Issue Position: Food Safety

Issue Position

The numerous food-borne illness outbreaks over the years involving eggs, peanut butter, spinach, ground beef and tomatoes has exposed how the existing weaknesses in our food safety system endanger the public every day. It also has confirmed that our food safety system is still operating under laws that were passed in the early 1900s, and is constrained by an understanding of food hazards based in the 1930s.

In July 2009, the House of Representatives passed a food safety reform bill that would fix systemic problems and address weaknesses in the current food safety system. The final House bill contained several provisions from legislation that I introduced, including mandating regular inspections of high-risk industrial food facilities, requiring food companies to take preventive measures, establishing an adequate traceability system, and demanding that imported food meet our safety standards.

In addition to this work, as Chairwoman of the House Agriculture-FDA Appropriations Subcommittee, Congresswoman DeLauro works to ensure that the agencies responsible for protecting our food supply are adequately funded so that they can work to prevent food-borne illnesses and properly investigate any outbreaks.

In the long-term, we need a common sense plan to address our nation's fractured food safety system. Currently, the responsibility for food safety is fragmented across 15 federal agencies collectively administering at least 30 laws -- there is no comprehensive strategy to protect America's families from food-borne illness. With so many agencies, all with different and conflicting missions, working on food safety, the result is a multi-layered, overlapping bureaucracy. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded the fragmented federal oversight of food safety has caused inconsistent oversight and an inefficient use of resources, and that our food safety system is in need of broad-based transformation to achieve greater effectiveness and accountability.

This is why Congresswoman DeLauro has introduced a bill that would consolidate and streamline the various agencies that are responsible for protecting our food and put authority in the hands of one Food Safety Administrator. The Administrator would oversee one science-based food safety law that would harmonize the various authorities that currently govern the regulation of food safety.

Food-borne illness is a critical problem in the United States. An aging and immune- compromised population, an increasing volume of food imports, and faster food production and distribution all increase the risk of people getting sick. Infants and children are particularly vulnerable when they contract a food-borne illness. Protecting Americans from food-borne illness should be one of our highest priorities.

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