Next Congress Likely to Make Food Safety a Priority

WASHINGTON — Toys were first. Food may be next on the agenda for Congress in a new wave of government regulation.

Congress has overwhelmingly agreed to give the Consumer Product Safety Commission more money and authority to regulate children’s products and require third-party testing of toys.

Now, lawmakers are taking aim at the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA regulates 80 percent of the food Americans eat but has only a fraction of the funding and the staff of the Agriculture Department, which regulates the other 20 percent, primarily meat.

Little is likely to get done this year — it’s too close to the election — but an FDA overhaul is likely to be high on the congressional agenda next year. The food industry, which once resisted increased regulation, has been hammered with one costly outbreak after another. The latest, involving a strain of salmonella bacteria, devastated the U.S. tomato industry before it was linked instead to Mexican-grown jalapeno peppers. The FDA itself is asking for more authority.

“You will see the food industry being supportive of government action,” said Bryan Silbermann, president of the Produce Marketing Association. “We’ve seen what’s happened over the last eight years of government inaction.”

Source: The Statesman Journal