Food Safety Comes Home For Harry Reid

by: Jill Richardson

Sun Sep 20, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

H.B. 2749 is now in the U.S. Senate, assigned to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.  The HELP Committee is now taking up both H.B. 2749 and S. 501 introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL).

Senior Democratic staff to the HELP Committee last month said with the focus on health care reform, it was unlikely the committee would get to food safety legislation this fall.  Durbin, who is Majority Whip, does not want to wait that long and from Reid's letter, it appears the Majority Leader now agrees with him.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) is the new HELP Committee chairman.  He says he wants to take up a "modified" version of Durbin's bill.

H.R. 2749 is the food safety bill that passed the House. Durbin's bill, S. 501, is the Senate version of H.R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act. A major difference between the two bills is that H.R. 2749 assesses fees to food facilities to fund increased inspections by the USDA. I had assumed that the Senate was moving slowly on food safety because they are so focused on health care, but it looks like food safety may happen after all. I am looking out for good talking points for us, but for now it would suffice to write your Senators, saying that you wish to have safe food but not at the expense of sustainable agriculture and small farmers. Ask your Senators to make sure the bill that moves forward protects the needs of small farmers and sustainable/organic agriculture.

Food Safety News is a new site by internationally recognized food safety lawyer Bill Marler.

A Blue Dog's Take on the Food Safety Bill

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Aug 20, 2009 at 15:00:00 PM PDT

UPDATE: Please note in the comments that Kratovil's district includes the headquarters of Perdue chicken.

Food Safety He Said She Said

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jul 31, 2009 at 10:07:09 AM PDT

Liveblogging the Food Safety Debate x 2

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 13:22:43 PM PDT

I'll note any interesting points in this debate in the comments here but so far Dingell is repeating what he said earlier today.

UPDATE: It appears that the debate is done. I think (if I am interpreting things right) that they are talking about whether or not to send the bill back to the Energy & Commerce committee with some amendments and have the E&C committee vote on the bill (sending it back to the full House for a vote).

Dingell doesn't like the amendment, which would designate how the FDA can spend the money gathered in the $500 fees from this bill. It says that 50% of the money goes to the purchase of food, and Dingell says that FDA does not purchase food.

UPDATE #2: Dingell calls out a Republican claim that the bill doesn't require the FDA to use the $500 fees on inspections. He said that it does do that. And he says that this amendment here would take money away from inspections and instead require to use half the money to purchase food, which isnt something the FDA does.

UPDATE #3: They are taking a 15 min vote on the motion to recommit - which I believe would add the amendment that takes 50% of the money for inspections and uses it to pay businesses who lose money when the FDA screws up. Following that they are taking a 5 minute vote, and I believe that is for the bill itself.

Liveblogging Food Safety Debate

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 11:53:51 AM PDT

Now there's wingnut Virginia Foxx speaking. She's ticked off at the manipulation of the House rules to try to ram through legislation (so am I) - although I would guess that her actual complaint is that the Democrats are in power and that they are passing legislation she doesn't like. She wants to score political points against Nancy Pelosi, period.

I will continue liveblogging in the comments.

Statements on the (Perhaps Temporary) Defeat of the Food Safety Bill

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jul 29, 2009 at 22:26:22 PM PDT

Here are a few articles and statements on the bill's vote today:

• Des Moines Register: Food Safety Bill Fails, Gets Another Shot Thursday
• Center for Rural Affairs: Democracy Denied

I've pasted statements by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and Consumers Union below.

Food Safety Bill Update (Vote Will Be Tomorrow)

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jul 29, 2009 at 19:13:23 PM PDT

The bill was voted upon today under special rules that required 2/3 of those present voted for it instead of a simple majority. It fell 8 votes short of passing. Had it only required a simple majority, it would have passed overwhelmingly, as the House has 435 members and the bill got 280 votes. Essentially, given the goofy rules requiring 2/3 of those present in order to pass it, it was set up to fail. You can see who voted for it on the House website - 230 Dems and 50 Republicans voted for it; 23 Dems and 127 Republicans voted against it. A list of the 23 Dems who voted against it is below. What I find interesting is that some really fantastic Congresscritters like Lynn Woolsey voted against the bill (and so did some rotten Blue Dog Dems). No doubt Rep. Woolsey wants food safety reform and her vote was in protest of how the bill would unfairly impact small farmers... that's my guess anyway, and I'll see if I can find out for sure.

Despite the failure to pass the bill today, they will vote on it AGAIN tomorrow. I have NO idea why a second vote is allowed (just as I have no idea why they required a 2/3 vote this first time around) but I'll look into that. For more details on what's going on, check out the Rules Committee report from today.

One last thing to note: Roy Blunt voted against the bill... and his wife is Kraft's top lobbyist (although she supposedly doesn't lobby the House).

The Food Safety Vote is Today

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jul 29, 2009 at 11:22:44 AM PDT

Rep Boehner- Ohio (202) 225-6205
Rep. Cantor- Virgina 202.225-2815
Rep Lucas- Oklahoma (202) 225-5565

I realize the sustainable food community is split over their feelings on this bill. It does some fantastic, very necessary things that will save lives. It also contains provisions that are questionable or even harmful in their impact on small producers. I don't feel justified in telling you which side to come down on. There is one amendment, known as the Farr-Kaptur amendment, that will make the bill much more favorable to small farmers and producers. If that amendment is included, then I am absolutely in favor of the bill.

Without that amendment, I am leaning towards supporting the bill as well. Remember - we CAN still get pieces of the bill changed and improved in the Senate so the version the House passes is NOT what Obama will eventually sign. The sustainable farmers started working on this bill pretty late in the game - perhaps too late. They'll be more on top of things in the Senate and we can get a better bill there even if the House bill is passed with flaws in it.

Additionally, you can see all of the House's roll call votes online so once the vote takes place, you can see how your Representative voted.

Food Safety Bill Will Be Voted on Tomorrow or Wed

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Jul 27, 2009 at 13:49:48 PM PDT

To pass under suspension of the rules, a bill must receive the support of 2/3rds of the members voting, a quorum being present. A quorum for purposes of suspensions is 218. If all members are present and voting, we will need 290 YEAs to pass the bill.

I don't know why they are using these special rules, but I have heard from at least one source that we will probably have the votes to pass the bill. What is most important to us right now is to ask our legislators to please support the Farr-Kaptur amendment to the bill, so that the bill is as non-harmful as possible to small producers who do not pose much threat to our food system.

Details on the Farr-Kaptur Amendment

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jul 24, 2009 at 08:08:04 AM PDT

ACTION: Support the Farr-Kaptur Food Safety Amendment

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jul 23, 2009 at 17:16:37 PM PDT

Two organizations - the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) have really stepped up to ensure that the bill is fair to small farmers. Here is some text from a recent PASA email (I haven't been able to locate the exact language of the Farr-Kaptur amendment yet):

To date we have achieved some things we can be proud of, including exemption for direct marketers from most traceability requirements (including for sales to restaurants and grocery stores), and now including some clear language in the bill to define what on-farm processing activities might be exempt from FDA registration as well.  Things are still in flux as I write, but we believe all such processing will be exempt as long as 50% or more of sales (including by Internet and mail order) are made directly to individuals (i.e. retail, as opposed to wholesale). And a huge gain just this week will likely be another exemption on sales of feedstuffs for livestock from one farmer to another, which had been included in the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 (thaaat's right...) as an activity requiring registration.  There have been other gains in specific wording of the bill, too detailed to enumerate in this email right now.

But we're still disappointed that the fee being assessed to eligible businesses, including some on farms, will be the flat rate of $500 instead of our preferred sliding scale for smaller operations, including a minimum size below which no fee would be charged.  We in fact would prefer to see a much higher fee paid by the largest food processing companies, from which most food safety issues seem to emanate in any case -- but that may not be achievable at this point. We also have other language we'd like to see in the bill that would focus attention on high risk aspects of food production, protect organic farmers from duplicative paperwork and expand the research agenda into more diversified systems.  All of these concerns are contained in an amendment being sponsored by Representatives Farr, Kaptur and others that E&C [Energy & Commerce Committee] must deal with if they expect to get their two-thirds vote to limit debate.

The bottom line from this email is: We need you to call, email, or fax your representatives ASAP and ask them to support the Farr-Kaptur amendment to H.R.2749.

Also... if you'd like to speak with your credit card, I'm sure PASA and MOFGA would appreciate your donations :)

Making Sausage

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 17:46:39 PM PDT

The text of the bill isn't available online yet, so we don't know how different it looks from the draft version released a few weeks ago. The markup session for the bill appears to be TOMORROW (Wednesday, June 10). This will begin in the subcommittee on health at 10am, followed by the full committee at 1:30pm. More info below...