The Food Safety
Saga Our Job Is Just Beginning
Posted By ANH-USA
January 4, 2011
The FDA Food Safety
Modernization Act had more twists and turns than a big-city sewer system.
Unexpected passage of the legislation at the very end of the lame duck Congress
does not bring the story to a close. The fight goes on.
Regulations will need to be
developed, which the FDA will try to do out of sight, but which we will monitor
closely. The FDA will need funding to do the work, which means more legislation.
And there may be other legislative opportunities to help pull back this seeming
victory for agribusiness, factory faming, and its allies in Washington.
We have to keep educating
Capitol Hill about the dangers of CAFOs, the main source of food contamination,
and about the benefits—both to our health and our economy—of small farmers and
especially local organic farmers. We need, in short, to keep the government from
destroying what’s best about agriculture in this country. Big Food may have won
this round, but they have most certainly not won the war.
Before we turn to the future,
it’s also worth reviewing the story of what actually happened with this
legislation. There has been a great deal of confusion about what took place, and
it’s important to set the record straight. We also need to remember that natural
health and family farming won some concessions along the way, concessions
that kept this legislation from being far, far worse than it is. All of these
concessions were won by a broad coalition of tireless health freedom advocates,
while some of them-especially in the areas of potential CODEX regulation and
supplements-were won specifically by ANH-USA, and we’re proud of those
accomplishments. This is more proof that when we all work together, we can move
mountains.
Here’s the full timeline:
March 2009:
Senate introduces FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510). The bill
languishes in committee for nine months, then is placed on the Senate’s
legislative calendar.
June 2009:
House introduces Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, or FSEA (H.R. 2749). Bill
was designed to completely revamp the FDA and grant expansive authority with no
oversight and
contained provisions of significant concern to small farms
(especially organic farms), small food producers, and supplement makers
[1], including
sharply increased criminal and civil penalties for violations of FDA
regulations—up to ten years in jail and fines of up to $100,000 for individuals
and $7.5 million for corporations, regardless of their size—just for making
completely true statements about a food or supplement or referring to
peer-reviewed science without prior FDA permission.
The bill was put on a fast track, and ANH-USA sprang into
action. We placed a full-page ad in Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper,
calling on Congress to amend the bill. We also printed up copies of the ad, and
had them hand-delivered to each congressional office. Our members deluged
Congress with messages and phone calls.
Unfortunately, the House passed the bill
[2] by a vote of 283 to
142.
November 2009:
The original language of the Senate bill appeared to commit the US to the
concept of harmonization of our food and supplement safety laws with a global
standard, the
Codex Alimentarius [3].
The global standard is very likely to reflect European standards, which are
extremely hostile to dietary supplements.
ANH-USA was able to get the bill amended
[4] so that it no longer requires the
development of a plan to harmonize with Codex; now the bill calls for a plan “on
whether and how” to harmonize.
April 2010:
Still concerned that the
inclusion of Codex language in the bill could be used to support future US
harmonization with Codex standards on dietary supplements, ANH-USA succeeds in
getting new language that specifically
exempted dietary supplements
[5] from US harmonization
with Codex. In addition, while we did not work on this aspect of the issue
ourselves, we were very pleased to see that supplements were also exempted from
the “hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls” section of the bill.
September 2010:
Noting that the Senate’s version of the bill didn’t have the extra-harsh
penalties of the House bill, Sen. Leahy introduced a new bill, the
Food Safety Accountability Act
[6], or FSEA (S. 3767),
which used language similar to that found in the House bill.
Even worse [7],
the bill would not necessarily hold accountable a company that tainted a
product, even on purpose, if this type of adulteration occurred before the
product was sold by a distributor. So much for “accountability.”
Once again, ANH-USA and its
allies acted quickly and mounted a protest, and succeeded in getting the Leahy
bill amended so that it would no longer be possible to use the bill’s language
to send a supplement producer to jail for ten years just for citing legitimate
science.
November 2010:
One of the Senate bill’s big sticking points was how it would affect small
farmers and food producers. Some small-farm and organic food advocates warned
that the legislation would destroy their industry under a mountain of paperwork.
Working with the natural health community, ANH-USA succeeded in winning
inclusion of an amendment from Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), which exempts from some
of the bill’s provisions any producers with less than $500,000 a year in sales
who sell most of their food locally.
Still concerned about the language in the Leahy bill,
we kept up the pressure
[8], and thanks to all
the phone calls, letters, and email messages that you sent to your senators, we
were told that the
FSEA language would be kept out of S. 510 entirely
[9].
In addition, the House agreed
that if the Senate’s bill passed, the House would accept the Senate’s version in
place of its own. The House bill was far, far worse, and contained the ten-year
jail terms—so this meant that ten-year jail terms should not be in a final Food
Safety bill.
On November 30, the
Senate bill passed
[10] 73 to 25, and sent it on to the House for
approval.
December 1:
The House rejects the Senate bill
[11] because it contains
a revenue-raising (i.e., taxing) provision. The Constitution requires all
revenue-raising provisions to arise from the House.
December 10:
House passes a Continuing Resolution, which is supposed to provide temporary,
stopgap funding for the government while budget bills are worked out. But this
CR
included the language of the Senate food safety bill
[12]. The CR is sent
to the Senate for approval.
December 14:
Sen. Inouye attempts to get an omnibus spending bill substituted for the CR.
While we were told originally that the food safety language would not be part of
the omnibus bill, it appeared that
a deal was struck to include food safety
[13].
December 17:
A number of senators, mainly Republicans, decide to support neither the omnibus
bill, which contained a lot of “pork” (funding for local projects with little or
no national significance) nor the CR from the House, but instead wanted a
one-page CR that would keep the government open for the next two months. This
left the food safety bill once again out in the cold.
December 19:
At 10 p.m. on a Sunday night,
in one of the most underhanded legislative maneuvers we’ve
ever seen [14],
senators took an old House bill that had been languishing on the legislative
calendar for a year and a half, removed all of its text and completely
substituted the text of S. 510, then changed the title. What had been the
Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act was now the FDA Food Safety
Modernization Act with a new number, H.R. 2751. It was identical in every way to
the old S. 510, except that this was now technically a House bill, which got
over the earlier constitutionality issue. This was agreed to in the Senate by
unanimous consent, and the bill was sent back to the House.
Note that twenty-five senators
who had previously voted against the bill were part of the unanimous consent
agreement. Even one of them could have denied unanimous consent, in which case
the bill would most likely have died. These senators were also participating in
a legislative trick that made a mockery of the Constitution.
December 21:
After less than an hour of debate, the bill passed in the House, 215 to 144.
This included Yes votes from legislators who had been voted out of office in
November, but who were making one last use of the “lame duck” session—something
the 20th Amendment to the Constitution was trying to prevent when it was
originally enacted. Seventy-four members of the House had already left for the
winter break and did not vote.
Henry Waxman, still chair
of Commerce Committee during the lame duck session of Congress and an arch foe
of natural health and health freedom, famously said that nothing is ever settled
for good in Washington. We can’t help but agree with him when it comes to the
botched Food Safety Act.
Article printed from
Welcome to the Alliance for Natural Health – USA:
http://www.anh-usa.org
URL to article:
http://www.anh-usa.org/the-food-safety-saga-our-job-is-just-beginning/
URLs in this post:
[1] contained provisions
of significant concern to small farms (especially organic farms), small food
producers, and supplement makers:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../new-bill-hr2749-gives-fda-unheard-of-power-over-small-farmers-food-and-supplement-producers/
[2] Unfortunately, the
House passed the bill:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../food-safety-bill-passes-on-second-attempt/
[3] Codex Alimentarius:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../campaigns/codex-international-standards/
[4] ANH-USA was able to
get the bill amended:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../victory-in-the-senate/
[5] exempted dietary
supplements: http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../anh-usa-victory-supplements-are-exempted-from-codex-language-in-food-safety-bill/
[6] Food Safety
Accountability Act:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../breaking-news-new-food-safety-threat-urgent-action-alert/
[7] Even worse:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../why-patrick-leahy%E2%80%99s-food-safety-accountability-act-of-2010-must-be-stopped/
[8] we kept up the
pressure:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../action-alert-please-help-us-stop-the-leahy-food-safety-bill/
[9] FSEA language would
be kept out of S. 510 entirely: http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../victory-leahy-draconian-food-safety-defeated/
[10] Senate bill passed:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../senate-food-safety-update/
[11] The House rejects
the Senate bill:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../good-news-food-safety-bill-suddenly-on-life-support/
[12] included the
language of the Senate food safety bill:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../urgent-action-alert-food-safety-bill/
[13] a deal was struck to
include food safety: http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../last-minute-washington-back-room-dealing-on-food-safety/
[14] in one of the most
underhanded legislative maneuvers we’ve ever seen:
http://www.anh-usa.org../../../../../both-house-and-senate-vote-yes-on-food-safety-bill/