Thank you for contacting my office to share your thoughts on H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act (FESA) of 2009. As your Representative, I am guided by the perspectives of my constituents, and I appreciate you taking the time to convey your opinion on this important issue.
On June 8, 2009, Representative John Dingell introduced H.R. 2749, and the bill was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. This legislation is aimed at revamping our food safety system by increasing inspection of food facilities, establishing a food tracing system, and assessing fees related to food facility registration, re-inspection, and recall. On July 29th, H.R. 2749 was brought to the House floor under suspension of the rules, requiring a two-thirds majority for passage. Under this set of rules, FESA failed to achieve the requisite number of votes. The legislation was then brought to another vote the following day, under a closed rule, which requires a simple majority for passage. While I appreciate and share the goal of making improvements to our nation's food safety system, a number of concerns have been raised regarding the impact that some of this legislation's provisions would have on small farmers and others in the agricultural community. As a result of these lingering concerns, I reluctantly opposed H.R. 2749 in both of these votes. However, since the legislation did pass the House of Representatives and it is now pending in the Senate, I am hopeful that sufficient changes might be made to the bill either in the Senate or in a conference committee to allow me to support the legislation when it returns to the House for final passage.
There is no doubt that the safety of our national food supply should be a top priority for the federal government. Recent salmonella outbreaks related to pepper and peanut products have caused the United States to stand up and take notice of the problems that exist in our food safety system. Some of these problems relate to the historic underfunding of the Food and Drug Administration's mandate to inspect certain food facilities while additional problems are the result of bad actors ignoring the fact that tests proved their product to be tainted as was the case with Georgia's Peanut Corporation of America. I commend my colleague Rep. John Dingell for taking up the cause of ensuring the safety of our food supply. However, while H.R. 2749 did pass the House Energy and Commerce Committee by voice vote on June 17th, there were still many concerns expressed by the agriculture and business communities. These concerns included: new fees to be assessed for facility inspection; on farm powers given to the Food and Drug Administration; hefty civil penalties for unintentional violations; and significant questions about how federal, state, and local governments would coordinate efforts. Some efforts were made to address these issues, but it was clear that not all concerns were adequately addressed by the time the bill was brought to a vote before the full House.
Furthermore, a number of my colleagues had called for H.R. 2749 to be referred to the House Committee on Agriculture for a markup of the farm-related provisions of the bill. However, this request was denied. Absent of a full committee markup, the Agriculture Committee held four hearings related to food safety. Members of the agriculture community provided testimony as late as July 16th regarding their strong reservations about parts of the bill. As a result of this testimony, Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson and Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman were able to reach an agreement on a number of changes to the bill's farm-related provisions, but a number of agricultural stakeholders still brought to my attention their continuing concerns about flaws in the legislation. As your elected Representative, I believe that I have an obligation to work towards the best possible legislation, and so I was not satisfied to vote for an improved but still flawed bill just to move the process forward.
The Senate is expected to take up their version of food safety legislation when Congress returns from the August district work period. If the Senate is able to pass a bill, a conference between the two chambers will take place. I hope that the conference will be able to generate a stronger bill that all parties can support. When the final legislation is produced, I will carefully review the legislation and look for input from all stakeholders. I will ultimately make the decision to vote in a way that is in the best interest of my constituents in the First District.
