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Dr of BBQ
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Food Safety Enhancement Act
Thu, 06/4/09 7:56 AM
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http://tinyurl.com/q39qcx Anticipated food safety bill raises industry concerns By Paul Frumkin
WASHINGTON (June 3, 2009) A major foodservice industry group has voiced concerns about an anticipated federal measure that seeks to overhaul the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and address problems with the nation’s food supply.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee last week issued a draft of the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, which was designed to respond to a series of recent outbreaks, involving tainted peppers, salmonella in peanut products and E. coli in spinach.
The bill, whose official introduction is imminent, is co-sponsored by committee chair Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and chair emeritus John Dingell, D-Mich., and would give the FDA more enforcement power to investigate food producers, and track and recall unsafe food products.
“There are a lot of things that are good in the bill, but we have concerns about its impact on restaurateurs,” said Scott Vinson, vice president of the National Council of Chain Restaurants in Washington, D.C.
Vinson said the NCCR is worried that under the Waxman-Dingell measure restaurateurs would have to register with the FDA and pay a fee of $1,000 annually.
“The bill states that every facility that manufactures, processes, packs or holds food for consumption in the U.S. or for export would have to register,” he said. “It’s unclear to us whether that would include restaurants, which hold food for consumption.”
A Senate bill, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, which earlier had been praised by the National Restaurant Association, would not require restaurants to register with the FDA. The NRA did not respond to requests for comment about the Waxman-Dingell bill by press time.
The NCCR also is concerned about the Waxman-Dingell bill’s traceability requirement, which requires food suppliers to keep tabs on where they received shipments from and where they would be sent to. Under the current law, restaurants and farms have been exempted, but the new House measure would remove the exemption.
Vinson also said the measure potentially could give the FDA the authority to inspect restaurants. The bill requires inspections of high-risk facilities every six to 18 months and all facilities every four years. “One of our concerns is this focus on inspections, which is probably misdirected,” Vinson said. “It’s fine for high-risk facilities, but it doesn’t make sense for lower risk facilities. It’s very expensive; each inspection costs from $11,000 to $14,000.”
He said another concern stems from the high civil fines of up to $100,000 that could be levied under the Waxman-Dingell bill. “It remains unclear whether restaurants would be subject to these fines that high,” he said.
Among other things, the Food Safety Enhancement Act would give the FDA the authority to force companies to recall potentially contaminated food and arm it with a wider range of criminal and civil penalties to punish food suppliers who knowingly ship tainted foods.
While the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C., is asking Congress to strengthen the Waxman-Dingell bill, the group nevertheless is urging its passage, calling it “the best hope for making America’s food safer.”
In addition to praising the Durbin-sponsored Senate bill, the NRA also has voiced support for the Safe Food Enforcement, Assessment, Standards and Targeting, or FEAST, Act. Sponsored by Reps. Jim Costa, D-Calif., and Adam Putnam, R-Fla., the bill was introduced into the House earlier this year.
The NCCR’s Vinson indicated that lawmakers are hoping to fast track a food safety reform measure because they are expecting the debate over health care reform to demand much of their attention during the summer.
Contact Paul Frumkin at pfrumkin@nrn.com.
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