The Hill Blog reports that the Senate Health panel released a bipartisan food safety bill and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score this afternoon.
Six senators, Tom Harkin (D-IA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), the bill's authors Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Judd Gregg (R-NH), and the lead co-sponsors Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Burr (R-NC), worked out the compromise.
The Food Safety Modernizaton Act was introduced in March of 2009 and unanimously approved by the committee last November, according to Food Safety News. The issues involved in the delay of the Act's passage include Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) "bid to ban the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) from food and beverage containers" and Sen. John Tester's (D-MT) "attempt to exempt small farmers from some of the new regulations."
The Hill Blog reports that a provision banning BPA was left out of the compromise announced today.
The bill "would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to recall tainted food, quarantine geographical areas and access food producers' records."
To read The Hill Blog stories, click here and here.
To read the Food Safety News story, click here.
Posted: 8/12/2010
