Food Safety Bill in the House

by Jill Richardson

categories: Food Safety, Policy, Politics

Published July 19, 2009 @ 10:08PM PT

There's a food safety bill moving through the House, HR 2749 (a.k.a. The Food Safety Enhancement Act). Here's a timeline of what has happened:

• The House Energy & Commerce committee introduced the bill, which included $1000 "user fees" for "food facilities" (excluding farms and restaurants) and an increased schedule for FDA inspections from on average once a decade to as every 6-18 mos for high risk facilities, every 18 mos to 3 years for low risk facilities, and every 3-4 years for warehouses. The bill also gave the FDA the ability to quarantine foods. You can see more details on it here.
• The House Energy & Commerce committee held a hearing about the bill. For details you can see Part 1 and Part 2.
• The subcommittee within the committee marked up the bill and then passed it. During the markup, the changed the $1000 fees to $500 fees.
• The committee marked up the bill and then passed it. They removed the FDA's ability to quarantine livestock (thanks to some heavy lobbying by the meat industry) and increased the inspections for high risk facilities from every 6-18 mos to every 6-12 mos. They also added a requirement for high risk facilities to submit any positive test results for pathogens to the FDA.
• A backlash started against the bill. The meat industry was opposed to the bill from the start and the packaged food industry was actually for it. However, this backlash came from the grassroots from groups that actually care about sustainable food. On the other hand, Consumers Union strongly supports the bill. You can see their arguments for and against the bill here.
• The bill went to the House Agriculture Committee, where the committee chairman Collin Peterson threatened to prevent the bill from moving forward if it is not changed to meet his demands. Among other things, he does not want the FDA on farms.

And that's where we stand now. The groups who oppose the bill still oppose it. The groups who support it still support it. Both are trying to reach the ears of Congress. And the one with all of the power over whether the bill will move forward is Collin Peterson, whose major motivation is allowing Big Ag to continue business as usual without being bothered by pesky food safety bills. The bill is going to change before it moves out of the Ag committee, and the only questions are how it will change, and whether those changes will be good for us. I'd like to see the bill changed so that it won't affect small farmers and small businesses as much as it does now, but of course I don't want to see any of the regulations on big business watered down. I don't know what Collin Peterson's plans are, but I'll keep an eye out for interviews with him and update you if I hear anything.