Food Safety Enhancement Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, once again, let me express my gratitude to the chairman emeritus and to the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. They have both put a great deal of effort into developing this very important piece of legislation, and they are to be commended for their attempts to accommodate the concerns raised by members of the minority party of the Agriculture Committee.

During the past few days, I have discussed many of the more objectionable provisions of this legislation. Today, I am hopeful and optimistic, in offering this motion to recommit, that we can at the very least address two of the bill's most glaring omissions.

Specifically, I would like to focus on what I believe to be a lack of accountability on the part of the Food and Drug Administration. The legislation before us provides the agency with numerous punitive authorities as well as a new source of revenue charged to people wishing to be in the food business, but it does not require the FDA to spend one additional penny on the inspection of food.

I am hopeful that my colleagues will agree that this is something that we can and should address in this bill as it leaves the House. Therefore, I propose that FDA spend a portion of the funds collected as registration fees for additional food inspections in the United States of America. Let's face it, if we are going to call this bill the Food Safety Enhancement Act, we should probably have something in here that actually enhances food safety.

Now, another issue that is very troubling and the one we hear repeatedly from farm groups is the issue of indemnification. I would point out that the chairman emeritus and the ranking member explained that concern in a Dear Colleague that was sent out last night. The issue of indemnification can be illustrated with the example of what happened to tomato crops in 2008.

The FDA mistakenly attributed an outbreak of salmonella to tomatoes. It was later discovered that contaminated peppers were the actual source of the illness. However, the discovery came after a large part of the 2008 tomato crop was destroyed, and the industry suffered, perhaps, $100 million in losses as a result.

I appreciate that Mr. Dingell and Mr. Barton feel that the passage of this bill will reduce the number and the severity of these mistakes in the future. I truly hope they are right. We must not kid ourselves into believing that the FDA will not make such mistakes in the future. Wrongly implicating agriculture products to food-borne disease outbreaks can cause severe economic losses to farmers and ranchers, who can ill afford them. Unfortunately, this legislation does not address this real concern.

We attempt to address this omission in our motion to recommit. We propose that some of the money coming from the registration fees be set aside for preemptive purchase products from producers. Remember, these purchases only result from direct government action. These changes will not fix everything that we feel to be wrong with the legislation, but they will address some of the more significant problems.

Nothing in this motion adds to the cost of the bill, but it does strengthen FDA accountability, and it guarantees enhanced food safety inspection.

Once again, let's direct that half the money goes to food inspection. Let's make sure the other half of this registration money is available to correct the mistakes that the FDA may make.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this motion. Let's clean up two of the biggest problems, and let's move forward. I urge all of my colleagues to support this motion once again.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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