Food safetyProvision in House farm bill could postpone FDA food safety regulations

The largest overhaul of food safety regulations in the United States in more than five decades could be in danger as a result of an amendment in the farm bill that passed the House last week and sent to the Senate Tuesday.

The House farm bill (H.R. 2642), which was approved last week, has a provision requiring the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to direct a “scientific and economic analysis” of the regulations under the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA).

Supporters of the tougher food safety regulations  have argued that the enactment of the new safety standards has been hobbles by delays, and have  taken the Obama administration to court to speed the up the process.

The FSMA regulations, proposed in January, requires food producers, including farmers, to follow a  set of rules which would allow the agency  to replace food safety system designed to respond to outbreaks and food-borne illnesses with a system aiming to  prevent them. The FDA has until June 2015 to finalize the new rules.

Many lawmakers are unhappy with the provision.

“This basically would slow the wheels of FSMA implementation by allowing another roadblock,” Colin O’Neil, director of government affairs for the Center for Food Safety, told the Hill. 

Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) tweeted last week that the bill “would undermine critical food safety law — while food-borne illness affects 1 in 6/year.”

Representative Dan Benishek (R-Michigan), who drafted the provision, says he did so in an effort to protect farmers in his state from the regulations.

“Simply put, we lose jobs in Northern Michigan when Washington bureaucrats enact costly new rules that hurt our farmers and agricultural businesses,” Benishek’s spokesman Kyle Bonini told the Hill.