the villain in obesity," said Robert Achermann, a lobbyist for the California Nevada Soft Drink Association. "There are many, many causes to obesity. Calories cause obesity. If you don't burn off those calories, they stay. So where do we draw the line in taxing?"

The surcharge creates a "sin tax" similar to the government tariffs on tobacco and alcohol products that is unjustified, Achermann said. That would produce an especially heavy burden for soda, which is already subject to a sales tax and another charge to fund recycling, he said.

"We are a low-margin, high-volume business," Achermann said. "When you put that kind of tax into the mix, it's going to have an impact on sales."

But the bill's supporters dispute that the surcharge will hurt sales much and even so, they believe soda deserves the dubious distinction.

Dr. Harold Goldstein, who is the director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, said soft drinks are unique because they provide sugar, calories and no nutritional value.

Recent studies indicate that teen-age boys consume twice as much, and girls three times as much, sugar as recommended. For girls, 40 percent of their sugar comes from soft drinks, and for boys, it's 50 percent.

"No one is saying soda is the only cause of the obesity epidemic, but it is a major contributing factor," Goldstein said.

Local consumers surveyed by the Times said the surcharge probably wouldn't affect their soda drinking habits, but questioned whether it was fair.

"I don't think everybody should pay for a tax for the people who drink so much that it makes them obese," said 18-year-old Brian Mortensen of Concord.

Meanwhile, Ortiz's bill has also shined a light on the practice of school districts signing contracts with soda makers to exclusively sell their brand on campuses and at athletic events. Such arrangements are common, for instance, in the Mt. Diablo school district in Contra Costa.

Many schools have pursued the contracts as one way to make up for a shortfall in government funding for hot lunches and supplement paying for athletics and other extracurricular programs, said Kevin Gordon, executive director of the California Association of School Business Officials.

Hot lunches cost schools near $1.50 each, but state and federal funding generally comes up 40 cents short, Gordon said. As soda makers pushed exclusive contracts as part of marketing to children, many schools went willingly along for the cash, he said.

"When you have that kind of financial squeeze," Gordon said, "there's intense pressure to make sure your school food service programs operate in a way that doesn't hurt funds for educational programs."

Gordon praised Ortiz for establishing a financial incentive in the bill for schools to scrap their soda contracts.

The concept, however, irks state Sen. Tom McClintock, a Republican from Thousand Oaks known for his fiscal conservatism and opposition to government intervention.

"Once government assumes the role of nanny, there's no end to the minute details of our lives that it will try to regulate and no end to the fees it will charge us to do so," McClintock said. "My children's diet is the business of our family and nobody else's and it's certainly none of Ms. Ortiz's business."

There's not much of a leap from soda to cheeseburgers and other high-cholesterol foods, he added.

Some schools aren't waiting for Ortiz's legislation to take action.

Creekside Middle School in Castro Valley is nearing the end of a seven-year contract with Pepsi and recently carted off its soda machines.

Virginia Allerton, director of food services for the Castro Valley school district, said she was glad to see them go. "We were making quite a statement. I was behind it 100 percent."

Submitted to the Observer by Federal Observer columnist,
Theresa Harmon,
The Wilson County Parents Coalition

Editor's Note: The fourth "S" stands for s&*# - as in 'what a crock of.....'

Related Links:

Contact Theresa Harmon

The Wilson County Parents Coalition