Searching for and Cutting Regulations That Are Unnecessarily Burdensome Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. POCAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of this amendment to protect food safety standards for consumers.

In 2010, Congress updated our food safety protections for the 21st century by passing the Food Safety and Modernization Act, greatly expanding these consumer protections through the Food and Drug Administration.

Today it is critical that we maintain this progress and protect the implementation of this law from the obstructionist policies included in the SCRUB Act. It is especially important that we allow the FDA to carry out this effort unimpeded because our food safety standards are facing attacks from many other directions.

A recent decision from the World Trade Organization repealed our country-of-origin labeling standards on beef and pork, undermining consumers' right to know where their groceries are coming from.

Meanwhile, the United States is considering entering the Trans- Pacific Partnership, a massive multinational trade agreement that may allow food into our grocery stores and restaurants that may not even meet basic safety standards. The TPP weakens our ability to inspect these dangerous foods before they end up on our dinner plates.

We know that seafood imported from countries like Vietnam and Malaysia are often contaminated with dangerous antibiotics and foodborne pathogens. Between 2002 and 2010, 44 percent of catfish and related species from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia tested positive for antibiotics banned in the United States. Further, in 2013, 100 percent of the Vietnamese catfish farms used antibiotics not approved in the United States.

Meanwhile, large amounts of shrimp imported to the United States also contain dangerous bacteria. Last year, harmful bacteria were found in 83 percent of the shrimp from Bangladesh, 74 percent of the shrimp from India, and 58 percent of the shrimp from Vietnam.

For these reasons, the number of dirty seafood shipments from Vietnam and Malaysia rejected by the FDA increased 224 percent in the first 2 months of 2015 alone. We must amend this legislation to preserve the FDA's ability to protect our food.

It is not too much to ask that families are assured basic food safety standards and protections are met. Please support this amendment, which will allow the FDA to continue doing its job by protecting consumers and making sure our food is safe to eat.

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Mr. POCAN. Mr. Chairman, first let me say I am not going to impugn anyone's motives why it was introduced. My problems are with the implementation of the law.

If you would like to, with my office, sign a letter to repeal the 1906 string bean width regulation, I am with you. We can do that, and that is a commonsense way to get things done.

You mentioned things from the twenties and thirties and forties that might be there. But let's put it another way. You are saying every time a new regulation is necessary, you have to find an old regulation, which is overly simplistic, ultimately impractical and, I think, ultimately dangerous, especially when it comes to issues like food safety and veterans and other areas. So it is the impracticality.

You are telling a consumer, if they have old things in their refrigerator that are outdated, when you buy your new milk, you take out your old milk, but you don't clean out your refrigerator. That is a ridiculous notion.

Only in Washington would we come up with a law as ridiculous as saying that you take one for one rather than just cleaning out old items. So I just have a problem with the bill itself. I am not impugning anyone's motives for introducing it. I just think it is a silly way of accomplishing what you want to accomplish.

I don't disagree with the gentleman, and I don't think many of us disagree that there are regulations that should be gotten rid of. But there is a way to do it that would make sense, that the public would understand, and that wouldn't be just the brainchild of the Beltway inside Washington which, unfortunately, is what the SCRUB Act is.

Mr. Chairman,

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Mr. POCAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. POCAN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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