Harkin Releases Compromise Food Safety Bill

Before taking its August recess, the Senate moved a step closer toward overhauling the Food and Drug Administration and its regulation of food safety.

Before taking its August recess, the Senate moved a step closer toward overhauling the Food and Drug Administration and its regulation of food safety. After months of delay, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and other Senate leaders released a compromise bill that they say has bipartisan support. The bill omits a ban on the use of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic containers, an issue that has been a sticking point.

The food industry, which supports the Senate bill approved by committee last fall and the House-passed legislation, had threatened to fight any measure that banned BPA.

Some highlights of the manager's amendment:  

  • Contains several new provisions, including one requiring FDA to test methods for rapidly tracking fruits and vegetables, as well as processed foods during an outbreak of food-borne illness; 
  • Authorize $24 million a year through 2015 for a working group to recommend ways to improve surveillance of such illnesses;
  • Require the Health and Human Services secretary to find ways to prevent smuggled food from entering the country, and to consider developing a program to require each food facility and importer to have a unique identification number;
  • Provide whistleblower protections to employees who provide information on food safety violations;
  • Specify that the bill's provisions do not apply to facilities selling only alcohol, and that the HHS secretary cannot recall an alcoholic beverage until the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has had the opportunity to do so;
  • Require FDA to put a search engine on its Web site to provide consumer information on recalled food;
  • Increase FDA inspections of processors and give the agency the authority to demand the recall of tainted products; and 
  • Provide training for facilities to help them comply with new safety regulations and "includes special accommodations for small businesses and farms.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2015 the Senate bill would require FDA to inspect approximately 50,000 food establishments, compared with 7,400 facilities inspected in 2009.

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