Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - July 12, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

By Mr. DURBIN (for himself and Mr. Brown):

S. 1776. A bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to establish a user fee program to ensure food safety, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to strengthen the ability of the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, to ensure the safety of food imported into the U.S.

The volume of food imports has increased significantly in recent years, from $45.6 billion in 2003 to $64 billion in 2006. According to the USDA, imported food accounts for 13 percent of the average American's diet, including 31 percent of fruits, juices, and nuts; 9.5 percent of red meat; and 78.6 percent of fish and shellfish.

This upward trend in imported food has been accompanied by an increasing number of health and safety incidents related to imported food products. In the past 6 months, we have seen what appears to be the intentional contamination of wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate with melamine, which is an industrial product that should never find its way into food products. In addition, we recently learned that a significant volume of imported fish products from China have been contaminated with chemicals and residues, including Malachine green and Nitrofuren. We have found imported Chinese toothpaste in the U.S. that was contaminated with diethylene glycol, which is a toxic component used in antifreeze.

Unfortunately, the FDA currently lacks the resources and authority to adequately determine the quality and safety of food imports, inspect an adequate volume of imported food, and rapidly detect and respond to incidents of contaminated imports. This legislation would take several steps to correct these problems.

First, the bill would impose a fee for the FDA's oversight of imported food products. These fees would generate revenues to be used for inspections of imported food and critical food safety research. The legislation directs the FDA to use some of this funding to perform cutting-edge research to develop testing technologies and methods that would quickly and accurately detect the presence of pervasive contaminants such as E. coli and listeria. The legislation would also establish a food importer certification program that would require foreign firms and governments to demonstrate that their food safety systems are equivalent to ours.

What has been made clear through the pet food recall and other outbreaks of foodborne illnesses is that the FDA is a severely underfunded and understaffed agency. Much of the responsibility for overseeing and inspecting the safety of imported food rests with the FDA. However, due to fairly flat budgets and increasing responsibilities, the number of inspectors looking at these shipments has actually decreased from more than 3,000 inspectors in 2003 to the present level of around 2,700 inspectors.

The Centers for Disease Control, CDC, estimates that 76 million Americans become sick from foodborne illnesses each year. More than 300,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die each year. Less than 1.5 percent of imported food is inspected by the FDA and the FDA lacks the resources and authorities to certify the standards of our trading partners. This situation presents an economic, public health, and bioterrorism risk to the U.S.

The FDA office that is responsible for regulating more than $60 billion of imported food, the Center for Food Safety and Nutrition, CFSAN, is also responsible for regulating $417 billion worth of domestic food and $59 billion in cosmetics. All of this activity is regulated by an office for which the President requested $467 million in fiscal year 2008. Only $312 million of that amount would be for inspectors. We clearly need to review FDA's funding to make sure that it has the resources necessary to safeguard the 80 percent of our food supply that it is responsible for regulating. For this reason, a group of my colleagues and I sent a letter earlier this year to the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds the FDA, asking for a significant increase in the level of funding for the FDA foods program.

But imports present a special challenge. It may cost more to ensure the safety of food produced in other countries, and the logistical challenges are greater. It is important that we supplement the FDA's budget with additional funding streams to make sure that it has the resources necessary to safeguard our food supply from contaminated imports.

Specifically this legislation would direct the FDA to collect a user fee on imported food products, for the administrative review, processing, and inspection costs borne by the FDA. The legislation would use that funding to bolster FDA's import inspection program, which currently inspects less than 1.5 percent of all imports. It would also fund critical research into rapid testing technologies for detecting foodborne pathogens.

Lastly, this bill would establish an imported food certification program. Today, any country and any company can export food products to the United States as long as they inform regulators of the shipment. No checks are performed to ensure that the producer has adequate sanitary standards. The FDA does not ensure that trading partners have equivalent regulatory systems or inspect overseas plants when problems arise.

When the FDA does want to investigate an outbreak, it can be delayed by uncooperative foreign governments. For example, during the pet food recall, U.S. regulators were delayed three weeks in their request for visas to inspect facilities.

This new program would mark a watershed change in the food import safety posture of the U.S. This bill says that if you want a slice of the lucrative U.S. market, you have to comply with the same common-sense standards that apply to U.S. food producers. You have to have equivalent food safety systems and processes in place to those of the U.S. You need to give U.S. regulators access to your facilities and records so they can check your safety record without unnecessary delay. In addition, U.S. regulators would have the power to revoke the certification of a company or country that fails to comply, and to detain products that fail to meet U.S. standards.

For too long, we have gone without a solid safety standard for imported foods. Instead, our regulators jump from alert to alert and recall to recall. This legislation would close these loopholes that allow dangerous imports into our country and put a solid, proactive system in place to protect our food supply.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

S. 1776

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source