Food Safety Bill Expected to Hit Senate Floor This Week

Almost a year to the day after a unanimous committee vote, a long-stalled bill to promote food safety is poised to hit the Senate floor this week. Having passed the House in July 2009, then the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on Nov. 18, 2009, healthcare and financial regulation reform pushed the bill to the back burner. Now, with the midterm elections finished, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to bring the bill forward for a procedural vote on Wednesday that leaders expect will pass.

The bill has 20 co-sponsors, of which eight are Republicans including Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.). However, other Republicans are opposed. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), for one, issued statements in September that blamed the bill for “new and unnecessary spending” and “burdensome regulations.”

On Friday, Coburn spokesman John Hart said the senator “hopes to reach an agreement on the food safety bill that would avoid the need for a weekend session. He believes the American people have sent a clear message that it’s time to pay for new bills instead of borrowing.”

Democratic leaders are cautiously optimistic Wednesday’s votes will be successful. HELP Committee spokeswoman Justine Sessions said the measure “enjoys strong, bipartisan support.”

“Given the great need for better protections for Americans against food-borne illness, Sen. Harkin believes this legislation must pass before the end of the Congress, and will continue to work with the bipartisan group of cosponsors to ensure this happens,” Sessions said.

The Senate bill is considered less controversial than the House. Some of the more contentious issues, such as imposing fees on food facilities to help finance the FDA's food safety inspection efforts, were not included in the version that passed through the HELP committee.

Among other provisions, the legislation would:

•  Attempt to prevent food-borne illnesses from reaching the population by requiring food-processing plants to upgrade the frequency and thoroughness of their safety inspections;
•  Require the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department and Agriculture Department to jointly develop a national plan to improve food safety, as well as an HHS requirement for a national system to better prevent possible problems in the food supply;
•  Grant HHS greater authority to order recalls of suspected tainted food;
•  Improve inspections of foreign food imported into the U.S.

Source: The Hill