Food Safety Bill Starts, Stalls in First Week of Lame-Duck Session

The U.S. Senate, hampered by politics and process, recently failed yet again to pass food safety reform legislation. The Senate is in the process of considering both related and unrelated amendments to the bill during the lame-duck session.

The bill cleared a key procedural hurdle when, on Nov. 17, the Senate voted 74-25 to limit debate (60 votes are necessary to invoke debate-limiting cloture), setting the stage for a final vote. The Senate debated the bill through Nov. 18 but was unable to bring the bill to a vote before breaking Nov. 19 for the Thanksgiving holiday. The Senate is expected to continue debate and to hold additional votes when it returns Nov. 29.

Senate leaders resolved concerns raised by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) over the bill's impact on small farms. Tester had offered an amendment aimed at exempting small farms, defined as those that sell their products directly to consumers or restaurants and that have sales of less than $500,000 per year, from food safety inspections. The final version of the amendment would allow inspections if the small farm is tied to a foodborne illness outbreak.

Another hurdle was avoided when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) backed away from her pledge to push an amendment banning bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical found in plastics and other products, from baby bottles and sippy cups. "Unfortunately it has become clear that the American Chemistry Council has blocked and obstructed the agreement from being added to the Food Safety Bill currently on the floor," Feinstein said in a statement. Studies have linked exposure to BPA to developmental disorders, cancer, heart diseases, and other health problems.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) continues to be the bill's leading opponent. He objects to the additional regulations and spending the bill would require. (The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would neither increase nor decrease the federal deficit.) Coburn has offered his own, weaker food safety bill as an amendment that would replace the current bill. A summary of the amendment says "government is the problem with our disjointed and ineffective food safety system, not the solution."

Coburn is also demanding a vote on an amendment to ban spending earmarks through FY 2013. The amendment is expected to be taken up when the Senate returns.

The food safety bill is the top item on the Senate's agenda for the week after Thanksgiving, according to Senate leadership. The Senate's first order of business is expected to be a cloture vote on Sen. Tom Harkin's (D-IA) substitute amendment, which combines the existing bill with the Tester amendment. If agreed to, the substitute amendment would essentially replace the bill.

The Senate would then vote on four amendments: Coburn's substitute amendment and earmark amendment and two similar amendments offered by Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Mike Johanns (R-NE) that would repeal a controversial section of the health care reform law that requires businesses to report to the Internal Revenue Service contractor income and other income items over $600.

After the amendments are considered, the Senate can move to a vote on final passage.

The food safety bill, S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, would expand the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Among other things, the bill would give FDA the authority to order firms to recall contaminated foods (a power it does not currently have) and would require the agency to conduct more frequent inspections of food facilities.

Food safety advocates support the bill, citing the need to reduce the number and severity of foodborne illness outbreaks such as this year's salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 1,600 people and led to the recall of 500 million eggs. Many large farm and food retail organizations support the bill, as well.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee unanimously approved the food safety bill in November 2009, but the legislation awaited floor consideration throughout 2010 while the Senate dealt with other priorities such as health care and financial reform. Five Republicans on the committee, including Coburn, voted against the Nov. 17 cloture motion.

The House of Representatives passed a similar bill, H.R. 2749, in July 2009. The House bill enjoyed strong bipartisan support, with 54 Republicans joining 229 Democrats in voting "aye."

Rather than reconcile the two bills in a conference committee, a process that would require each chamber to hold another vote on the compromise bill, the House could opt to take up the Senate version. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the House committee with jurisdiction over the bill, suggested he would be open to passing the Senate's version, according to The Wall Street Journal. If the current Congress cannot pass a final version and send it to President Obama for his signature by the end of the year, the new Congress will need to restart the legislative process.

Image in teaser by flickr user Zyada, used under a Creative Commons license.

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