Hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Panel I - Security of the Nation's Food Supply?
Interview
Hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Panel I - Security of the Nation's Food Supply?
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REP. GENE GREEN (D-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this additional hearing and also the announcement of the hearings later.
I'd also like to thank the chairman of our full committee for authorizing the staff delegation trip to China over the August recess. I'm grateful to the O&I staff for making the trip so that we could learn first hand about the regulatory schemes present in that country, which is one of the top food importers to the U.S.
We cannot necessarily dictate how food is regulated in another country. This knowledge of Chinese regulation will help us identify the safety gaps in China and implement the necessary safeguards to protect the American people from dangerous contaminated food products bound for our country. As we examine the Chinese regulatory scheme for food, we should keep in mind that China is not our own -- our country's top food importer in the developing world. Mexico is. The problems also are not coming disproportionately from China. According to the FDA import alert, there are 20 Mexican firms on import alert, while there are 16 import alerts facing Chinese firms.
The monthly tally of imports refused at the border also indicate that Mexico, China and India are at the top of the list of '08 refusals by country in any given month, whatever policies we implement based on our understanding of the Chinese system must be applicable to all our trading partners, including Canada and Mexico which are the top exporters of agriculture and seafood products to the U.S.
The staff investigators' trip to China shed light on the fractured regulatory framework for food in China, and the numerous agencies involved; the lengthy supply chain and food processing procedures in China give us some important insights on how these problems arise.
In our country we celebrate the family owned small business, and consider the family's entrepreneurial success a realization of the American dream. As the investigators pointed out in their report, however, family farmers in China often face difficult economic conditions and downward pressure on prices to make crop survival the highest priority even at the expense of safety.
With such fragmented regulations Chinese farmers are probably willing to take that gamble. It appears the Japanese have protected their citizens from this problem by allowing only Chinese imports from a certain number of certified producers who have met their quality standards.
Hong Kong has taken a different route by implementing a robust registration and inspection regulatory framework. It's unclear whether any of these systems can be applied to a country as large as our -- as the United States, and with such a demand for -- (inaudible) -- products. But we could certainly learn from them and determine what elements could work for the U.S. supply system that is in dire need of improvement.
And as my colleagues have pointed out, it's just not our imports. It's -- whether it's hamburger meat, whether it's spinach, whether it's any other issues, we need an active and robust FDA, and I'm glad the chairman of the full committee is committed to providing the resources to the FDA so they can do not only what we expect them to do on the drug side but also on our food safety.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time.
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REP. GENE GREEN (D-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I'd like to thank our investigators for spending part of their August in China. Having been there once, but having both family and friends who have gone there to spend a lot more time in doing work like what you do, it's probably not as pleasant as what we did in just meeting with officials.
One of the interests I have is comparing what, for example, Hong Kong and Japan is doing with -- Hong Kong actually has a vigorous inspection system, whereas Japan actually has the preferred importers, so to speak -- the ones that they can -- I guess they investigate what they do in China, for example. And so they get -- does the Japanese, though, have a food inspector at every point of entry that brings in food or is authorized to bring food in?
MR. NELSON: I -- that's my understanding. We are very fortunate in the next panel of having people with a lot of expertise on Hong Kong and Japanese and Chinese regulatory systems.
REP. GREEN: One of the interests I have, though, is that I know, for example, FDA -- the testimony we'll hear in a few minutes is FDA has inspectors at 90 ports now. And USDA has 140 ports, both land and ocean. And yet FDA has 80 percent of the responsibilities as compared to USDA that has 20 percent. And I would assume the countries that you looked at would have that percentage reversed. You would actually have more inspectors for the food that the USDA would do under -- that FDA would do under ours as compared to the Department of Agriculture. But anyway, that's just a question. And I'll wait until our next panel.
You mentioned the Chinese efforts to strengthen the safety of exports through what's called a red list and a black list. And can you talk about the effectiveness of that red list/black list in rooting out some of the bad actors? Was that part of your investigation?
MR. NELSON: We talked with the AQSIQ about the systems they were -- they listed it as one of five essential parts of their program for guaranteeing the safety of the food exports. They told us that there were 55 firms on the black list. Given the pressure force of what happens to people when the government of China is truly upset with them, it's a list I wouldn't want to be on.
It was not clear what the preferential treatment for the good actors was.
REP. GREEN: Another question is the export certificate is typically granted at the local level. And the political situation, I know, varies from province to province, and there's always been a geopolitical question about how much the central government controls in some of the provinces as compared to the local officials.
Can you speak to any of the concerns about corruption? Is there a particular -- you know, the federal government may not actually have the apparatus to make sure those export certificates are valid when they're issued by the local government.
MR. NELSON: Except for the power to yank a firm's ability to acquire an export certificate, all of the decisions are made on a local level. If a firm gets caught exporting something out of spec, then the Beijing government will yank their authority to export until the problem is solved. But they don't do any of the inspections. They don't control any of the budget.
The rubber meets the road at the local level, and we're told that that varies widely. Some provinces, like Guangdong, have apparently a very effective CIQ system. The province immediately across the sea from Japan that sends a lot of the produce on a just-in-time basis to Japan apparently has a fairly good regulatory system. But other provinces may not.
REP. GREEN: Mr. Chairman, one last question, I guess, is that if produce is exported to Hong Kong, as it's rigorously inspected, is there any transshipment of that produce? Could Hong Kong be, because of their rigorous system, be someplace that would be a preferred export port, for example, because of their effort, as compared to the other ports in China?
MR. NELSON: I don't think Hong Kong exports food.
REP. GREEN: Okay.
MR. NELSON: They import 95 percent of the food they consume, and almost all of that is from China. You can get French wine. You can get some form of Iowa beef steaks without the bone. But they're not a food exporter.
REP. GREEN: Thank you.
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