By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) are expected to reintroduce The Safe Food Act, a bill championing the creation of a single food safety agency for enforcement of food safety laws, into Congress this week. The bill, sponsored by Durbin and DeLauro, would also create a national system for tracing food from the point of origin to retail level.

“The recent problems with peanut butter, Chinese milk products, peppers, and other tainted foods reveal a food safety system in crisis, one that is unable to respond effectively to the challenges of a global food supply in order to prevent widespread outbreaks of food-borne illnesses,” reads a letter (in part) that Durbin and DeLauro sent to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, dated Feb. 10.

Durbin spokesperson Max Gleischman told Farm World the bill is necessary because food safety functions are not only split between the USDA and FDA, but also 10 other agencies throughout the government. “With the large number of high profile food safety issues we’ve seen over the last number of years, it has become evident to the senator that the current system, as it is structured, isn’t working,” Gleischman said.

“This bill would consolidate all the food safety functions into a single agency whose sole function is to protect the nation’s food supply.”

Food inspection agencies sometimes rely on decades-old regulations and regulatory functions that need to be updated. The bill would modernize the way the food inspection process is handled while sunsetting the current agencies’ food safety functions over a span of two years, Gleischman explained.

“It would allow for the creation of the single food safety entity in the interim,” he said. “It will be a two-step process.”

Originally introduced in the 108th Congressional session, supporters of the Safe Food Act hope the bill is greeted with more support by the 111th Congress in light of major, recent food safety issues.

“Creating any new government agency is a difficult thing to do,” Gleischman said, referring to past resistance to the bill from legislators. “That is one of the reasons we haven’t been able to move this bill quickly. The result is that we have taken other interim steps to strengthen particular problem areas within the current food safety system.”

Steps to strengthen the current food safety system include the second introduction of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act to Congress, which Durbin had hoped to accomplish on Tuesday (Feb. 24). “This bill strengthens the FDA’s food safety functions by giving them new and advanced authorities, new regulatory power, new inspection powers and new funding authorization,” Gleischman said.
“Recognizing that a single food safety agency isn’t something that is going to happen overnight, we’re working to strengthen individual agencies as needed.”

The bill has the support of the FDA along with industry and consumer groups, something Gleischman called a rather unique thing for Washington.

“We expect (the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act) to be the main vehicle in any new food safety legislation in front of Congress this year,” he said.

When asked whether previous congressional (and presidential) approval of the two Durbin-sponsored food safety bills being reintroduced this week could have helped prevent any of the recent U.S. food safety crises, Gleischman said the measures contained in the bills would have at least lessened the effects of the ongoing peanut butter/salmonella and recent Mexican pepper/salmonella outbreaks.

“The short answer is yes,” Gleischman said. “If not prevented, they could have been caught early enough that the effects of contamination would not have been nearly as widespread. There is much stronger trace-back authority granted in the new bill, and funding for more boots on the ground for inspections in the U.S. and even abroad.”