WASHINGTON — School meal changes will be one of the hot topics on Capitol Hill this year as lawmakers will focus on only a handful of priorities for the produce industry before election year politics takes over by summer’s end.

“Whatever gets done in Congress will get done in the next six months,” said Robert Guenther, senior vice president for public police at United Fresh Produce Association.  

On top of the agenda is the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, but Guenther said United Fresh will continue to push for drought legislation and other legislative items. 

Produce groups beat back an attempt to change the focus of the “fresh” fruit and vegetable requirements in the catch-all spending bill last month, and United Fresh is expecting another challenge when Congress debates the Child Nutrition Reauthorization. The popular program introduces low-income, school-aged children to a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.

“Of course, immigration reform is always top of mind,” he said, adding that the focus during the presidential election year will shift to regulatory changes to the H-2A program. 

Unsettled issues such as truck weight reforms that failed to pass late last year could surface again. One of the few must-pass pieces of legislation this year is a government spending bill, and United Fresh is looking at what’s on its agenda that can be discussed with lawmakers on the powerful House and Senate Appropriations Committees, Guenther said.

But with the election heating up, much of the action in Washington will come from federal agencies, and the produce industry will be closely watching the roll-out of the Food Safety Modernization Act.

“FSMA is the big deal,” said Kathy Means, vice president of industry relations at the Produce Marketing Association.

With five rules on the books, the Food & Drug Administration is expected to release two more regulations this year on sanitary transportation and intentional adulteration.

“We’re in education mode with our members,” Guenther said.

Means said FDA is expected to release final changes to the Nutrition Facts panel and serving sizes that will require food companies to repackage products. While nutrition labeling is voluntary for produce, “we encourage everyone to do it because we have such a good nutrition story,” she said.

PMA is also keeping an eye on FDA’s new initiative to define the term “natural.”

Other looming issues include Congressional approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal with 12 Pacific Rim countries, and legislation to pre-empt state laws on genetically engineered foods and create a federal voluntary GE labeling system.

Congress made a policy reversal last year that could have been damaging to a variety of produce companies when it passed legislation to repeal the controversial provisions of the country-of-origin labeling program for beef and pork products.

Fruit and vegetable companies would have felt the sting from Canada and Mexico’s retaliatory tariffs if the COOL regulations were not repealed.

Means said PMA was pleased by the congressional action as it took years for markets to bounce back after tariffs were slapped on U.S. products during a trucking dispute with Mexico.