Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this continuing resolution. This deals with the responsibility that we have to fund the government so that it can function.

This bill represents some really hard choices. It freezes discretionary funding--and this is a point that should not be lost--at a time when we are looking at those on the other side of the aisle that would pass a tax package that would benefit the richest 3 percent of the people in this Nation. The richest 3 percent of the people in this Nation will get a tax cut, and some people have the temerity to propose an estate tax to the one-quarter of one percent of the richest people in this Nation while folks in this country and kids are going hungry.

The chairman should be commended for closing the Pell Grant shortfall and for including critical investments in services needed to keep people from falling through the cracks. I commend him for the small and modest funds dedicated to early childhood programs such as Head Start and childcare.

As the chair of the Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, this bill continues the important and necessary investments that we made last year in agricultural research, rural investment, nutrition and food aid, conservation, and, yes, the public health. It says that a key Federal agency like the Food and Drug Administration will have the resources it needs to meet its important responsibilities to the American people to combat the continuing economic crisis and to provide food and nutrition that millions of Americans currently rely on.

This resolution includes language that allows the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other crucial entitlement programs to be funded at the levels necessary to maintain participation in the current fiscal year. One out of five families is today on food stamps. One out of four children is going to bed hungry every single night in the United States of America.

I urge my colleagues today to support this bill, with all of its difficulties. It keeps the government functioning, and we make modest, modest progress in aiding the current economic crisis.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this continuing resolution, and especially the food safety provisions. They represent a good first step in reforming our food safety system and reducing food-borne illness.

This House passed much stronger food safety legislation in July 2009. The bill before us today still includes critical reforms and deserves our support. It provides the FDA with several authorities that will help the agency better prevent food-borne illnesses.

These include increased inspection of high-risk facilities, expanded authority to inspect records relating to recalls, the creation of a more accurate food facility registry, improved traceability in the event of an illness outbreak, and certification of certain foreign food imports meeting all U.S. food safety requirements.

This bill will help us identify food-borne outbreaks more quickly. Food safety is and should be a vital component of our national security and our jobs as the people's elected representatives. When it comes to the very real potential of a full-blown food-borne epidemic, we have been playing a dangerous game for far too long.

With that in mind, our food safety efforts will not end with the passage of this bill. I believe that we must establish a single food safety agency, one that would consolidate all of the food safety functions spread across 15 Federal departments under one roof.

I will continue to fight for a single agency. I believe it is needed to ensure that the food in our supermarkets, restaurants, and kitchens is safe. Nonetheless, the food safety provisions in today's resolution are a great first step. I urge my colleagues to support them.

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