Metro

Obama rejects Bloomberg-style soda tax in new healthy-food guidelines

WASHINGTON – There will be no push for a Mike Bloomberg-style soda tax from the Obama Administration’s forthcoming healthy food guidelines.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell told the House Agriculture Committee Wednesday that despite an advisory panel urging in February that sugary soda drinks be taxed to cut consumption, that would not be part of new dietary guidelines being issued this year.

“We do not believe that that is something in scope of the work that we are doing,” Burwell told the committee.

When he was mayor, Bloomberg tried — and failed — to limit soda sales first through a tax and then through portion limits.

In other testimony, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the advisory panel’s recommendations for environmentally sustainable foods were also being scrapped.

“That’s not within the scope. It’s not dietary. It’s not nutrition and it doesn’t belong in this context,” Vilsack said of the tax and sustainable-eating suggestions.

“There’s probably many other ways in which that conversation should be taken and should be had.”

Dr. Thomas Farley, Bloom­berg’s health commissioner, urged the feds to reconsider making sodas more expensive.

“A soda tax is the simplest way to reduce consumption of sugary drinks, which are the biggest single contributor to the obesity epidemic in this country,” the architect behind Bloomberg’s anti-soda push told The Post.

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) questioned why the soda tax was even mentioned in the advisory committee’s report.

“When I see issues like tax on sodas and other things being recommended it seems to me that ideology is taking precedent over science and that creates a tremendous credibility gap,” Scott said.

Dr. Barbara Millen, who chaired the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee that touted the soda tax, defended the recommendations and downplayed any controversy as misguided.

“As long as we keep bogged down in very narrowly focused issues that detract from the bigger picture, we won’t make any headway and that would really be unfortunate” when millions are suffering from preventable diseases,” Millen told The Post.

The dietary guidelines are released every five years and affect everything from food labels, doctors’ advice and school lunches. The advisory committee recommended a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and limited in red meat, added sugar and sodium. The final guidelines are expected in December.