Sponsors (11)
The bill aims to protect consumers and honest U.S. honey producers by defining "honey," improving testing, enforcement, and interagency coordination, but it imposes new compliance, testing, reporting, and potential confidentiality and funding burdens that will fall hardest on small packers, regional/artisanal producers, and agency budgets.
Consumers (and taxpayers) will get a clearer, single legal definition of "honey" plus FDA testing and enforcement that reduces adulterated or mislabeled honey on the market.
U.S. beekeepers and honest honey producers will face less unfair competition from adulterated imports and can market products with greater consumer trust, potentially protecting domestic market share.
Federal reporting and improved interagency coordination will give Congress and agencies better data to guide policy and speed enforcement actions against adulterated honey.
Commercial packers, importers, and honey producers will face new testing, reporting, certification, and other compliance costs that could raise prices and strain small operations.
Smaller, regional, or artisanal honey producers and packers may be disproportionately burdened or effectively excluded from markets if standards or testing are narrow or costly.
Although fees are authorized to fund testing, they are only available as provided in appropriations Acts, creating funding uncertainty and possible implementation delays if Congress does not appropriate matching amounts.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Creates a USP-based federal honey standard, requires commercial packers to test/certify/report against economically motivated adulteration, and establishes federal enforcement, fees, and funding.
Introduced March 14, 2025 by W. Greg Steube · Last progress March 14, 2025
Creates a federal honey integrity framework by requiring the Food and Drug Administration to set a US Pharmacopeia-based standard of identity for honey, to report enforcement actions on adulterated or misbranded honey, and to stand up a Honey Integrity Program that requires commercial honey packers to test, certify, and report results for economically motivated adulteration. The program directs federal investigation and laboratory confirmation, allows destruction of confirmed adulterated honey, authorizes fees and appropriations to support operations, and sets short statutory deadlines for the agency to begin implementation.