Food Safety Bill Update

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 10:52:19 AM PDT

The powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee is busy preparing for a legislative trifecta.  On the docket for the coming months are a mega climate change cap and trade bill, health care reform, and food safety reform.  The tentative schedule set by Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) calls for subcommittee and full committee consideration of climate change in May and health care reform in June.  A half-finished working draft of the cap and trade bill has been in circulation for several weeks.  No health care bill has been laid on the table as yet.

Even that much would normally seem overly ambitious.  But interspersed between those two mammoth efforts, the Chair also intends to introduce his food safety bill in May, hold hearings, and then in June schedule mark-ups in subcommittee followed by full committee.  His intent would be to have the bill out of committee and ready for floor action by the July 4 recess.

As we have previously reported, the bulk of the Chairman's mark will be based primarily on the food sections of H.R. 759, the food and drug safety bill introduced by Representatives Dingell (D-MI), Stupak (D-MI), and Pallone (D-NJ).

Separately, the House Agriculture Committee intends to begin a series of food safety hearings, with a building expectation that individual committee members or perhaps the committee as a whole may want to weigh in on food safety legislation in some fashion before the Energy and Commerce bill reaches the floor of the House.  Agriculture Committee member Jim Costa (D-CA), along with seven of his committee colleagues, has introduced the so-called SAFE Feast Act, HR 1332.

The Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over the Food and Drug Administration, whereas the Agriculture Committee has jurisdiction over USDA.  Both agencies control different parts of the food safety regulatory regime.

They also note that the Senate is going with a slower, wait-and-see approach and their actions will likely depend on what the House does first.

Today's House Salmonella Hearing

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 17:08:43 PM PDT

Opening statements, written testimony, and documents for the hearing can be found here.

The Word on the Street About Food Safety Bills

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 10:00:00 AM PDT

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman, D- Calif., told a March 11 hearing, "Our first goal should be to address the problems that plague this program where it currently sits. After we finish that job, we can consider whether a reorganization is necessary, and, if so, how to go about it." As a first step, he said that his committee would move "a strong food safety bill" in the next few months.

He hinted that he would draw from bills by Reps. Bart Stupak and John Dingell, both D-Mich., Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Jim Costa, D-Calif., and Adam H. Putnam, R-Fla.

What does this mean to us? Well, the final bill that passes is going to be a patchwork of the many, many food safety bills currently in Congress. The bills listed here are:

- The Safe FEAST Act of 2009 (H.R.1332) by Costa & Putnam
- The Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009 (H.R.759) by Dingell
- The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (H.R.875) by DeLauro

My recommendation if you want to take action: Email your representative and tell them you want any food safety bill that passes to protect small farms and businesses who do not sell across state lines from an undue regulatory burden. While small farms or businesses that sell locally are not immune from food safety problems, any problems they might cause would be limited to a local area, not spread out nationwide like the food safety disasters of the past several years. This is even more important if your rep is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.