Critical Food Safety Rules Still in Regulatory Limbo, Now Stuck at White House for a Full Year

Center for Progressive Reform 2012-11-30

Summary:

One of the crowning legislative achievements of the Obama Administration's first term was the enactment of the Food Safety Modernization Act. Like any safety statute, however, the new law will have no practical bite until the implementing rules are issued. In this case, that's until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) promulgates regulations fleshing out the obligations of growers, producers and importers of food. Unfortunately, after almost two years, the regulations for the three most critical programs enacted by the new law have been written, but have not yet been promulgated. On Thanksgiving Day, one set of implementing regulations will have been bottled up at the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for exactly one year. Two other critical sets of regulations will pass the one-year milestone between Thanksgiving and December 9. Signed by President Obama in January 2011, the new law was enacted in response to a series of crises throughout the Bush Administration involving, among other things, peanuts contaminated with Salmonella during processing at a Georgia facility, fresh vegetables contaminated with an especially virulent form of E. coli bacteria, and Salmonella-contaminated imported jalapeno peppers. The FSMA tells the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to write regulations requiring most food processors and manufacturers to come up with hazard analysis at critical control point (HACCP) programs and to write "science-based" minimum sanitation standards for growers to follow during the production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables. The new law also told FDA to write regulations requiring importers to verify that their products were produced under conditions that complied with FDA food safety requirements.

Link:

http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=2000A22A-0721-5B46-C5B2906C2C149106

From feeds:

Berkeley Law Library -- Reference & Research Services ยป Center for Progressive Reform

Tags:

Authors:

Thomas McGarity

Date tagged:

11/30/2012, 20:40

Date published:

11/21/2012, 12:09