New House bill aims to peel back banana regulations in childcare

By Camila DeChalus, CNN

(CNN) — A new bipartisan bill passed in the House is aiming to eliminate childcare regulations that critics in the industry say have gone bananas.

Across the country at some daycare centers, workers can open a bag of chips for a toddler but may not be allowed to peel a banana without triggering additional food preparation rules — a regulatory quirk that a bipartisan group of lawmakers is now trying to change.

The legislation, known as the Cutting Red Tape on Child Care Providers Act, passed in the House last week. It aims to create a separate category for foods with a low risk for foodborne illness — like peeled fruits and vegetables — and seeks to prevent childcare providers from being penalized for serving them.

Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state, who sponsored the bill, says this legislation would cut unnecessary red tape that discourages daycare workers from serving fresh fruits and vegetables, though critics argue the issue is more nuanced and question how much impact the bill would have.

“When we have policies that wittingly or unwittingly make Cheetos more accessible to a toddler than fresh fruit, we have a crisis brewing,” Gluesenkamp Perez said, in a video posted on X.

Perez said she confirmed that under regulations in Washington and other states, serving fresh fruit would require a daycare owner to install additional sinks to meet regulations.

Colleen Condon, who owns a daycare facility in Washington, told CNN the bill is necessary because the regulations are overly burdensome.

“What we’re actually experiencing is a system that is burdened with too many regulations,” she said. “If we’re spending all of our time thinking about how we’re going to peel a banana, do all this other stuff like, that’s time. Teachers aren’t engaging with kids, yeah, and doing the actual important work.”

These kitchen upgrades create more barriers for home-based daycare providers, particularly in rural communities, critics argue.

Dana Christiansen, who owns two large Washington daycare facilities and is a board member of the Washington Childcare Centers Association, also told CNN that daycare facilities are overregulated.

“Everybody agrees that health and safety of children is the most important thing. But when you put these things into place that just create hurdles and hurdles and battles and battles, you are just hurting an industry that just runs on really tight margins and can really struggle,” Christiansen said.

Some childcare advocates say standardized food-safety regulations for daycare centers are essential, while also acknowledging that if certain rules can be eliminated without compromising children’s health and well-being, federal regulators should consider doing so.

“The health and safety of children is the most important aspect of running a childcare program, and the providers who do that work take that responsibility very seriously,” Erica Phillips, executive director of the National Association for Family Child Care, told CNN.

She continued, “There are opportunities where we can make sure that the regulations are specific to childcare and not creating an undue burden on them by, requiring them to get a certification, or some other requirement or regulation that doesn’t really fit well with a with a childcare program.”

CNN has reached out to Senate Majority Leader John Thune asking whether his chamber will take up a vote on the House bill.

Christiansen said she is glad Gluesenkamp Perez introduced this bill but urged members of Congress to do more to eliminate costly regulations.

“There’s so much more that I feel like needs to be done. It feels hard that it stopped at fresh fruit,” she said.

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