Food and Fuel Control Act

Food and Fuel Control Act

Other short titles	Lever Food Act
Long title	An Act to provide further for the national security and defense by encouraging the production, conserving the supply, and controlling the distribution of food products and fuel.
Nicknames	Lever Act
Enacted by	the 65th United States Congress
Effective	August 10, 1917
Citations
Public law	65-41
Statutes at Large	40 Stat. 276
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 4961 by Asbury Lever (D-SC) on June 23, 1917 Passed the House on July 21, 1917 (81-6) Passed the Senate on July 23, 1917 (51-8) Reported by the joint conference committee on August 2, 1917; agreed to by the House on August 3, 1917 (360-0) and by the Senate on August 8, 1917 (66-7) Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on August 10, 1917

The Food and Fuel Control Act, Pub.L. 65–41, 40 Stat. 276, enacted August 10, 1917, also called the Lever Act or the Lever Food Act was a World War I era US law that among other things created the United States Food Administration and the Federal Fuel Administration.

The act was a very controversial piece of legislation. The act was sponsored by Rep. Asbury F. Lever, a Democrat from South Carolina. President Wilson urged its passage as a wartime emergency measure. Some opposed the authority that would rest in the person of the "Food Administrator." Others opposed language that empowered the president to limit or prohibit the use of agricultural products in the production of alcoholic beverages, thereby establishing a form of national prohibition. Senators proposed alternatives, including a prohibition on the production of whiskey alone for the duration of the war. Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge objected to the language that authorized the president to "use any agency or agencies, to accept the services of any person without compensation, to cooperate with any person or persons in relation to the processes, methods, activities of and for the production manufacture, procurement, storage, distribution, sale, marketing, pledging, financing, and consumption of necessaries which are declared to be affected with a public interest." Wilson also had to fight off the proposal of Massachusetts Republican Senator John W. Weeks to establish instead a Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War.

Its official name was "An Act to Provide Further for the National Security and Defense by Encouraging the Production, Conserving the Supply, and Controlling the Distribution of Food Products and Fuel" and became law on August 10, 1917. It banned the production of "distilled spirits" from any produce that was used for food.

In 1918, faced with complaints from farmers that the Food Administration created under the Act had set the minimum price of wheat too low, Congress passed an amendment increasing that level from $2.20 to $2.40 per bushel. The President's veto out of concerns about inflation and the impact on the British, is credited with producing disastrous results for Democrats in the 1918 elections in the states of the grain belt.

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