House and Senate Food Safety Bills Continue to Proliferate

With more than a half dozen food-safety bills already pending before the 111th Congress, legislators have continued to introduce or re-introduce legislation from prior sessions to address the government oversight problems exposed by the latest food contamination outbreak. Details about earlier measures appear in issue 291 of this Update. Among the new proposals are:

• H.R. 999 – Re-introduced February 11, 2009, by Representative Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), this bill would establish certification standards for food-testing laboratories and require importers to certify the safety of their operations. Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
• S. 425 – Re-introduced February 12, 2009, by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), this proposal would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) mandatory recall authority and would create a new food tracking system. Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.
• S. 429 – Re-introduced February 12, 2009, by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), this bill, focusing on the safety of imported foods, would give millions to federal agencies to hire personnel to track smuggled food products, provide food defense monitoring and cross training for security and agricultural agents, and require private labs to be agency-certified, among other matters. Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.