Food Modernization Safety Act

Floor Speech

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here to recognize today's achievement of the passage of the landmark bipartisan Food Safety Modernization Act out of the Senate.

The first responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. Ensuring a rapid response to outbreaks of contaminated food is critical to maintaining public trust in our food supply. This bill will make necessary changes to help keep consumers safe, and I look forward to passage in the House and the bill being signed into law.

This food safety legislation is going to be a tremendous benefit to our Nation, and to protecting our citizens from foodborne illnesses, as well as potential acts of terrorism aimed at our food supply. I urge the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, to work very closely with the business community in the rulemaking process to be sure that we are not adding additional regulations that may already be covered and regulated under other areas, such as the Food and Drug Cosmetic Act and the Bioterrorism Act.

I want to thank my colleagues for their efforts to make this legislation strong, and to protect the American people while balancing the legitimate concerns that businesses have that do not over reach or over legislate in this bill. The rulemaking process must not be duplicative or attempt to regulate areas that already protect public safety in other areas of law, statute and regulation. It is my hope that the FDA will be practical in applying this legislation to manufacturers of ingredients such as food processing aids, and will direct their resources where the real food safety dangers occur and are occurring. The use of indirect food additives and processing aids have not been determined to be the source of food borne illness outbreaks and I believe it is important that the FDA continue to focus its scarce resources on the key elements that this legislation hopes to address in the Food Safety area.

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