The Assured Food Safety Act Of 2007

Floor Speech

THE ASSURED FOOD SAFETY ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - July 11, 2007)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today, I'm introducing legislation to bring our food safety system into the 21st century by stopping the influx of unsafe food from countries like China.

Mr. Speaker, over the last several months, the American public has begun to tune in on an issue which should have every American at the edge of their seats, the danger of tainted food from abroad. Food imports are constituting a larger and larger share of what we eat and what is sold at stores across our Nation.

In 1996, our Nation had a huge positive agricultural trade balance of over $27 billion more exports going out than imports coming in. Today, that balance has dropped to only $8 billion, and we have wracked up enormous trade deficits of nearly $800 billion around the world, $230 billion with China.

With China constantly engaging in practices like unfairly manipulating their currency, the yuan, our agricultural trade policy is in dire need of change. For instance, individual shipments of food from China have recently been quoted as going from 82,000 shipments in 2002 to 199,000 in 2006. This is a staggering increase. Unless we act to protect our consumers, the United States will become dangerously dependent on foreign agricultural imports while our domestic market falters.

Take Chinese seafood imports. While they account for 22 percent of the domestic import market, Chinese goods account for 63 percent of seafood refused by inspectors at the border. Overall, Chinese food imports have quadrupled in 10 years, increasing from $880million in 1996 to $4.2 billion in 2006. This increase of Chinese food imports over the last 10 years has not been followed by an equal increase of inspector activity. Therein lies the problem. Less than 2 percent of what comes over our border for human consumption is inspected. Yes, you heard me right, less than 2 percent.

As the Chinese share of American agricultural imports continues to grow, our domestic markets are impacted. For instance, unlike closely regulated domestic food additives, products like wheat gluten and vitamin C from China continue to flood our market. The last American vitamin C producer recently closed its doors, unable to compete against the flood of poorly regulated Chinese additives. So, when you take your vitamin pills, ask where the ingredients came from.

Earlier this year, Europe narrowly avoided disaster when a batch of vitamin A was contaminated with an additive which has caused infant deaths. Luckily, the additive was removed before it contaminated infant formula.

In a matter of weeks, the Chinese government went from denying the problems with their food chain to executing their lead food regulator and closing down almost 200 food factories. Estimates indicate that it will cost up to $100 billion over the next 10 years to build an infrastructure capable of certifying and protecting against Chinese agricultural goods. This should cause any American sitting down at the dinner table to think about drawing arms. We simply must do better.

And that is what my bill, the Assured Food Safety Act of 2007, does. It uses a simple approach and puts the burden of keeping food safe on the producers and the country of origin. The bill will require countries exporting food products to the United States to provide a certificate of assured safety for each class of items. If safe certified food is found to cause consumer illnesses or deaths, producers can be held liable through our Federal courts. Producers liable for damage they cause? What a sensible idea.

As a condition to accessing the American market, a producer must be willing to stand behind the quality of their product. Instead of relying on an inconsistent patchwork of international food standards, our consumers will be given the power to manage abuses directly through our legal system.

The United States government has a duty not only to protect the American population from the bad apples of the world but to restore the American people's confidence in the food we eat. Next time you go to the grocery store to buy pet food or pick up onions, remember our bill.

Mr. Speaker, the Assured Food Safety Act closes a serious loophole in our food safety regimen. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor our bill and help the American people regain confidence in our system.

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