Bush to Seek to End Feud Over Food Labeling Rules

WASHINGTON —  President Bush will try to end a quiet feud over food labeling next week when he calls two Cabinet members to the White House to work out their differences, an official said Friday.

The dispute is over whether new rules would result in consumers getting too much fat in their diet or too much chaff on their food labels.

Bush’s meeting Monday with Agriculture Secretary Edward R. Madigan and Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan is supposed to settle the issue, although an immediate announcement was not expected, an Administration official said.

The Food and Drug Administration wants a nutrition chart on the labels that details such contents as cholesterol, fat and calories. The chart would give the amounts of each nutrient and also would show that as a percentage of daily nutritional needs.

Agriculture Department officials complained that the chart would be confusing because different people have different nutritional needs. That has brought criticism from consumer groups and Congress, charging that the Agriculture Department is trying to protect the meat industry.

The FDA, which is part of Sullivan’s department and regulates non-meat food items, was complying with a law passed by Congress in 1990, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. Although the Agriculture Department, which regulates meat, was not covered by the law it was going to comply voluntarily so food labels would be uniform. The alternative would be to have one kind of label for foods that contain meat and another for foods that do not.