Safe Food Act could streamline food safety, extend FSMA
Safe Food Act could streamline food safety, extend FSMA
WASHINGTON — Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced a bill this week that would merge all food-safety-related programs across 15 agencies into a single, independent food-safety agency.
The two lawmakers have introduced the bill before with little success, but they’re hoping to gain support from fiscally conservative members of the new GOP-controlled Congress.
The bill would transfer food regulators, inspectors and researchers from the Food & Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to the newly created Food Safety Administration.
It would extend the Food Safety Modernization Act program to more foods by building on FSMA’s mandatory recall, preventive controls and performance standards. It would improve foreign food import inspections and require full food traceability to better identify sources of outbreaks, the lawmakers said. It would, however, keep disease surveillance programs separate and housed at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
“I am proud to join Senator Durbin in introducing this bill to ensure that we have a single person being held accountable for food safety, research, prevention, inspections, investigations and labelling,” DeLauro said. Food safety programs are “buried” in other agencies and this would free regulators from having to juggle other priorities, DeLauro said.
Durbin said he hopes the bill “sparks a national debate,” and that a single agency would “allow us to prioritize system-wide food-safety goals and targets. It would also help families navigate the differing federal, state and local food-safety agencies to get the answers they deserve.”
He said the bill would make it easier for companies to comply with food-safety laws.
The Safe Food Act of 2015 is co-sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Cosponsors in the House of Representatives include Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), James Langevin (D-RI), Bobby Rush (D-IL), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC).