Dick Durbin: Durbin Food Safety Proposal Included in Farm Bill

October 25, 2007 -- [WASHINGTON, D.C.] – United States Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced today that the Senate Agriculture Committee included a major food safety provision in the 2007 Farm Bill. At Durbin’s urging, the Committee approved language the would require the creation of a Congressional Bipartisan Food Safety Commission, responsible for reviewing the nation’s food safety system and making recommendations on how best to modernize and update the current structure.

“Strengthening our ability to protect our nation’s food supply is vital to the health and security of our country,” Durbin said. “I thank Senator Harkin for including this important provision in this year’s Farm Bill and look forward to working with my colleagues to comprehensively reform our country’s food safety arrangement.”

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The provision’s inclusion in the Farm Bill could lead to much needed reform of our nation’s food safety system. In addition to reviewing and reporting on food safety issues, the commission will also be tasked with recommending ways to:

* harmonize and update safety statutes;
* improve coordination between federal, state and local entities;
* allocate resources according to risk;
* emphasize preventative rather than reactive strategies;
* provide Federal agencies the funding necessary to effectively carry out food safety responsibilities.

With the passage of the Farm Bill by of the Senate Agriculture Committee today, the bill will proceed to the Senate floor. The full Senate is expected to consider the legislation next week. The Farm Bill is a multi-year bill that deals with nutrition and feeding programs for the needy, promotion of American food and textiles in international markets, rural development, research into production of crops and conservation programs. The last Farm Bill was passed by the Senate in 2002.

Senator Durbin is a leader in the Senate in the move to reform our country’s outdated and complex food safety system. Last month, a food safety proposal, written by Durbin, that requires companies to rapidly report significant contaminations of the food supply within 24 hours of determining it has a problem, was signed into law.

Also last month, Durbin called for the “sunset”, or phasing out, of the 12 agencies responsible for our country’s food safety, and proposed replacing them with a single agency responsible for protecting our nation’s food supply.

Senator Durbin has been actively engaged on food safety issues for over a decade. This Congress he introduced legislation that calls for the development of a single food safety agency and the implementation of a food safety program to standardize American food safety activities (The Safe Food Act – S. 654). Senator Durbin has also worked to increase funding for the FDA and has introduced legislation to direct FDA to collect user fees on imported food products. Durbin will take additional steps in the coming week to amend the Farm Bill to further strengthen the food safety procedures in our country.

Source: Senator Dick Durbin