One week after legislative hearings on HR 2749 began, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 passed unanimously through the Energy and Commerce Committee's health subcommittee. To read testimony or watch video of the proceedings, click here. To read the text of the bill as passed, click here.
In order to obtain passage, according to the Wall Street Journal,
Democrats agreed to halve the registration fee to $500 and add a cap so no single company would be charged more than $175,000… [and] instead of imposing a sweeping record-keeping requirement, Democrats agreed to ask the FDA to first study how the industry should maintain records, and the costs and benefits associated with it.According to the Des Moines Register, the committee’s chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) called the fee a “critical breakthrough,” that the money “will provide FDA with a much-needed infusion of resources to keep the food supply safe.”
Industry response to HR 2749 is mixed. According to Fruitnet.com, an industry paper, United Fresh Produce Association president and CEO Tom Stenzel Pamela Bailey, president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association both expressed support for the measure. Stenzel, specifically, released a statement applauding the measure, saying that the markup represented an important step in changing US food safety regulations and addressing improvements to ensure consumer confidence, and hailing both Democrats and Republicans for creating a strong legislative framework. However, both the American Meat Institute and the National Farmers Union released letters written to the committee, expressing their disagreement and discussing the concerns they had with the bill. To read the NFU letter, click here, and to read the AMI letter, click here.
According to the WSJ article mentioned earlier, the full committee will likely vote on the bill next Wednesday.
Posted: 6/11/09
