Registration Fees Eyed as Funding Source for Food Safety

Several consumer groups are lining up behind a proposal to charge food companies a registration fee as an alternative to import user fees to boost FDA's food safety budget. Consumer groups generally oppose user fees because they create the appearance of a conflict of interest.

"We prefer this approach to a fee-for-service system for food inspections, where inspectors may believe they are working for the companies rather than the public," Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, wrote Wednesday in response to a question from Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Kennedy is working with committee members to write a food safety bill that many stakeholders want to address not just imports, but domestic food safety as well.

"The focus on imports is certainly appropriate, but there are enough problems with domestic food that we need a broader bill," DeWaal said. The Bush administration, along with House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., has focused on imports after pet food and fish imported from China came up contaminated last year, although other deadly outbreaks stemmed from domestic spinach and peanut butter.

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