Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - April 06, 2005)

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By Mr. DURBIN:

S. 729. A bill to establish the Food Safety Administration to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, a single food safety agency with authority to protect the food supply based on sound scientific principles would provide this country with the greatest hope of reducing foodborne illnesses and preventing or minimizing the harm from a bioterrorist attack on our food supply. Right now, our food is the safest in the world, but there are widening gaps in our food safety net due to emerging threats and the fact that food safety oversight has evolved over time to spread across several agencies. This mismatched, piecemeal approach to food safety could spell disaster if we do not act quickly and decisively.

But don't take it from me. Former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson told reporters in December as he resigned that he worries ``every single night'' about a massive attack on the U.S. food supply. ``I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists have not, you know, attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do,'' Thompson said. ``And we are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that,'' he said.

No wonder he feels that way. Several Federal agencies, all with different and conflicting missions, work to ensure our food is safe. For example, there is no standardization for inspections--processed food facilities may see a Food and Drug Administration inspector once every 5 to 6 years, while meat and poultry operations are inspected daily by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that as many as 76 million people suffer from food poisoning each year. Of those individuals, approximately 325,000 will be hospitalized, and more than 5,000 will die. Factors such as emerging pathogens, an aging population at high risk for foodborne illnesses, an increasing volume of food imports, and people eating outside their homes more often underscore the need for us to take charge and shed the old bureaucratic shackles that have tied us to the overlapping and inefficient ad hoc food safety system of the past.

That is why I come to the Senate floor today to introduce the Safe Food Act of 2005. My House counterpart, Representative ROSA DELAURO, is introducing the bill in the other body. This legislation would create a single, independent Federal food safety agency to administer all aspects of Federal food safety inspections, enforcement, standards-setting and research in order to protect public health. The components of the agencies now charged with protecting the food supply, primarily housed at the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department, would be transferred to this new agency.

The new Food Safety Administrator would be responsible for the safety of the food supply, and would fulfill that charge by implementing the registration and recordkeeping requirements of the 2002 bioterrorism law; ensuring slaughterhouses and food processing plants have procedures in place to prevent and reduce food contamination; regularly inspecting domestic food facilities, with inspection frequency based on risk; and centralizing the authority to detain, seize, condemn and recall food that is adulterated or misbranded. The Administrator would be charged with requiring food producers to code their products so those products could be traced in the event of a foodborne illness outbreak in order to minimize the health impact of such an event.

The Administrator would also have the power examine the food safety practices of foreign countries and work with the states to impose various civil and criminal penalties for serious violations of the food safety laws. The Administrator would also actively oversee public education and research programs on foodborne illness.

It is time to create a single food safety agency in this country. I am encouraged by a February 2005 Government Accountability Office report in which government officials in seven other high-income countries who have consolidated their food safety systems consistently state that the benefits of consolidation outweigh the costs.

In this era of limited budgets, it is our responsibility to streamline the Federal food safety system. The United States simply cannot afford to continue operating multiple redundant systems. This is not about more regulation, a super agency, or increased bureaucracy. It is about common sense and the more effective marshaling of our existing resources.

I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this legislation.

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

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