HELP Committee Passes Legislation to Strengthen Public Faith in Food Supply Legislation Will Better Protect Consumers and their Families

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member of the SenateHealth, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee today supported committeepassage of S. 510, The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, that will help prevent foodborne illness, and give FDA new, modern authorities to address food safety problems.

“Food safety is not a partisan issue – we all want the safest food supply possible,” saidEnzi. “The United States has one of the best food safety systems in the world. Buteven in the best of systems, there is always room for improvement. We have the tools,the expert knowledge and the innovative spirit to find better and more reliable systemsto protect the public health from contaminated food.”

“I thank Chairman Harkin for his commitment to this bipartisan legislation, and SenatorsGregg, Burr, Dodd and Durbin for their hard work. I look forward to a comprehensive,bipartisan solution being signed into law as soon as possible,” Enzi added.

Enzi’s statement from the hearing can be found below:

Mr. Chairman, food safety is not a partisan issue – we all want the safest food supplypossible. The United States has one of the best food safety systems in the world. Buteven in the best of systems, there is always room for improvement. I am glad thisCommittee is addressing the serious issue of food safety, and I thank you for thiscommittee process. I think it will save time on the floor, especially if both sides keepworking together as we have been for the last two weeks. That good work has helpedme decide to cosponsor this legislation, as a way to show support for the bipartisanprocess that I hope will continue.

I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about some of the results of that work. Our foodsafety system is just that, a system. Federal, state and local officials work together toprotect the public health. In my state of Wyoming, our food safety officials are prettygood, but they want to get even better. This summer, they told me that they wanted toattend an advanced training seminar held by FDA to improve their skills. But there wereonly four spots to attend the seminar. None of the Wyoming folks got a spot. So, theytalked to FDA, and asked if there could be another seminar. They even offered to hostit. But they were turned down. I don’t think it’s in the interest of public health to preventfront line officials in our communities from stepping up their game. So I sought to haveprovisions included in the Chairman’s Mark to direct FDA to work a little harder at beinga partner to the states on food safety. Senator Harkin is seeking to solve the sameproblem, but with a different approach. I am pleased that both our proposals wereincluded. There’s no such thing as too many good ideas.

When it comes to food safety, the industry of course has a role to play, too. When youuse a word like “industry” people think about large scale, sophisticated factories. Butnearly all food producers and processors are small businesses. They, too, needtraining in the new requirements of this bill, and in the latest science and techniques.We have a wonderful mechanism for that already in place – the agricultural extensionsystem. These folks are in every county in the country, and can either provide thetechnical assistance needed or help businesses connect with those resources. Smallbusiness is an issue near and dear to my heart, and I am pleased that we were able toinclude the extension service and other assistance to small businesses in this bill.

Like many of you, I am very interested in the traceability issue. I think we share thesame goal of being able to know where a food item was grown or produced, so that inthe event of an outbreak of food-borne illness, public health officials can get the rightitem off the shelves quickly, and fix the problem. Where we disagree is the distance tothe goal. In 1992, amendments to the Prescription Drug Marketing Act required apedigree, which is an advanced form of traceability, for prescription drugs. Thisrequirement is still not in effect, seventeen years later. The late Senator Kennedy and Iworked for two years to try and find a way to implement the requirement, but we werenot successful. I still hope we can do it, but I wonder how on earth we are going tomake this work for tomatoes, when we can’t make it work for bottles of prescriptiondrugs. The traceability requirements in this bill are good initial steps to put us on a pathtoward a functioning, practical system. Others would like to go much further than whatis in this bill, toward a full-blown pedigree. To them I say you can swing for the fencesand strike out, or you can get a nice solid base hit, and build from there. When it comesto public health, go big or go home isn’t the right strategy.

I would also like to thank my colleagues on the Finance Committee for their commentson the trade implications of this bill. They have given us a lot to think about, and I hopewe will be able to address their concerns as we move forward.

On almost every bill we recognize some issues are too tough to resolve on first try andagree to continue to work on them prior to the bill going to the floor, usually leaving onlya very few issues to debate when the bill comes to the floor. That kind of cooperationhas changed this committee on many issues from the most contentious committee tothe most productive committee.

On this bill, we have a handful of such issues. For example, I am concerned about theburdens being placed on FDA, when they are struggling to keep up with their currentauthorities, plus the massive new tobacco regulatory structure we added earlier thisyear. FDA funding has been increasing, but that must be sustained for years to come inorder to really stabilize the agency. Some have proposed fees as the answer to thisproblem, but I don’t agree. The basic function of protecting the public health should befunded via the appropriations process. Asking a regulated industry to cough up for theirown basic regulation is a tax, plain and simple. Not to mention a potential conflict ofinterest, as the public health watchdog becomes ever more dependent on the industry itis supposed to be watching.

I hope that we can continue to work through this and other issues, and bring theexpertise and creativity of the HELP Committee members to bear on these problems tofind bipartisan solutions. I look forward to the debate today.

# # #