Democrat control freak food policies face GOP hurdles

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Washington Post:

The massive overhaul of food safety laws approved by Congress this week will take years to implement and could be undercut by Republicans who don't want to fund an expansion of the Food and Drug Administration.

Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, the ranking GOP member on the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FDA , said the number of cases of food-borne illnesses in the country does not justify the $1.4 billion the new law is estimated to cost over the first five years.

"I would not identify it as something that will necessarily be zeroed out, but it is quite possible it will be scaled back if it is significant overreach," said Kingston, who is likely to become chairman of the subcommittee when Republicans assume control of the House in January.

"We still have a food supply that's 99.99 percent safe," Kingston said in an interview. "No one wants anybody to get sick, and we should always strive to make sure food is safe. But the case for a $1.4 billion expenditure isn't there."

In testimony before Congress in March, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said that user fees collected from food companies and farms would pay for most of the increased inspections and other costs associated with the legislation. But a provision for user fees in the House version was cut from the final language, leaving the government to foot the entire cost.

"We're going to have to evaluate everything and set priorities at a time of reduced appropriations for all the different discretionary programs," said Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa), who serves on the FDA appropriations subcommittee and voted against the food safety bill, along with Kingston and the panel's two other Republicans. The food safety legislation "is going to have to compete with everything else."

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I think Kingston is right. One of the invalid assumptions is that the Food industry does not have adequate incentives to avoid bad food. But food recalls are devastating not only in their initial cost but also in the lingering bad PR that causes people to avoid the products in the future.

This is just another example of Democrat control freak over reach. The Republicans need to save the people from the inflationary cost it will incur.

Related articles

• GOP may starve funding for food-safety overhaul (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• House passes reform of food safety system (reuters.com)