Senate Passes Landmark Food Safety Bill
The Senate passed a food safety bill Tuesday, that among other things makes it easier to recall contaminated foods, increases inspections, gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a host of new regulatory powers and funding related to food safety, and makes it easier to trace contaminations.
Supporters of the $1.4 billion bill, which passed with a vote of 73 to 25, said passage is critical in the wake of recent large-scale outbreaks of bacterial contaminants in things like peanut butter, eggs and spinach, reports Bob Fuss with CBS News radio. Additionally, the FDA has rarely inspected many facilities and some not at all.
Currently, the FDA does not have the power to order food recalls. Instead, it must ask food manufacturers to do so voluntarily. This legislation grants the FDA that power.
The new legislation also includes exemptions for farmers selling less than $500,000 each year that directly market to consumers in a 275 mile areas, reports CBS News.
The small business provision may have been crucial to the bill's passage, as the legislation's chief opponents were advocates for buying locally produced food and small farm operators, AP reports.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., got an agreement to advance the legislation by allowing Republicans to offer amendments not relevant to the bill, the AP reports.
Whether the bill will pass during the brief lame-duck congressional session is unclear since the House approved a different version of the legislation in 2009. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the sponsor of the bill, said he has agreement from some members in the House to take up the Senate bill if it is passed.
The House's 2009 food safety bill, favored by food safety advocates, includes more money for FDA inspectors and would charge fees to companies to help pay for the increased regulation. It would also include stricter penalties for food manufacturers who violate the law.
Senate sponsors tweaked the original bill eliminating the fees and reducing the amount of money spent on inspectors, for example, to gain votes in their own chamber and to make the bill more palatable in the House.
Erik Olson, director of food and consumer product safety at the Pew Health Group, said advocates are pleased with the Senate bill and realize there is not enough time to push for some of the stronger House provisions.
"We think the Senate bill is a major step forward for public health," he said.
Senators rejected several unrelated amendments to the bill, including an amendment to place a moratorium on earmarks, or pet projects in lawmakers' states and districts, and one to repeal an arcane tax provision that helps pay for President Barack Obama's new health care law.
Some of the bill's provisions
- Gives the FDA authority to recall contaminated foods. It is currently a voluntary system
- Exempts farmers selling less than $500,000 each year that "directly market to consumers in a 275 mile areas.
- Increases inspections at food facilities. Once every three years for high-risk facilities.
- Requires importers to verify food safety.
- Increases traceability and tracking of high risk foods. Creates a pilot program to increase contamination traceability.
- Allows FDA to access records if there is reasonable probability a food is causing sickness or death in humans or animals.
- Allows FDA to create new standards for the safety of fresh produce.
- FDA can collect fees for non-compliance with recalls or reinspections.
- FDA must form new regulations on safe food transport conditions.
- FDA can allow outside laboratories to conduct third party inspections to ease the load for the FDA.
- Increases funding and staff at FDA.
© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Supporters of the $1.4 billion bill, which passed with a vote of 73 to 25, said passage is critical in the wake of recent large-scale outbreaks of bacterial contaminants in things like peanut butter, eggs and spinach, reports Bob Fuss with CBS News radio. Additionally, the FDA has rarely inspected many facilities and some not at all.
Currently, the FDA does not have the power to order food recalls. Instead, it must ask food manufacturers to do so voluntarily. This legislation grants the FDA that power.
The new legislation also includes exemptions for farmers selling less than $500,000 each year that directly market to consumers in a 275 mile areas, reports CBS News.
The small business provision may have been crucial to the bill's passage, as the legislation's chief opponents were advocates for buying locally produced food and small farm operators, AP reports.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., got an agreement to advance the legislation by allowing Republicans to offer amendments not relevant to the bill, the AP reports.
Whether the bill will pass during the brief lame-duck congressional session is unclear since the House approved a different version of the legislation in 2009. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the sponsor of the bill, said he has agreement from some members in the House to take up the Senate bill if it is passed.
The House's 2009 food safety bill, favored by food safety advocates, includes more money for FDA inspectors and would charge fees to companies to help pay for the increased regulation. It would also include stricter penalties for food manufacturers who violate the law.
Senate sponsors tweaked the original bill eliminating the fees and reducing the amount of money spent on inspectors, for example, to gain votes in their own chamber and to make the bill more palatable in the House.
Erik Olson, director of food and consumer product safety at the Pew Health Group, said advocates are pleased with the Senate bill and realize there is not enough time to push for some of the stronger House provisions.
"We think the Senate bill is a major step forward for public health," he said.
Senators rejected several unrelated amendments to the bill, including an amendment to place a moratorium on earmarks, or pet projects in lawmakers' states and districts, and one to repeal an arcane tax provision that helps pay for President Barack Obama's new health care law.
Some of the bill's provisions
- Gives the FDA authority to recall contaminated foods. It is currently a voluntary system
- Exempts farmers selling less than $500,000 each year that "directly market to consumers in a 275 mile areas.
- Increases inspections at food facilities. Once every three years for high-risk facilities.
- Requires importers to verify food safety.
- Increases traceability and tracking of high risk foods. Creates a pilot program to increase contamination traceability.
- Allows FDA to access records if there is reasonable probability a food is causing sickness or death in humans or animals.
- Allows FDA to create new standards for the safety of fresh produce.
- FDA can collect fees for non-compliance with recalls or reinspections.
- FDA must form new regulations on safe food transport conditions.
- FDA can allow outside laboratories to conduct third party inspections to ease the load for the FDA.
- Increases funding and staff at FDA.
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Although grain fed cattle (cattle which eat corn and soybeans etc.) are known to emit massive amounts of methane gas, grass fed cattle DO NOT. This is because cows were not evolved to eat soy and corn, but grass. Grass does not disrupt the stomachs of cattle and create large amounts of gas, like corn and soy does. (cows have a 4 chambered stomach specifically evolved to eat grass/digest the cellulose in grass.
NOT feeding cows grass, but corn and soy, causes their digestive systems/waste to become more prone to e-coli infection.
Corn and soy fed cattle consume massive amounts of water per cow because of the intensive irrigation needed to grow corn and soy. Free range/grass fed cattle DO NOT consume large amounts of water because they eat prarie grass, which grows naturally in the midwest and is rain fed, requiring NO irrigation.
Grass fed/free range organic cattle consume much less water per cow and are beneficial to naturally occurring grasslands like the great plains in the U.S., where cattle are now filling the ecological niche left open by their close cousins, buffalo....which....sadly, have been largely eliminated from the great plains of the U.S.
FREE RANGE/GRASS FED cattle are extremely beneficial to the great plains if managed properly by cattle ranchers.
Replacing beef with a vegetarian diet of soy and corn can be quite damaging to the great plains where enormous soy and corn deserts are drenched with pesticides and synthetic fertilizers which kill insect life and destroy native prarie grasses which beef cattle could feed on.
If the whole world stopped eating beef, and turned to a vegan diet, the world's prarie grasslands would soon be cleared for massive soy and corn deserts, which would quickly push prarie insects, birds, antelopes, buffalo and other prarie life out of existence as heavily irrigated soy and corn monocultures drenched in pesticides and synthetic fertilizers replaced native prarie grasses.
These corn and soy crops in the western U.S. also require massive amounts of irrigation water, which comes from the undergroud Ogalla Aquifer (a vast underground lake which lies under several westen states).
The Ogalla Aquifer is now be rapidly drained because it's water is being used to irrigate millions of acres of western soy and corn fields which require massive inputs of water in the arid western U.S.
The aquifer is very slow to refill because western rainfall is very low.
Some areas of the world are NOT fit for cattle grazing, such as the tropics where tropical forest clearing can cause the soil to be scorched by intense year round tropical sun and heavy tropical rains which dry out and wash away top soil.
These soils have been protected by the tropical forest canopy for thousands or millions of years.
No one was harmed by the eggs that were contaminated by the egg farms in the midwest this last summer.
No one was harmed by the ecoli infected lettuce recently.
No dogs were killed by the melamine contamination in the dog foods that had ingredients coming from China.
No one was harmed by the millions of pounds of hamburger meat recalled due to ecoli contaminations over the last year.
Yeah. Let's continue to let the food industries continue to self police. They do such a great job of maximizing profits and ignoring basic food safety protocols. Yeah. Let's trust them to make sure we're getting safe food...
Listen Mr or Ms 'Anti-government' - sometimes regulation is REQUIRED because business willfully doesn't give a rat's backside about the safety of the public. This is a case where that is blatant fact, visible even to the most myopic government haters.
Better yet - I've got some recalled eggs, lettuce and hamburger. Want to make lunch? If your approach is so good - you wouldn't have any problems eating a lunch made of those recalled products...
Safe food is good.