Although I am a Democrat, my positions and ideas remain my own, and when my party is wrong, I say so. Sadly, this is one of those times.
The Senate’s yearlong failure to pass a food safety overhaul has hampered the ability of the Obama administration to quickly recall the 600 million eggs connected to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened nearly 2,000 people, experts and lawmakers say.
The House approved its version of the food safety bill in July 2009 — that was more than 60 recalls of Food and Drug Administration regulated products ago, according to a report by the Make Our Food Safe coalition. But the Senate has continued to drag its feet.
The pressure is now on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who has consistently pushed the bill to the back burner. Lawmakers, aides and analysts say Reid must bring the bill to the floor when the Senate returns in September in light of the major deficiencies in a nearly century-old regulatory system —- and one of the worst food-related outbreaks yet.
“Without the muscle of an updated law to actually carry out these rules, we’re afraid of more outbreaks like these,” said Erik Olsen, deputy director of the Pew Health Group’s Food Portfolio.
“This is really an object lesson in why we need the food safety legislation.”
Current law is so weak that it does not permit the FDA to authorize recalls. Instead, the government must rely on the responsible parties to issue recalls themselves — a loophole that often translates into weeks or months of negotiations between the government and companies afraid of losing profits before contaminated food gets called back.
The pending legislation not only gives the FDA recall authority but also imposes stricter rules on mandatory inspections, trace-back protocol, access to company records and whistleblower protections — all of which are lacking in the current food safety law, which is more than 70 years old… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Politico>
My instinct was to stop right here. The Nevada Leg Hound, Harry Reid must be too busy humping Republican legs to get this done. But I dug a little deeper and learned that he has been humping Democratic legs this time. One belongs to Dianne Feinstein. She wants the bill modified to add a ban on BPA in food and beverage containers. Byron Dorgan wants the bill modified to include drug reimportation from Canada. Feinstein has backed off and is now willing to offer her BPA ban as an amendment. I support the ban, but it’s a poison pill to the Chamber of Commerce, which owns the Republicans. They will filibuster the amendment. Dorgan is willing to do the same, and it will have the same results, because it’s a poison pill to Big Pharma, which owns the Republicans. I support drug reimportation, but oppose Dorgan’s amendment on the principal that amendments should be directly related to the bills to which they are attached. I screamed when Republicans packed necessary bills with unrelated amendments and will not change my tune, just because my party is in the majority. For these Democrats to have stalled this bill for a year while piddling over these modifications, and for the Leg Hound to have allowed it are shameful. Lives are at stake. lets get this done.
10 Responses to “Why No Food Safety Law?”
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Tom you know as well as i do that even if the GOP wrote the entire law and moved it through committee with democrats supporting it they would filibuster it once it got to the floor so how anyone can say this is an administration failure is beyond me. It is a failure of a totally dysfunctional senate. Maybe instead of a one party system we need to move to a one house system. With Sherrod Brown as leader of that house.
Mark, I would not call it an administration failure. It is only the failure of three Democrats temporarily. They haven’t giben Republicans the opportinity to filibuster it yet.
What you suggest would require a Constitutional Amendment. Even if it passed the House and Senate, the current system gives small (population) states such an advantage, that it would never be approved by 3/4 of the state legislatures required for ratification.
TWM – I really like her too – I agree with you everytime; are you sure that you are not an alter personality of mine? (Or me of you, since you were here first…..)
An “abject” lesson, not object lesson in food safety. Damn people, if you’re gonna be quoted make sure you use the right words or FIND ANOTHER ONE. You sound bloomin’ idiots when you don’t. Crap, that pisses me off and I like the people from Pew.
(I shouldn’t be so hard on them though, 3/4 of America doesn’t know “object” from “abject” anyway.)
That the FDA has to negotiate with business to get a recall, is pure idiocy. If it weren’t for these food safety violations being made public, they would get away with it a lot more than they do. When you make 2000 people sick, you’ve done something really wrong. Think of all the people that have been not only sickened, but killed, by a company refusing to issue a recall over the years (and usually babies or older people). I agree with you TC – amendments should pertain to the bill they are attached to and not your grandma. It’s this kind of shit (besides Harry, dumbass) that stalls bills.
Lisa, you’re dead on except for one thing. Sherrod is a he.
The problem with alot of these bills is that they are written for Big Business to the detriment of the small supplier (read – Family Farmer). Until such time as the huge agribuisness concerns are broken up into reasonably manageable chunks, huge recalls like this will continue happen.
Welcome Dan. 🙂
I read a synopsis of this bill and it looked good to me, but I confess that agricultural policy is not one of my areas of expertise. Would you provide us with more information about how it hurts individual farmers?
wondered where you got off to mr. tom cat 🙂 folks on facebook have been asking me where you are- and i happened by my google reader after a hiatus- and there you are 🙂 sorry things have been rough recently- sorry to say that the state of affairs is not much different in this country. the bigots of the tea party movement will probably win the day at the rigged ballot box and the corporate toadies democrats will continue to cater to special interests to keep their money intact while rome…. i mean america burns. i hope nancy knows how to fiddle….
Hiya Betmo! {{{hug}}} Please feel free to point them here.
Because Democrats control more statehouses, there will be less Diebolding than in the past.
I happened to see some sort of administration official dancing around this issue. When asked directly why we don’t have policy’s in place, she said well until now it’s all been voluntary and it seemed to work fine.
She said, I don’t think we need to over regulate industry. I think the Administration should find better spokespeople.
I agree, Tim. Another reason to sack Vilsack,