Food-safety Proposal In Senate Empowers U.s. to Force Recalls
Senators Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, sponsored the measure, the first since President Barack Obama offered a budget proposal last week allocating $1 billion to strengthen food safety.
“Over the last year, weve seen major recalls of peanut butter spiked with salmonella, spinach laced with e-coli and chili loaded with botulism,” Durbin said at a news conference. “These are not isolated incidents and are the result of an outdated, underfunded and overwhelmed food-safety system.”
The measure, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, is one of several competing proposals being developed by lawmakers to rework food regulation and oversight. The approach that wins out will reshape the $646 billion U.S. food industry, which includes Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., the worlds largest grain processor, and Kraft Foods Inc., the worlds second-largest foodmaker, behind Nestle SA of Switzerland.