Food Safety Legislation Moves Forward
The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 incorporates U.S. Rep. DeGette's two major food safety priorities, mandatory recall authority and traceability, which she has introduced every Congress since 2002. The legislation was approved by the committee by unanimous voice vote. The measure will now move to the full House Floor for its consideration.
U.S. Rep. DeGette's remarks as prepared for delivery:
"I'm glad to hear that my colleague from Oregon mentioned the Hurley Family, because as he will recall, at the end of the last Oversight Investigations hearing we had this spring, the last of a series that lasted a number of years, I told Peter Hurley, Jacob's dad, that we would make a commitment to him and his family, that we would pass comprehensive food safety legislation this year – and we are. This is the way legislation should go, because we're doing it on a bipartisan basis; we have worked together; we have explored the issues; and everyone has pulled together to make this happen.
"It almost looks easy, but everybody, particularly on the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, Mr. Stupak and everybody else, will attest that it was difficult, because when we started this effort seven years ago, we had a food safety system in disarray and it had been in disarray for many years and it continued in disarray.
"Story after story, recall after recall, and in those days, it was difficult for us to even convince people that we needed mandatory recall authority for the FDA, much less traceability and some of the other components that are here in this comprehensive bill today. And so it really has been an extraordinary team effort, and that team effort has been directed at one goal: protecting the safety and health of our constituents.
"We hope this bill today will give the resources and the powers to the FDA to be able to protect that health and safety and if there are problems with our food system, to make sure we can address those problems quickly. That is why I am particularly pleased that the Chairman has worked with me and others to include mandatory recall authority by the FDA in the bill. We hope that we'll be able to catch contamination and avoid contamination before it happens, but if there is contaminated food found, we'll be able to have recall authority.
"And secondly, I'm so delighted that the FDA will be implementing traceability systems for the entire food agency. We saw this last year with the tomato and then jalapeño recall where we never really could figure out what was wrong with the salsa, but what we did know was that people across the country were being sickened, and what we also knew was that the entire tomato industry was devastated for that year. So traceability is going to help us identify quickly, and remove the foods in a targeted way, that are causing sickness.
"I just want to say one last thing: I have a staff member to thank who's here today, Steve Plevniak. Steve is my Food Safety maven on my staff. He's been with me for seven years, just about as long as we've been studying these issues. And he's leaving us to go elsewhere, so this is a fine end to his congressional career and I just really want to thank Steve and all the staff of the entire committee who have worked so hard on this legislation."